Covering Unsightly Planters

I have a plant addiction.  If I had better lighting in my apartment, I think that every surface would be covered in plants.  

Though, with all the plants I have, none of the planters match.  I searched high and low for an idea on how to make my mini garden look more cohesive.   

Most of the responses I found online said I should spray paint them.  Two problems there:  You can't buy spray paint in Chicago and there are already plants in my planters!  I don't think they'd like a coating of paint.  I next thought about wrapping them in fabric.  Since my planters are not simple shapes, then covering them in fabric would just lead to lots of puckering and heartache.  Then I thought about using twine.  It would add more rustic elements into our home too!  

I bought jute twine and used strong craft glue to put it on.  Unfortunately it takes a lot of time to wrap twine around a planter.  This would have been much easier if the planter was empty.  But the end result is great!  I covered three planters like this, though one of them cracked about a month later so I had to toss it out.  

Designing a Cookbook

One of my bigger projects of last year was working on my own personal cookbook.  I have lots of baking recipes that are my favorites, but they were bookmarked and saved in random places with an assortments of notes written all over.  So in an effort to organize it all, I put it together as a cookbook that I could enjoy, as well as my family and friends.   

All of the photos came from previous projects that I had worked on.  You can easily have your book printed many places online, but the place I choose was Photobook America.  They had great layouts, so I didn't have to do all the design work myself and even had a few already geared towards cookbooks.  I had it printed like a paperback, which made it look a lot nicer than a normal photobook.  I have gotten so much use out of my new cookbook!  I even gave out a few as gifts for the holidays!

Custom Nutcrackers

My father in law collects nutcrackers.  He has hundreds of them that come out each year at the holidays.  So this year, I made a nutcracker of him!  

I had the hardest time finding an unfinished nutcracker.  And by hardest time, I mean I couldn't find one anywhere.  I ended up buying a finished nutcracker at JoAnns.  

Can you believe that is the before?!?  I hardly can and I'm the one who worked on it!  I then pulled off all the fabric, which was glued down really well!  I put a few coats of paint on, then started to work on the clothes.  The pants were the hardest part.  I didn't think about the fact that I couldn't just sew pants and then slip them on until I was about to do it.  I ended up having to hand stitch the pants on to the nutcracker.  Not an easy task.  I ordered the props from an online dollhouse company and glued them into the metal basket.   

 
Voila!  The finished project!  Does it look like him?

Holiday Gifts

Every year at the holidays I try to come up with homemade gift ideas for my family.  I feel that they are more personal than just giving clothes or a gift card to someone.  Now, I don't know if my family feels the same way.  They might secretly be hating my homemade gifts every year... 

I sewed a few gifts, as would be expected.  All of the dogs in the family received puppy stockings.  My brother got an apron with mustaches printed all over it.  I made my aunt a warm fleece robe to wear around the house too.

I made some personal artwork for my brother and his fiance also.  I took a photo of their dog and painted the silhouette onto a piece of burlap.   

The two big gifts of the year were a new winter coat for my husband and a custom nutcracker for my father in law.  Check back in for posts about those!

Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes

Did you know that you can bake cupcakes in ice cream cones?

Well you can!  And it is actually pretty easy.

All you have to do is mix up a batch of your favorite cake mix.  Put the ice cream cones in a cupcake tin.  I used a mini cupcake tin so there was less room for them to slide around.  You have to be careful not to tip the cones while you are moving them around.

Fill the cones 1/2 to 2/3 full of batter and bake.  Then you can just decorate as normal.  It's pretty much just like baking normal cupcakes just using a ice cream cone instead of a cupcake liner.

Star Trek Baby Mobile

What better way to start your baby off right in the world than with a nerdy crib mobile?

And what could be better than a Star Trek themed one!

All of the pieces are made from felt and hand sewn by me.  Can you guess what each ship is supposed to be?

The first one is the Enterprise, the second is a Klingon ship, and the third is a Romulan ship.  There is also a Borg ship that you can see in the full photo.

And if you're interested in getting your hands on one of these, head on over to my Etsy shop!

Fondant Decorating Time!

Over the past few months, I've been working more and more with fondant on cakes for parties.  Even though after each is done, I feel like there is stuff I wish I had done better, I think they look pretty good.  I always use marshmallow fondant.  I think it tastes much better than regular fondant and it is very easy to work with.

This cake was covered in white fondant then I hand cut each piece to create a chevron print on the sides.  The cake was a tequila sunrise inspired cake so the color design was supposed to evoke the look of the drink.

This cake was for a friend's birthday party.  It is made to look like a Hobbit hole.  The cake isn't completely fondant, it is a mix of buttercream and fondant.  These materials are hard to put together since the fondant just wants to absorb the moisture from the buttercream.  You can't get a really hard fondant with this usage.  The buttercream was made to look like grass covering the whole cake, while the rest of the work is made of fondant.

Another friend asked for a special cake for his birthday.  I made a Lego Star Wars cake.  I used round cake pans (same ones I used for the Hobbit cake) to get a nice shape without having to waste a bunch of excess cake during shaping.  My inspiration for this cake was the idea that the inside was made out of Legos and they had lifted up a panel to work on it.

A few months later I had another birthday party to go to... you can see a theme here.  This cake was for a 1920s themed birthday party.  Everything was 1920s, so the cake was no exception.  It was a simply designed cake with Art Deco elements added.

Here is my most recent cake.  I made this cake for a baby shower.  The invitations had a robot on it, so I recreated it out of fondant for the topper.  He is holding onto a bundle that is supposed to look like he's carrying a baby (like a stork)... though I think it looks like of like he robbed a bank.  The rest of the cake and cake board were covered in fondant using a printed mat.  This mat was terrible to use.  The fondant stuck to it the whole time.  Advice for anyone trying to use one of these is to spray it with cooking spray first.  It adds a gross slick layer to the outside of the cake, but if you use a vodka wash on it then most of the slickness will evaporate.  It just makes it a much softer fondant.