At Home with the Artist: A Fondant Experiment

I love watching cake and cookie decorating videos. I've never really tried any of the things I see, but I think they're mesmerizing to watch. Well my husband's birthday was the beginning of this month, so I decided to try out some fondant airplanes to go on top of a cake made to look like a sky. I think it turned out pretty great!

I started out with some white fondant, black good coloring and a brush and skewer as my tools.

I then did a little sketch of the different types of fondant pieces I would need to put together the planes.

Then I iced the cake with a blue cream cheese frosting. Actually we found later that the frosting didn't taste the same after the blue food coloring went in. Is that common? I thought food coloring was tasteless?

Then I constructed my planes, or should I say jets! I think they turned out awesome! Although they're a bit more purple than they are grey.

Lastly I added the planes and white icing for a plane-tastic cake! 

A Peak Inside My Portfolio: Flight Series Continued

About a year ago, I was working on a series of acrylic paintings that involved the idea of flight. They were based heavily on photographs and sketches I did of my husband's airplane that he is building. You can see those previous paintings here and here.
Anyway, I have decided to expand that series and work on getting some of the pieces into galleries and shows. So over the spring and summer, I have been working on another small work to add to that collection. I plan on doing at least two more, hopefully before the summer is done!

Original picture of the plane that the sketch and painting are based on.

Getting started!

Blocking in basic shapes and lines.

It's looking more real!

Almost done!

Finished product :)

A Peak Inside my Portfolio: Embroidered Bracelet

Still on my Fiber Arts kick! One my summer projects was to design and sew a cuff bracelet for myself. Embroidery is so nice because I can sit and do it while I'm watching TV or listening to music or relaxing out on the porch. Check out some of my other fiber arts projects here, here and here!

Gathering all my supplies! Embroidery Floss, material and leather. Don't forget a needle, scissors and a button to finish the piece.

Here's the sketch on the material and you can see, I've started to fill in the design and edges with a solid border.

I wasn't sure about filling in the area with yellow but I ended up liking the look!

Here's the finished piece with the button on the back to close it.

Finished bracelet!

A Peak Inside My Portfolio: Fiber Arts

Lately I've been dabbling in fiber arts,. In the past I've done a lot with embroidery, as you can see here and here. But recently I added to my skills with painting on fabric. I have done two items that were given as gifts. One was a tie for a family member on my husbands side. I painted a seascape on a yellow tie. The other was a table runner for my aunt, in which I used, batik, dyeing fabric, painting on fabric and embroidery to complete the final piece.

First I used a flour paste to create a batik design on my fabric. Although it worked out well, I would not recommend this method, it was very messy!

After applying the paste and letting it dry, I then sprayed a watered-down dye  mixture onto the fabric and let it drive completely over night.

After it was dry, I washed it thoroughly, which took forever! I was very happy with the resulting design!

The last steps were to paint the design on to the body of the table runner. I used acrylic paint to do this. Then I embroidered some white designs around the painted portion and all along the border. As a finishing touch, I added tassels!

DIY: Three Necklace Tutorials

Over Christmas break, I dedicated myself to doing a lot of little projects that had been on my list FOREVER! You saw one early, the Harry Potter Embroidery. These DIYs are necklaces that I've been meaning to make for awhile.

The first one is a button necklace and I followed a tutorial I found online here. I wanted to make this necklace for awhile because I used some of the button collection that was my grandmas before she passed away two years ago. Now it's like I have a little part of her to wear on days when I want to feel close to her. Other items I used included: felt, gold chain, needle-nose jewelers pliers, glue and a glue gun.

The second necklace DIY I did over break was one I came up with myself. I've been admiring this necklace online forever but it is not sold any more and I decided, why not try my own version!

I used the following materials:

Jewelers pliers

Leather cord

Blue beads

Bronze beads

Glue and glue gun

First step was to create the tassel, I used the leather cord and wound it back and forth on my hand. Then wrapped a smaller piece around the tassel and tacked in place with a glue gun. Then I cut the looped ends to make the tassel.

Next a strung the blue beads on to each side. I used 9 beads on each side. Pro tip: make sure to get beads that a big enough for the cord or leather cord that is small enough for the beads. I had a small problem with that and had to do some quick thinking.

I added some small bronze beads to the end as well. 

Here's how it looks when I was finished with these two steps.

 Keeping with the design on the original necklace, I put some of the bronze beads on the ends of the tassel. But you can see my tassel ends are crazy because the cord I bought came folded. So I put it under a heavy stack of books for a couple of days to help flatten it out.

Finished product! You could always add more beads or something like the little feather charm as in the original. I opted not to and I'm overall happy with this DIY.

Lastly over break, I did a necklace tutorial that you can find on the A Beautiful Mess website. I followed their directions and my necklace turned out perfectly! Thanks guys for a great tutorial.