Behind the Scenes at Amy Atlas Events with InStyle Magazine

This week seems to be the Magazine behind the scenes week, doesn't it? Yesterday I took you behind-the-scenes with The Knot Magazine and today I'm here with a behind-the-scenes of our InStyle Magazine shoot. A couple of months ago, I had the pleasure of working with the editors at InStyle on a fabulous ice cream story. InStyle Magazine (who doesn't love it?) + ice cream! Can this be a girl's dream? Well, the editors sent me over a copy and the five page spread looks amazing. I'll share the full spread with you here this afternoon!

A little bit about the story...the story shows creative ways to serve up ice cream for the summer. An ice cream party is the perfect way to kick off your summer entertaining. I worked with the editors to develop the story (including color story, recipe and flavor ideas, tips, products, concepts) and then propped and styled the whole story for the shoot.

Okay, not many can say they get a behind-the-scenes sneak peek at an InStyle Magazine shoot. Lucky for you, we photographed the behind-the-scenes so you can get a sneak peek into our shoot.

As you'll see this afternoon, this is a very colorful story. It is the summer issue of InStyle so we needed it to really pop. A few days before the shoot, we gathered some colorful props such as vessels, linens and paper. You can get a sense of the powerful palette we were working with.


Lots of bright linens...


Fabric and oilcloths packed for the shoot...


Here is a peek into the Real Simple Studio, where the shoot took place.


We propped a lot of paper and ribbon options...


We also propped colorful plates, trays, and bowls...


And we found gorgeous napkins, wax paper, and tissue paper, which we ultimately used for ice cream cone jackets.


The tables of colorful props were all over the studio...


Syrups for the shoot. We decanted these and wrapped decanters with ribbon and tags from Kim The TomKat Studio.


Sauces for the shoot...


A peek into the kitchen. It was buzzing in here...


Food props...


The freezer was jam packed with pints of Haagen-Dazs ice cream...


Caramel simmering on the stove...


Warm baked cupcakes for our gelato cupcake shot...


Delicious brioche...these were too big for our cute brioche ice cream sandwiches so I cut out the middle and we used the top and bottom for the sandwiches. The leftover pieces can be used for breakfast. We ate ours on set!


Getting our "pre-made sundae" shot ready. This is a mess-free alternative to a make your own sundae bar. Food stylists and hostesses - be careful when using dry ice, as it can burn you if you touch it.


Getting the ice cream sandwich shot ready. The vibrant fuchsia linen really made this shot pop.


We created diy flags for the ice cream sandwiches using scrapbooking paper and lollipop sticks. You can also see a peek of the patterned tissue paper liners and ginger cookies we used for the ice cream sandwiches.


This is a peek into the opening shot. We used a bright sunny yellow wallpaper as a backdrop. You can see the how-to on how we assembled the ice cream cones in the story this afternoon.


We created diy ice cream cone jackets using the napkins and tissue paper from the pictures at the top of this post. We layered the paper and napkins to make it more eye-catching and functional as well since ice cream can be drippy! I'll share the ice cream cone jacket template with you this afternoon!


This gelato cupcake shot was one of my favorites. I love how the lime green cloth worked with the lavender ice cream, the metallic cupcake holders, and the slab of grey granite. The bright pink sweet peas peeking out in the background were also a nice touch. We also found adorable custom ice cream spoons which you will see this afternoon in the article.


We created diy coasters for our milk shake shot by simply cutting decorative gift wrap paper into circles. This can instantly (and inexpensively) bring design into your ice cream party. We paired the decorative coasters with colorful straws.


Here is a peek of us getting ready for the milk shake shot...


It was an absolute pleasure working with the sweet and talented editors at InStyle Magazine. Come back later to see the full spread!

Behind the Scenes at Amy Atlas Events with The Knot Magazine

I'm here today with another behind-the-scenes at Amy Atlas Events. Today we had a shoot with The Knot for their magazine issue next year. We took a lot of sneak peek photos, but I can only share a few for now since the story isn't out yet. I'll share the rest of the photos when the issue hits the stands next year. This was a REALLY fun shoot and I was thrilled to have my friend and amazing stylist Randi Brookman Harris on set with me. I have to say...we knocked this one out of the park and you are all going to be thrilled when you see the final product. In the meantime, here is a sneak peek...

If you follow me on twitter, then you probably knew that we propped all over Manhattan for desserts and props for the shoot. We first hit the west village to visit Pure Dark, a chocolate shop that makes insanely good nature harvested chocolate.


Here I am with our intern Rachael. We were trying to finish up Friday's blog post as we were propping around the city. That mac is attached to my hip.


Here is a peek at their incredible chocolate bark. The island bark is my personal fave.


Next stop was the fabric district to pick up some fabric options for the shoot. Here is my gal Carmen cutting some fabric for us.


The pooch from the shop. He was too cute not to share with you.


Walls of fabric rolls. Oh...so many options!


Next stop was the Upper East Side to visit one of my fave chocolate shops Vosges Haut-Chocolat. Vosges specializes in gourmet exotic chocolate bars like Applewood Bacon Milk Chocolate and Sweet Indian Curry Coconut Chocolate. We left with amazing goodies!


Here are our bins at the loading dock of the studio this morning. This is the less glamorous part of setting up.


A peek inside the studio as the photographers start setting up.


Here I am getting some items ready for the shoot.


Some of the props we used for the shoot.


Here are some more props. The blow torch and chalkboard paint came in handy.


Here I am piping pastry cream onto a dessert. It was pretty delicious!


Here I am getting some desserts ready.


