Vampire the Masquerade RP Cake

For my son's 13th birthday he requested a Vampire the Masquerade cake because he was story teller for a weekly troupe. To trusty Google I go and find....nothing. Vampire Diaries? Check. Twilight? Check. Funny Halloween Vampires? Check. Vampire the Masquerade? Nada. Nil. Zilch. Needless to say, I was disappointed. Here I present to you my improved role playing cake.

The ankh is the main symbol for the role playing game and the individual clan symbols decorate the black tier. There are thirteen clan symbols, but I needed sleep and decided to use the five clan symbols that make up the rp troupe.

There is nothing fancy about the chocolate cake beneath the fondant, the cake will be consumed by pre & teen age boys so Betty Crocker won the day. Standard buttercream icing sticks the layers together and provided the crumb coat. The fondant was also from a box, one: cause the kids do not have refined palates and, two: the thought of trying to colour fondant black and red made me cry. I have yet to produce a pure colour with food colouring when it comes to black or red.

So far, so good.

Cutting out the symbols proved to be more difficult than anticipated. I cut out the clan symbols on paper and placed it over the fondant, then I used a sharp paring knife to cut the symbol from the fondant.  Then I used a filet knife. Then I cried. Rallied. kept cutting. The fondant is so malleable that it would spread under the weight of my fingers and I was constantly re-trimming the edge of the symbols. I kept the symbols off to the side in case I rage-quit the cake decorating - it wouldn't do to have two symbols on the cake and the rest balled up and in the trash. The symbols began to dry out and made it easier to add fine detail that was not previously possible.

I lightly brushed the cake with water where I wanted the symbols to stick, then gently pressed the symbols to the cake and everything held. Now my cake was shiny in places. I tried painting the rest of the cake with water and it was super shiny.

The bottom black band on the cake is a simple border to hide the seam. It was also painted with water but it is dry in the above image to show the contrast between the fondant before and after having a little water painted on. I think in cake shops they use a steamer to adhere decals and finish the cake, but my humble home has no such contraption. 

Now to hide the seam between the red and the black layer. I whipped up a ganache and tossed it in a squeeze bottle. In the end I did two layers of ganache to get a true colour for the "blood." I cheated on the roses, they were pre-made at the Bulk Barn. $0.35 each, hard to go wrong with that. The red and purple candles were added for o-la-la factor, they are from ThinkGeek.com and they red candles produce a red flame and the purple produce a purple flame.

The cake was a hit!

Good luck with your cake decorating endevours.

Special thanks to Cookies and Cups for the step by step instructions on the "blood"

The Right Frame of Mind

Mother's Day presents the same hurdle every year - unique, amazing, memorable, useful gift that is better then the previous year. Thankfully, this year I had Pinterest. I created a jewelry stand for my Mom combining three Pinterest inspirations, add in a touch of sentiment and voila! Perfect gift for Mom. Or yourself. I like the idea of treating yourself too.

Project: Jewelry Stand.
Insipirations: Spool's Bird Softies
                      Spring Flowers or  Second Life of You Nail Polish
                      DIY Frames
Materials: Picture or mirror frame, lace or wire ribbon, scraps of cloth, craft wire, glue gun, super-duper adhesive, sticks, hand saw, wood clear-coat acrylic polyurethane, nail polish, wax-paper, printer, pencil.

























Find a frame. The oval frame above was a mirror frame and the square frame was purchased on crazy super sale from Michaels and the painting was removed.

Sticks! Scavenge dead branches, strip the bark and let them dry out. Position the sticks on the frame and mark for cutting. There wasn't much space behind the oval frame and the sticks were so tiny that they looked right at home on the front of the frame. Cut the branches to fit the frame and paint with wood clear-coat polyurethane. Alternatively, I imagine you could use a wood stain or maybe even spray-on clear coating for crafts that might be left over from another project.

Glue the finished sticks to the frame. I used 5-minute epoxy - it smells really bad. Like, polyurethane bad. After transport to my Mom's house and the unwrapping process, the bottom stick on the oval frame came unglued. I think it is because there is a finish on the frame that let go. I suspect that it would have held better if I had sanded and/or scored the frame prior to gluing.  I was in a pinch, so I reattached the stick with a glue gun from the workshop. Hopefully the glue is a much better strength then the standard craft glue and the stick won't fall off again.

