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.

Rose Candle

I saw somewhere that Christmas is 100 days from now, so I need to speed up to think about gifts for my kids teachers.

I saw one video on how to make this type of candle. It looked very simple on the video.
I just needed a regular candle, candle wicks, parchment paper and a little glass jar.
First step was to melt the candle. I did in double boiler (be careful because it gets very hot).
Then using the melted wax, I made the petals using a spoon, dropping the wax on top of the parchment paper. This step got to be harder than I thought. It is messy and you have to keep pouring more wax to get the petal a little thicker. Otherwise the petals will break.
Then rolled the paper so the petals will be a little curled. I realized that this had to be done after the wax is not liquid anymore, or it will loose the shape. But the petals could not be completely solid, or they will break. It took me a few trials to be able to get some petals.
They cool off after a few minutes, depending on the room temperature.
Using the same melted wax, I dipped the bottom of the wick to stand up in parchment paper.
Then dipping the bottom of the petals in wax, stick to the bottom of the wick. I added more wax to secure the petals.
The first petals had to be propped so they wouldn't fall, until the wax had cooled off and become solid.
Then gradually adding petals around, dripping more wax on the base.
And going around with more petals, using the smallest ones in the center.
Making sure that the entire rose will fit through the opening of the glass jar.
I need to get a little more practice, but this is probably a good gift for my kids teachers.
I will be back for this project.

Ralphie the Dog

My neighbor has a cute fluffy dog who watches us from the window and gets so excited when we visit, that he nearly breaks the door to open. She loves her dog and during the Summer, my kids walked Ralphie around the block for some exercise.
That is why I decided to make a little Ralphie for my neighbor Gerdie.

I had some felt in storage, so first I made a little drawing.

Then I cut in individual pieces all the different parts of the body.
The hardest part was cutting the felt, because I wanted to make it small.
I slowly I started sewing, first attaching the eyes using black beads, the tongue and then the muzzle (I made the nose using hand embroidery).
And step by step sewing the hair, the ears and the collar.
Stuffing with cotton to make fluffy.
And sewing all around the body to finish.
It came out more or less like the drawing.
When we went to visit,Ralphie was so excited, he would not stay still for the picture.
But the best part was to see his mom so happy with the gift.

Happy Cake Balls

I decided to try to make new treats using some colorful chocolate, so first I made some cake balls with the help of my cake pop maker.
I used a very nice recipe of Honey Cake from Happy Foods Tube. They have a very good recipe with a video. Click here.

I made some ears with fondant to attach to some heads.
After that, it was just a whole lot o mess with different color chocolate to decorate (the mess is not shown here).
The honey cake is really tasty and goes well with the white chocolate.
I still feel that I need more practice with chocolate and some of them did not survive during the making of the covering process.
But the ones that survived came out ok.
And the leftover chocolate can always turn into smaller cute molds.
Quite a work, but they make the Summer fun,