TIPS:

My husband and my son suggested that I pipe on something other than the house to get a feel for how the spackling was going to work.  I ignored them.  The spackling was a little dry so I put in about a teaspoon of water (in the container) and mixed it very well.  It can still be challenging to work with if you have never piped anything.  The roof of the house had scallops on it and I wanted to edge them in icing, it didn't work.  I was disappointed but decided just to cover the room in icing.  I just started pushing icing out of the bag and onto the roof, I took the icing tip and just swirled it around on the roof.  When I got to the other side I decided to try and use a knife and ice it like a cake.  I didn't like that, I doesn't have the swirls and in spots you can tell that the icing is thicker in some spots.  Next time I would just use the piping tip and bag.  I tried to put glitter on when the spackling was wet but that didn't really work because the glitter just falls off of it.  I waited until the spackling was dry all the way through and then I brushed glue on (lightly) and then added glitter.

When I started to make the cup topper I did not have a Styrofoam ball so I decided that I would take baking parchment paper and scrunch it into a ball and glue it down.  I took a Styrofoam saucer and traced the top of the cup, then cut out the circle.  I took the parchment and glued it to the circle.  Using the star tip I piped around the paper, up onto the paper until it was covered in spackling.  I didn't like the look of it so I took the tip and just started mixing it up and creating swirls.  Next I put on my decorations, gently pushing them in with a toothpick so that they would adhere.  The problem here was that the spackling slid down some what.  It slid down and off the circle and ended up much to big for the intended cup.  I would recommend using a Styrofoam ball cut in half and maybe watching some  videos.  It took about 2 days for it to dry all the way through. 

Since I was making mini cupcakes I reasoned that I didn't need anything inside the cupcake paper, I thought that it would hold up on its own.  It didn't.  One of them just kept spreading until it was almost flattened out.  I was able to push it back up when it started drying but if you look  close you can see where I pushed in the sides.  I would definitely recommend something to go in the liner so that you can glue the liner to it and just pipe on top of the ball.  Decorations will just fall off the spackling, have a toothpick handy so that you can gently push them into the spackling.  The straw that I put in kept sliding down, I would stick it in and then pull it back out, after the spackling has dried you can then glue it in.  Same thing for the peppermint candy.  I definitely want to do this again but I think next time  I will try not to be so exited about starting.  Oh, one last thing, do make sure to have every thing ready to go before you start.  It does take the spackling 24-48 hours to dry but it will form a skin and once it does I don't think it would be a good idea to add embellishments.  

Happy crafting.

Christmas crafting

 What have I learned this year?  To not view craft videos on YouTube.  😊  Several years ago I seen faux cupcakes on a blog, bought all the items needed to create them, had 100s of ideas, and then did nothing.  Years past and the light weight spackling dried out and the cupcake liners were packed away or used and no faux cupcakes.  This year I started watching YouTube craft videos and I became obsessed.  Here is what I created and some tips based on mistakes I made.

This year I got the gingerbread bug.  I had some gingerbread decorations but I wanted to create some of my own.  I wanted a gingerbread house so this is what I came up with.  One small container of spackling did 4 mini cupcakes, the house and the cup topper.

The house came from the Dollar General Store, it was $3.00 I think, it has lights in it, it is made of unpainted wood.  Santa, Mrs. Clause, the deer and the sign are buttons.  The red and green "candy" is half pearls (sticker).  They were white and I painted them with sharpie pens.  The snowflakes are  buttons that I cut the shank off of.  The candy cane poles are straws.  The "icing" is light weight spackling (from Walmart and I paid a little over $6.00 for it) piped from a piping bag.

It is my first try and I see mistakes, wish that I had of caught and fixed some things but other than that I am happy with it.

The cup topper is made from the spackling as well.  

The sprinkles are made from polymer clay and I found them first on Amazon but they were out of stock, after doing a search on the sellers website (also out of stock) I found them on Walmart's website.  But, I have since found them on Etsy for a cheaper price.  If you are interested just search for faux sprinkles.  I bought five different kinds and there is a mixture of three different ones on the cupcakes and cup topper.  The peppermint candy came from Hobby Lobby (small Christmas tree ornament section) and I believe I got the candy cane from Walmart.  

and here is what it looks like on the cup

My other obsession has been signs.  I decided to create some of my own.  I created three in total but I only have pictures of two of them.