Lace! The square frame was designed for earrings, but sticks cannot fulfill the need alone.  DIY Frames show the beauty of lace for earrings, but while I was shopping at Michaels (with a 40% off coupon!) I fell in love with the black spider-webbingish wire ribbon. Measure the ribbon to fit the frame, glue-gun the ribbon to your heart's content, and let it cool.

Birds! The birds are completely optional. Spool's Bird Softies  had an excellent design and I had tons of scrap material. The primary function for the birds was to hold watches and bracelets. I also used them to hide the glue points on the oval frame. Since the frames were a gift, I used fabric for the birds from sentimental sources. The white and pink birds are made from scraps from my Mom's wedding dress. The quilted blue bird on the oval frame is made from a vest my Mom made for me when I was a toddler. The other birds are scraps of clothing from my kids. The birds helped to make the gift extra special as well as functional.  At first, I tried to stuff the birds with scraps from receiving blankets and baby socks, but the finished bird was lumpy and there was a ton of strain being exerted on the seams. I scavenged an almost-new and thoroughly ignored stuffed toy and removed the stuffing to re-purpose for the birds. The stuffed toy had faux fur, so I tucked the shell away in my craft case for some future project. I attached the birds to the sticks with craft wire. The wire was small and flexible which made it easy to thread with a needle though the birds. After the wire held the birds in place I dosed them with a generous amount of glue gun action. The wire is the strength, but the glue.... well, it holds it all together.  :)


Flowers! Your frame is now goregous! If only you could hide where the glue peeks out around the birds and/or where the sticks join the frame. The frame is good-from-far, but far-from-good. Here comes the flowers! Take a length of craft wire and twist one end around a pencil to make a loop.

Twist a few times to secure the loop. Make another loop the same way. Keep going until you have five loops. Leave a good stem on the flower, three to five inches, depending on the size of the stick where you will  be fastening the flower. I suggest making all the flowers before painting them as the nail polish dries quickly.




 An alternative method is to make each petal individually, paint them, then fasten them into a flower. Sadly, I am unskilled in the ways of wire and I quickly became frustrated and developed the aforementioned method.


Now that you have the wire flowers made, cover your work surface with wax paper, a small amount is sufficient.  I layered a small square of wax paper on top of the larger wax paper strip, a little larger then the wire flower, and one for each colour of nail polish. The wax paper made clean-up easy, and lets face it, after all the glue-gunning, scrap cloth bits and stuffing, an easy clean-up is just what you want. Hold the wire flower with the petals against the wax paper and place a few drops of nail polish on the petals with the nail polish brush. This part can be very frustrating but it will be worth the trouble. You want to fill the wire opening with nail polish and slowly draw the flower away from the wax paper. The nail polish should adhere to the wire and form a thin membrane, giving you a petal. Repeat with the next petal, etc.
Here's the frustrating part - often when you dip the flower into the nail polish pool on the wax paper, the petal you just painstakingly finished will touch on the pool and pop. Add more nail polish and try again. Sometimes I was able to do more then one petal at a time, something I could only get three petals done. If you are going crazy, let the flower petals dry then dip the empty petals. The petals need between five and ten minutes to dry. I painted with three different brands of nail polish and I found a big difference with how easy it was to have the petals form. The nail polish that had some iridescent qualities was the easiest, but there are too many factors to be certain.

 Finishing touches! I wrapped three flowers together, then wrapped the tri-stem around the stick and secured them in place with a touch of the craft glue-gun to prevent the wire from slipping.











































Hang the frame on the wall and enjoy arranging you bling for easy access and a stunning display!

Faux Stained Glass and You

My first serious faux stained glass craft in my new home has been a smashing success.

Unfortunately I only took a photo of the finished product. Lesson learned, now there will be pictures! Warning: This blog will contain a plethora of pictures!

Project: Unique DIY solar lighting.
Insipiration: In The Know Mom - via Pinterest
Materials: Glass jar, solar light, transparent caulking, excato knife, Martha Stewart glass paints.


The In The Know Mom details how to copy frosted solar light for much less cost then the store bought version. I decided to try to take it a step further and create personalized, unique variants. Restrictions? Aside from the solar light, I had to scrounge everything else from the home. No new crafty purchases. I wrestle with the desire to trot over to Michaels craft store and dig through my many and unorganized craft hiding spots.

I started with a jar or olive tampanid tucked at the back of my fridge and well beyond it's best-before date. Ick. I cleaned the jar, used Goo-gone to take the label off and I had my first container!

I placed the solar light against the lid of the jar and marked the dimensions.

With an excato knife I traced the line, using enough pressure to dent the opposite side.

