Having Some fun at the Bazaar! // Contest Entry + ABB Crafts

Hello everyone! I hope you all have had a wonderful week! I am starting to wind down from the never-ending cane slicing! Haha! If you missed that post, you can check it out HERE. I am only about half-way through slicing them up, but I can only take so much for now! :D

I wanted to take a minute to share a little bit of the fun I have been having here at the Bazaar! Firstly, I want to share some detail shots of an entry I have for a contest over at semi-sweeties! They just made the wonderful achievement of reaching 2000 members, so to celebrate they are holding a "party" themed contest! How fun is that?! I figured I would take the opportunity to make some new things that I haven't had the chance to get around to.

Firstly, I played around with the cake! This is my first tiered cake! I got some more practice on icing as well.

These are also the first cakes stands, macaroons, and cake topper that I have ever made!

My entry wasn't terribly complex, but I had a lot of fun making it and I am excited (as always) to see the other entries! Now, I also wanted to share my fox masks I made for Halloween! Ginia and I waited around until last minute (of course) and I ended up whipping these guys together in under a few hours. I'm quite proud!

 Ginia's fox mask had a festive orange bow on her head!

 While my mask came along with a mushroom pin that I stuck on to my shirt!

All of the elements are made from felt, but with a little playing-around I was able to make it look like fur!

And in the end, I even added whiskers! The party we went to had a costume contest- we didn't win- but I had a ton of fun prancing around in these!

Now! Back to work! Muahahaha! (evil laugh) I still have tons of canes to slice up!

Works in Progress + a Craft Haul!

Firstly, those of you that responded to that last post- THANK YOU! I have been writing down the materials everyone suggested and will soon be trying out some different glazes and glosses!

It's been pretty hectic around here lately... between taking driving lessons and keeping up with all of the normal happenings, it gets difficult to set aside time to work. Well... let me put it this way- it FEELS difficult. As I am slowly starting to learn- being your own "boss" is hard. I have to be the one to lay down the law about when I will work, what I will allow myself to be pulled away from work for, and every other little thing that comes along with running a business. It's already proving to be hard, but with with people like Stephanie Kilgast and Tomo Tanaka to look up to (who both work on miniatures full time) I know I can do it!

Anyways, my main reason for today's post was to show you what I have been working on!

Here are a few pies that I just made. They don't have any glaze yet, but I am SUPER happy with them.

From left to right, there is an apple pie, a pumpkin pie (or maybe sweet potato?) and a pecan pie. I have also been working on some cupcakes! Here are some bases. I will hopefully get around to icing them within the next day or so.

With all of the failed attempts at both cupcake bases AND pie bases- this is the first time that I am happy with them. I will soon show you what the earlier attempts looked like. I know cupcakes and pies are things that a lot of miniaturists drift towards (like cakes)... but I am starting to see why. There is such a contrast in textures, shapes, and colors- that it becomes a great exercise for finding a balance among all these things. It becomes a learning experience!

I am also making some more pumpkins! Now that I have gotten a process down that gives me some pretty realistic results- I can make more! So I bought some new paint colors to try out!

Soon I will have white, tan, green, orange, and mustard colored pumpkins! (and also some black) Yay! I know it might seem like a lot of colors... but I want to be able to provide a nice variety of colors- so that they are more realistic!

As for the rest of my haul- I made out like a bandit! I got 40 packages of FIMO for 99 cents each! I was BEYOND lucky because I was just at Micheal's Crafts by chance, when my mom pointed out the price. She asked, "Is that a good price for that?" - And I grabbed as much as I could.

You can also see in the picture above that I got some beads, a scrapbook punch, and some miniatures. I have never seen miniatures at Micheal's, so maybe this means they will soon start selling them? *fingers crossed*

 I also found this SUPER cute wagon. I want to rust it up and maybe add some words to it to display some things in.

Well... that's all for today! I will be back soon so share how my pies, cupcakes, and pumpkins turn out. Thanks for stopping by!

Brownies and Cookies - Custom Order!

Hello everyone! Well, I have been back in the shop and making some lovely new things! I have some ALL NEW miniatures coming soon, I just need to take care of a few things before I share those.

I recently received a very large custom order! A super sweet lady bought 12 cakes, 30 brownies, and 4 dozen cookies. So far I have got the cookies and brownies almost done! Here is a little peak at what I have so far....

 

I just recently finished the brownies and I have to add some nut toppings. Since I was in the groove of these, I made some extras! I will list those as soon as I have this large order completed! :D

As for the cookies, the order included 2 dozen chocolate chip, 1 dozen sugar cookies, and 1 dozen iced sugar cookies. As soon as I get this last batch of things out of the oven I am going to bed, but tomorrow I will make the cakes! Those are going to be REALLY fun to make. (They're ombre cakes!)

 

Oh! As far as the other new items, I am experiementing with some miniature pottery and I also made some cupcake bases! I will hopefully soon have some regular cupcakes and also some mini-mini cupcakes. Haha! Here are a couple pictures to give you an idea-

 

Friday is over and it was a very productive day! But I still have a lot to do... I need to work on my design project, do my homework, and also work on my other project with my friend. I have everything planned out for the whole weekend, but I don't think I will get to work on my house. Ergh! I have collected a lot of egg cartons! I should be done with the chimney in no time... once I get started. Haha!

Well, thanks for stopping by! I will check in once I complete this order to show you guys how everything turned out. I will also (hopefully) have some of the new items for the shop made soon. We'll see!

XOXO

-Blake

The Nightmare Before Christmas Fall Cupcake Display - My Contest Entry!

Hey guys! Thanks so much for all the love and support! I honestly didn't realize how many people look at my blog and my work, and I am very grateful! If you are interested in what is coming soon to my shop, I FINALLY got the jack o'lanterns down! I made a couple the other day and they cracked! I then got discouraged. Then I stopped.

Yesterday I picked the clay back up, tried a few different things, and got it! I made three jack o'lanterns and I will photograph those in a few minutes and try to have them listed tonight! Since they are each one of a kind, I will make separate posts as I make different batches of them. But more on those later!

For those of you who don't know, I am a member of an art sharing website called deviantART. I am also a part of a group called Semi-Sweeties; a group devoted to the love of polymer clay foods and sweets! They have regular contests throughout the year, and the newest one is their Movie Contest! You just simply make a miniature inspired by a movie! I chose The Nightmare Before Christmas!

I made a stacked pumpkin display to represent the main character, Jack. So ironic! Especially since his head is a "jack" o'lantern! Bahahahaha!

His arms are wire, hat is paper, and bow-tie is thread. As you can see, he easily can hold two cupcakes!

The cupcakes are also inspired by characters from the movie.

There is Sally, Lock, Stock, Barrel, Oogie Boogie, and Zero!

If you haven't seen the movie, I would highly suggest you go out and get a copy! Here is a detail shot of the hat.

I am so proud with how this turned out! I am thinking about making more of them and adding them to my Etsy! What do you guys think? Would anyone be interested? I already have some alterations in mind, so don't expect to see this exact sculpture duplicated. This is more of a.... prototype!

Anyways, this is what I have been up to since yesterday! I waited until RIGHT before the entry was due, which by the way is MONDAY. Haha! But I have finished it! And perfectly on time! :)

Thanks so much for stopping by and reading! Please leave me comments! I always love to hear what you think and I always try to comment back! :)

-Blake