Kelly from the Knot, Randi and I checking out the shot on screen.


Randi and I after a long day's work. We were pretty happy with the results!


Here is the Amy Atlas team, Randi's team, and The Knot team. Yes, I am a big cheeseball and forced us all to take the shot. After, we enjoyed lots of treats. Cannot wait for you to see this story next year!


xoxo-a

Guest Dessert Table + Ask Amy

I'm loving today's guest dessert table feature from Glory of Glorious Treats. Glory sent me these pictures early this week and I've been dying to share them with you. Glory created a strawberry theme party for her niece's 9th birthday party. I love the fondant strawberries, the custom cups, and the fresh strawberry favors with strawberry ribbon. Wonderful execution, Glory! Glory was also kind to share her strawberry cream cheese frosting recipe here.

Speaking of guest dessert tables, a few people have asked me why I promote other people's work on my blog. The truth is, I like to promote small businesses. I've been pretty lucky to have my business take off in just a few short years and I'd love to impart what I've learned along the way. I get a lot of inquiries from people who are starting their own businesses about how I started. I'll have a lot to say about this in my new "Ask Amy" section, which you'll all see on my new blog in a few weeks.

In the meantime, I'll give you my first tip. Take the time to evaluate if you really have a business. I can't tell you how many times my husband said his famous quote "Is it a hobby or a business?" All of you starting a new business know what I'm talking about. He gave me tough love in the beginning, but I'm grateful for it now. He had me present a real business model to him as if he was an outside investor. This forced me to really think about whether I had a business. Thankfully, at one point, things clicked and we both knew it turned from a hobby to a business. Don't think there weren't bumps along the road. There were and still are. I'll get into that another day.

In the meantime, here were the first things that I thought about...

(1) Who is the customer or market?
(2) What is the product or service?
(3) Where is the business based and does location matter?
(4) How can the business be executed profitably?
(5) What's the barrier to entry and why is the business sustainable?

Can you answer those questions for your business? Food for thought over the weekend... I'll be back to show you some behind-the-scenes next week (right now I'm blogging in a cab while propping for a magazine shoot and we're off to our next stop!) Have a great weekend everyone!

The Great Fondant Debate

{All cupcakes above are from Amy Atlas's dessert bars.}

Everytime I meet with a client, I hold my breath because I know the discussion is coming. Usually it's a battle rather than a discussion. The debate of buttercream vs. fondant. Every client wants buttercream because they have all had a bad experience with the tasteless and often rubbery texture of fondant. We've all had that experience, right? Having styled both buttercream and fondant cakes and cupcakes more times than I can count, I always breathe a sigh of relief when my client picks fondant. I know I'll gain some criticism for this, but I'm sticking to it. Many don't realize it, but good bakers will use better tasting fondant like Fondarific, a company that makes vanilla, chocolate, and fruit flavored fondant. Now don't misunderstand me...I adore buttercream. I make buttercream cupcakes all the time with my kids. I'll serve buttercream cakes when I'm entertaining in my home. I'm also not saying that fondant tastes better than buttercream. But if the cakes are being transported in any way, you can bet I'm going to lobby for fondant.

Here's a few reasons why...
(1) Buttercream in the summer is a nightmare. I mean a real nightmare. No matter how much the buttercream is set, it instantly loses it's shape when exposed to heat. If you are transporting anything with buttercream, it makes it that much worse.
(2) Everything sticks to buttercream. Once, we were serving buttercream cupcakes and somehow black sweater hair made its way onto the precious vanilla buttercream cupcakes we were serving. That was an interesting lesson in troubleshooting. Thankfully, we had lots of other treats to serve.
(3) As I discussed here, all of the adorable cupcake wrappers that are on the market now are better suited for fondant cupcakes. Often buttercream will leave cupcake wrappers looking greasy and messy.
(4) We have more flexibility in incorporating our design onto fondant. Take a look above at a few examples of designed fondant cupcakes we've used on our dessert bars {I limited it to cupcakes for this post, I'll save the pictures of fondant cakes for another post}.

If you're a huge buttercream lover and can't be convinced to go with fondant, then try these tips...
(1) Refrigerate your cake/cupcakes so the buttercream is very cold.
(2) Limit the amount of time your buttercream is exposed to heat. Time it very carefully.
(3) Stay away from the dressing up buttercream with cupcake wrappers until lined wrappers hit the market (hint, hint to my cupcake wrapper manufacturer friends).
(4) Use fondant sparingly and incorporate buttercream in places where it won't get messy or melt. For example, place a fondant chip over a small dollop of buttercream on your cupcakes. Alternatively, infuse buttercream into the center of your cake/cupcakes with a bismarck tip.
(5) Ice the cake or cupcakes on site, if possible.

I hope this insight is helpful for all of you bakers, stylists, and planners!
xo

Guest Feature

We're working on a few fun magazine shoots this week so I'll be back with behind-the-scenes on that next week. In the meantime, I've been getting so many guest feature submissions and many are stunning. I know you all want a mix of our behind-the-scenes and guest submissions so I'll try to give you a nice balance. I may have to start posting 2x a day to get all the material out there on the blog, but don't think I'm quite there yet with my schedule:-)

Anyway, I squealed with delight when I opened up an email from Kathleen of Twig & Thistle yesterday. She created a Matryoshka Nesting Doll-inspired party for her sister Allison's baby shower. I love how Kathleen was able to take a Matryoshka nesting doll concept and execute the details so perfectly. Check out more details on the party here and here.
PS - We found out her sister just had the baby today! Congrats!