I punched through the lid with the excato knife to create a space large enough for the whole solar light and housing to slide in comfortably.

I sealed the solar light to the lid with transparent caulking and let it dry overnight.

Now the fun stuff!

The grocery store had cute decals for a kid's room - Jump Kids World by Loblaws - and I will adapt them for the solar jar. My youngest sleeps with a plush fox at night, so I will do a fox image on the first jar. I measured the height of the flat part of the jar and scaled the image of the fox on my computer to match. After printing the fox image, I taped it inside of the jar to keep it from moving.

I have to add the glass paints in stages, first the black for the outline and because it holds it's shape the best. When I did the Calvin and Hobbes window I found the white and orange ran instead of staying put. The black should corral the wayward tendencies of the colours in step two. I have noticed that the Martha Stewart colours bleed if you let them, so I will let the black dry on the jar while I prep the next jar...or cook....or clean....or, most likely, get lost on Pinterest for a bit.

In the end, I needed three or so coats of the liquid fill to get a brilliant colour.  I frosted the rest of the glass with more glass paint to mute the intensity of the light. That sure is a cute fox!

While I was waiting for the layers of colour to dry on the fox, my son requested a light for him in Captain America motif.  I taped a print-out to the inside of the glass, traced the outline with black and after the black was dry I filled in the spaces with colour! Note: curved surfaces are a giant pain. Don't do it. I had to colour a tiny section, wait for it to dry, rotate the glass and repeat. If the glass paint was less viscous then maybe it would have been an easier process.  My new mission is to purchase items in squarish glasses.

Please share your thoughts, techniques, ideas, questions, querys and whatnots!

Happy crafting!

Glass Etchers Assemble!

Project: Superhero Etched Glasses.
Insipiration: I Am Momma - Hear Me Roar - via Pinterest
Materials: Drinking glasses, masking tape, printer, excato knife, glass etching cream.

The first attempt at glass etching was okay. Not awesome. Not amazing. Just....Okay. So, here I will share my learning experiences with YOU! I Am Momma used some pretty fancy stuff to transfer designs onto glasses as far as my local hardware store is concerned. My local craft store is Michaels, and it's too far away to run to on a whim. I found cute little glass mugs with handles from Homesense for $9.99. One of the six mugs was broken. Never shop for glass ware at Homesense: Check.

The loblaws had glasses for $1 each! Score!

First up, the original five glasses.

Transformers logo.

Avengers logo.

Batman logo.

Captain America logo.

Rainbow Dash from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.





To create these etchings I first searched the internet for silhouette images of each character and logo. I printed the logos and covered the glasses in electrical tape. Then I taped the print-out to the glass. Using an excato knife I carefully traced the image, cutting out the area I wanted to be etched. Then I painted the glass with Martha Stewart Glass Etching Medium because Armor Etch wasn't at my local craft store. I can't tell you the price difference, but I can suggest that if you purchase the etching medium from Michaels that you go with a 40% off coupon. I let the etching medium sit on the glass for 15 minutes, then washed it off and peeled back the tape. There are pictures in the next section for the second set of glasses. It's hard to see in the pictures, but the electrical tape allowed the etching medium to seep between the layers a little bit, so every few centimeters there is a little triangle on the image. It's not a big deal and I'm not sure anyone would notice unless I pointed it out, but I am a bit of a perfectionist - doesn't work well when it is coupled with my total lack of patience - so I would not recommend electrical tape.

For the second set I used wide masking tape, which was much better, but still not perfection. The glasses were larger, which made me bold enough to attempt more intricate designs.

Here is the second set, freshly etched.

 

The Dark Knight.

Captain America.

The Hulk.

Iron Man.

Optimus Prime.

Rorschach.






The masking tape made free-standing detail difficult, like eyes and chest logos. Batman originally had eyes, but they didn't make the final cut. I learned from Batman and now Iron Man can see.

I saw a blog that used mactac instead of tape.  I think mactac would provide less issues with tape lines, and lit would allow you to cut out the images on a flat surface.  I was carving on the glass, which didn't damage the glass but it did make things slightly more difficult. In the Momma Roar blog transfer tape is used and looked pretty successful. Given the inventory of my local hardware store and the distance of the nearest craft store, I thought I would attempt to do as much as I could using household items.

I will update this blog as birthdays and other special occasions creep up and I shower loved ones with unique gifts.

Good luck to everyone who attempts glass etching. Please share your work here or on other sites it inspire and educate others.