More From The Kid's Garden

We are enjoying a spectacularly lazy long weekend. The kids have been in the garden all day long and are now cooking us supper. Thought I'd share just a few pics of what's been happening today and hope you're all enjoying a relaxing weekend too.

The peas are getting root bound in their little temporary pots on the dining room table. The kids transplanted them into the garden today so they could stretch their roots out.

Emmy made some fantastic little veggie markers from STAEDTLER Fimo soft. I love these little veggies. She's making some for her garden at home too. We'll use these for years and they'll always make us think of her. She just sculpted some of the veg we had planted and baked them with a skewer poked in. After they cooled we poked them in the garden where the seedlings live. 

I love these lawn hyacinths that poke their heads up through the first spring grass on our lawn. I hate that we always have to cut them back when it's time for the first trim. Mom picked heaps for the table. 

Here's one of Emmy's garden markers in the works. I hope the real veggies turn out half as well as these did.

And lastly a pic of a teensy lawn violet. 

So so sweet hiding in the tall grass by the fence.

Happy long weekend everyone!

The Happiest of Mother's Days

Wishing you all a happy day!

Especially happy wishes for the one who taught me to be crafty.

Springing

Maggs has taken over the garden this year. She's done away with the pallet garden we've been using for the past few years and has dug up a new one complete with wooden edging. So much work.

It's very cheerful to see the little sprouts coming up. She's got them on the dining room table so we can have a peek at them every time we pass by to go into the kitchen.

She's made room in the old bed by splitting up the chives and potting some for kitchen use.

I love her hand painted pots.

A shot of one of her trays of sprouts. There are peas and peppers and tomatoes and melon, carrots and radish. 

I think my favorite so far are these teensy little sweet basil sprouts. They're unbelievably tiny right now. Can't wait until they all go into the ground. It's all very exciting. We're lucky to have such a prolific gardener. 

Rainbow Cake Time

It was Maggie's 20th birthday this week and we celebrated in the usual style.

Rainbow Cake!!!

Here's a link to the original process post just in case you need to try this amazing cake.

The colours were amazing this time.

This is the outside of the cake. We try to make the icing as drab and un-colourful as possible. It makes the inside of the cake look even more amazing! We did add some opalescent edible sparkles to the surface of the cake just for some added pizzazz! 

Oh, we used the cooked, no icing sugar icing on this cake too. It's our favorite icing. Not too sweet. 

Tourquise Sparklers

I'm a sucker for Joe Fresh nail polish. I'm particularly smitten with their turquoise colour called Lagoon. I wear it every chance I get.  

I paired it with their silver glitter polish that's almost completely opaque with one coat. Love the sparkle! I topped it all off with Sally Hansen's Insta-Dry #110 Clearly Quick. Drys FAST and is very durable. I re-coat the design every evening after work to maintain the nail art longer. I can keep designs for up to two weeks by maintaining them like this. 

What's your favorite nail colour?

Progress, Slow and Steady

Thought I'd give a sneak peek at how I develop some of my designs. A big part of helping an idea become an actual piece is sketching it out. I grab my STAEDTLER pigment liner four pack and get on with it.

I start with a soft pencil and go over my lines with the pigment liners. If the sketch turns out to be something I want to continue on with I can erase the underlying pencil and elaborate on the ink lines.

George is keeping a very close eye on me.

My sketch books are filled with ideas roughed out like this one.

These sketches help me remember construction ideas and possible materials. Do you use sketches to rough out ideas before you create?

Cath Kidson Inspired Nail Art

I'm a HUGE fan of Cath Kidson prints. I particularly like their vintage roses. They remind me of old oil cloth fabric. For some strange reason they always make me feel like baking. I'm sure there's a connection. Maybe clean fresh oilcloth covered kitchen tables for rolling pastry? 

These will be fun Easter time nails too. They're a wee bit Easter Egg like.

I coated my ring fingers and my thumbs with a medium blue base and the rest of my nails got a coat of pink. I added blue dots to the pink nails using the tip of a bobby pin. The blue nails got a splotch of dark pink and then I swirled medium and light pink over the dark pink splotches. I added leaves by dipping my bobby pin into two greens at once and dotting beside the rose swirls. I let them dry and then gave them two coats of clear top coat. 

