Metal Straws for the holidays.

My son wanted to give a thoughtful gift for his teachers for these holidays. Since he learned in school about the danger of plastic straws for the ocean life, he spent Summer collecting garbage and a lot of straws from the beach. So when I bought some metal straws for the house, I thought it would be a good idea to give them as gifts for his teachers.
I bought these at Amazon.
I wrapped each one in brown paper, my husband made little labels and I got these chocolate turtles to go with the theme.

Small simple gift, but maybe helpful. Or at least will make my kid feel good about these gifts.

Food Gifts Dulce de Leche Edition.

We decided that edible gifts are the best small gift to make when you want to gift a lot of people.
This year we had our eyes on these small canning jars, we thought it would look cute with a small gift.

We love dulce de leche, very popular in Brazil that we call doce de leite. It would be something simple to make and not very time consuming.
Using condensed milk, with each can we were able to fill three 4 oz jars. After we filled a bunch of them, we cooked them in our pressure cooker for 35 minutes( following the instructions of the manufacturer).
Then it was just the decorating part.
I bought pieces of fabric at AC Moore to cover the top.

And my husband made a few lables in the computer.
Dulce de leche is a wonderful spread for toasts, cookies or just to eat by the spoon.
This is our 2018 holiday gift for our friends. Hope they all like this treat that we grew up eating.

Mega Man .

My son had a cool request for Halloween this year and he wanted to dress as Mega Man.

I started with his boots using foam sheets.
I heated them using my heating gun to shape a little more.
For the rest of the boots I used cardboard and painted blue.

The helmet and the blaster were made from a material that molds into anything when heated. I used the brand Thibra, but there is also Worbla, used a lot by cosplay artists (I lost all my pictures from making these parts). But the round attachments on the side of his ears were juice bottle caps.

Also Mega Man has a different color little "speedos" on top of his pants. So I decided to make a belt to make it look like that part. I used a old floor mat for that.
And here is the complete costume.
Happy Mega Man.

Calamity Ganon.

Every year I do my best to make my sons a Halloween costume of their choice. But this year my youngest son requested a creature that I could not see the entire shape even in the pictures.
The name is Calamity Ganon from Legends of Zelda, a game from Nintendo Switch.
So I had to do it together with my son, to find out what I was looking at. He sketched the face and I shaped the mask using a material that cosplay artists use a lot, called Thibra. .

We ordered some fur to make his hair, or fire, or whatever it is.
Next was a blaster he has in one of his arms. I used an old piece of floor mat made out of foam. Using a heating gun, I was able to shape it to make the body.
The rest I used craft foam and leftover Thibra I had for the mask.

Then I used spray paint.

The creature has a bunch of arms, so I made this little body using wire and foam.
I decided to make it like a pack pack, so I attached these elastic bands.
I covered them with foam sheets, too.
Ganon has claws or things in the end of its arms, we made them all in foam sheets too.

And there it is, our best version of Calamity Ganon.

Baby Cake Topper.

My friend asked me to make a cake topper for her little friend who was turning 1 year-old.
Since I never know how my work is going to come out, I gave myself plenty of time to correct mistakes and to work slowly.
The first piece to make are the eyeballs. I cut pieces of white baking clay and made extra in case they don't come out the same size.
After was baked and dried, I painted the eyes.
After a few hours that I worked to make the perfect eyes, sure enough there was a mistake. I made the wrong color eyes!
Instead of blue I made green eyes. So then I had to start from point zero and made the correct color.
After that I started to work on the body.
After the body was all complete, I went to work in the head.
After being unhappy with a couple of faces I made, I finally settled on one.
And finally I finished with the hair and the details on the dress and the birthday hat.
She does not look exactly like the baby I was trying to portrait.
But I guess it made everyone happy for this first celebration.
Happy birthday baby Noella.