I created the signs on the computer using graphics by Laurie Furnell (some of you might know her art from PCCrafter (Provo crafts before the Cricut) and a vintage picture of Santa that I have had for years.  

The wooden frames (were unpainted) came from the Dollar Tree, they were in the plus section and were either 3 or 5 dollars.  I painted the green sign and it was to much green but I didn't want to add any kind of cording or anything inside the frame or on the edge so I painted the inside of the edging a darker green thinking it would allow your eyes to see more depth.  It didn't.  I had to give it more thought. The sign is printed on card stock so it was not hard to glue it down.  I printed the gingerbread man and the circle that says open year round again and I cut them out, I put them on foam squares (Sticky Doos from Hobby Lobby), to raise the images up and give the sign more depth.  Next I glued down some "berries" using these.

They are called rain drops by Cloud 9 design.  I did a search and they are still available.  Just search rain drops by Cloud 9 design.  It still needed more.  I glued the holly leaves and berries on but I still felt that it needed something.  I used gold paint and very carefully edges the outside and inside rim of the frame, then dry brushed the gold on the frame itself.  Next I carefully edged the leaves with gold paint, not all the way around just here and there.

The holly leaves and the berries came from the Dollar Tree, the gold paint was paint I already had.

The red sign was also created on the computer.  The frame is the same as the green one but this time I lined the inside with Christmas paper.  I had seen someone say to use a glue stick.  I don't recommend it unless you have one that doesn't leave gobs of glue because the paper bubbles and I was not able to adjust it and there are some large bubbles.  For the most part the sign covered it up.  The candy's are stickers.  I didn't want everything to be flat so I took some of the candy and put it on card stock and then cut out around it.  I put the candy on foam squares to raise them and it gave the image more depth.  I made the bow and the holly leaves came from the Dollar Tree.  These pictures don't do the signs justice, they look really good in person.

I will be back later with a few more crafts and my tips for doing the faux icing.

Halloween stitch

 

Halloween in Quilt 

by Cuore e Batticuore

www.cuoreebatticuorericamoecucitocreativo.blogspot.com

This is the first cross stitch pattern that I have done by this artist.  One Christmas my husband gifted me with most of the in quilt series, this is the first one that I have done.  I look forward to doing all of them.

Some of the changes I loved but some didn't work as well as I had hoped.  I used a very dark purple on the door, it doesn't show up with the eye.  It shows up better in the picture.  There were things that I chose not to stitch such as a pumpkin on top of the chimney and on the edge of the roof, as well as the skull and cross bones on the door. The bats were supposed to be stitched but I used buttons instead.  The ghost are stitched with white DMC Mouline Etoile thread. The pumpkin, spider, and cat are all buttons that were picked up at Joann Fabrics.  The bats were bought at www.buttonsgaloreandmore.com

She had backstitched swirls that were coming out of the pumpkins but I could not get them to look right on both sides so I decided not to stitch them.  There was a lot of white space and it took me a couple of weeks before I decided the stars would look good.  The stars are shinny plastic stickers that I bought years ago at Big Lots.  I glued them down with a little Aleene's tacky glue.

The spider was stitched with Rainbow gallery wisper #w99 black thread.  He is fuzzy and he has orange sparkly eyes.  The boots are stitched with sparkly Prism thread that I picked up at Hobby Lobby on clearance.  I believe it is made by DMC.  I think it sparkles more than the Mouline line of thread.  I wanted to embellish the boots but could not find the right color of beads so I took white flat backed pearls and colored them with Sharpie markers and glue them on.  I stitched micro mini buttons onto the books as well.  The swirly things beside the purple boot has micro mini buttons stitched on them as well.  The sign on the right says bats, again, I didn't like the way her designed looked so I glued a bat on it.  It too is a plastic type sticker.  

The skull had lines coming out from the bottom of it and I decided I didn't like that so I left them out.  The skull is stitched with DMC Mouline Etoile white and although you can not see them there are green seed beads (that match the green on the cake) stitched at the top.

The cat's cape is stitched with purple sparkly thread (the same as the boot), black Rainbow gallery wisper  thread, orange seed beads on the cape and the hat, and a little mini star button.  

 I used the DMC Mouline Etoile color white on the moon.  I changed the hair color on the little witch.  On her cape and hat I used orange seed beads.  The end of her wand was stitched with DMC Mouline Etoile thread.  

Here is the original pattern picture:

Here is my version:

Do you feel guilty when you change things on a design?