Ridiculously Teensy Cupcakes for Absolutley No Reason

This is really a tutorial on how I made my mini cupcake liners. There are a billion and eight cupcake tutorials out there and most of them are pretty spectacular. I think it might be helpful to show how I make the thin translucent STAEDTLER Fimo Effect cupcake liner, so here goes......

Icing Made Without Icing Sugar Recap

In April 2011 I posted this recipe I found on YaHoo Answers. I've gotten a HUGE amount of feedback from this post and was recently asked if I thought the icing could hold up when piped. Here are the results of what happened when we tested it's pipe-ability. This time I added yellow and green paste food colouring to the batch and cooled it off in the fridge for a few hours before I tried to pipe it onto the cake. It did pipe........ but it wasn't fun. I'm by no means a cake decorating expert. We just really enjoy making cakes for each other at home. I have some experience piping butter cream and this was nothing like that. It's very sticky and held onto the piping tip instead of dropping off like butter cream does. It's worth all the extra work though. Man this is some delicious icing.

This is an image from the first time we made this icing. You can see it's quite soft. It firms up a bit with some chilling though. Hope you try it too!

It really is delicious!

Mini Croissants and a Mini Mold

I've been playing with mold making lately and loving every second of it. Here's one of the first of many tutorials on making your own home made molds.

Don't they look delicious? I love buttery croissants all warm and flaky. Now I can make as many mini pastries as I want in no time at all. 

Things you'll need to create these mini croissants and their mold:

STAEDTLER Fimo soft colour #70 sahara 

STAEDTLER Fimo Effect #104 translucent yellow

STAEDTLER Fimo liquid deco gel

STAEDTLER Karat soft pastel chalks in brown and rust tones

Eye pins

Easy Mold silicone putty

Tools needed to make these:

Toothpick

soft round paintbrush #2 - 4

Craft knife

Parchment paper

The first thing to do is to sculpt your shape. I made a flat sheet of clay about 1/8th inch thick and then cut a triangle out of it that was close to one inch by 3/4 inch. Then I rolled up the triangle and smoothed out the seams with the tip of a toothpick. I turned the ends in a bit to make a slight horseshoe shape. I tried to keep in mind how a real croissant was rolled while I was making my shape. When I was completely happy with the shape I baked it in a preheated 230 degree oven on a parchment lined baking sheet for 20 minutes and then let the piece cool before the next step.

Next I mixed equal parts of the easy mold until there was no more marbling and placing my shape face up on the work surface, I covered the clay shape with the mold making blob. I made sure not to just push the mold making medium down but also in to the piece from all sides. I turned the piece over and checked to make sure I was leaving an opening to remove the piece. After the easy mold has cured  (About 25 minutes) you can use your craft blade to trim away any of the mold that is covering the bottom of your piece.

Here are a few of the different pieces I made. There is a tea cup shape, my croissant and the bottom of a cupcake. When you remove the original from the mold, you'll see that it's quite flexible and you can bend the mold to remove the clay piece easily.

I made little conditioned balls of STAEDTLER fimo soft #70 sahara and pushed them into the mold. I cut away any clay that was extra and then bent the mold to carefully un-mold the pieces. There was no need for any release agents. You can also bake the piece right in the mold to reduce deformation while un-molding. Mine came out pretty clean unbaked so I made a heap of them right away. I used my STAEDTLER Karat soft pastel chalks and a soft brush to add colour to the bready curls. I started with an ecru colour and worked my way to the darker colours.

I must admit that I'm pretty chuffed with these little guys. They really do look toasty and delicious. I added my head pins to the end of each croissant and then I baked them in a preheated 230 degree oven, on a parchment lined baking sheet for 20 minutes and allowed them to cool before adorning them with toppings.

For the buttered croissants, I added a small square of STAEDTLER Fimo effect #204 translucent yellow to the top of each pastry and covered the butter pat with a drop of STAEDTLER Fimo liquid Deco gel. I re-baked the pieces for another 20 minutes and they were done!

For a little chocolate drizzle I mixed up some brown chalk dust with a bit of the Fimo liquid and drizzled it over some croissants. I re-baked the pieces for 20 more minutes.

I like these little guys too!

Maybe I'll make some delicious teeny pastry earrings with these.

Can't wait to share more.