Haste Not, Rest Not

I have been looking for reasonable priced light box for a while now. Living in Seattle, we really can not rely on sunshine. Someone might have to wait for a long while for natural light :)

But good people of my craft group, Etsy Rain, told me that I didn’t have to pay a hundred dollar to have one, I can make my own. A quick search and I found a good tutorial. I know it is not fancy but it does the job and cost me an hour and 3 dollars.

Since I will be photographing objects in different sizes, I chose a large box. And here is my first photo I took in my new light box. It has improved already.

Have a great weekend everyone!

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light box, Photography

Our birthday season has just started. Starting with April, among close friends, we will have at least one birthday party every month till September. I will have a very good reason to bake cakes without minding the calories :)

First birthday was Simge`s who is a big fan of chocolate. I tried to combine some of her favorite things in one cake. Here is the result.

Base cake and the caramel sauce between the layers are Martha Stewart recipes. The cake has a very rich chocolate taste but is very light. It made its place in my favorite cakes list. Instead of rice crisps as it advised in the recipe I added hazelnuts to melted chocolate for the filling.

For frosting I chose a recipe I posted here instead of chocolate butter cream. As a finishing touch, I added cream puffs and chocolate sauce on top. She can`t resist cream puffs, never :)

Before I start, I was a little nervous about mixing all that recipes together. At the end, it turned out better than I expected. However, if chocolate is not one of your favorite things in the world, I suggest you try something else :) We can simply call it as `Death by Chocolate Cake`, and I guess Simge would say `what a way to go` :))

I wish everyone a great week !

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Martha Stewart`s Living is one of favorite magazines. And April 2011 issue was full of inspiring ideas. These little chicks were hard to resist. They looked so easy and cute, I couldn’t help myself and decided to make some for the little guys around me.

Since I used cotton fabrics, I added lining as sugessted so peas don`t show through. Though instead of split peas, I used rice which worked just fine. Some  fabric, felt in two colors (for beak and wings) and just a cup of rice, 10 chicks were ready in a little more than a hour. I used crochet and needlework flowers to decorate them.

For instructions see Living, April 2011, p.190

Have a great weekend everyone!

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easter chicks, fabric, stuffed toys

After a long break, here I am with another project for one of my little girls, a  handmade album for Sila. Her mom told me that nowadays, one of her favorite activities was looking  at the photos of people she knew.

The making process was lots of fun except picking the photos from thousands of them. Digital cameras can be both a curse and blessing :) 

I printed the pictures on paper in black and white so that she can color them or draw on the paper. I preferred a mid-weight, eco friendly, textured paper. I used fabric scraps from a local fabric store. I sewed the photos and fabric to the paper.

The biggest challenge was binding. I wanted something comfortable and safe for a 2 year-old. After a few trials, I decided to bind them with one of my favorite threads. It was an easy and practical solution. I added white reinforcement labels to all pages so that she wouldn’t tear the them of.



I wonder if binding and reinforcements did their job at all. I should ask for some feedback :)

Have a great weekend everyone!

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Children, fabric, handmade photo album, photo album, sewing, sewing on paper

Here is another cake I baked for a friend`s engagemnet party. After surfing through internet for hours for inspiration, I decided that yellow is a good color for such an occassion to begin with.

Inspired by the cakes at Eat Cake Be Merry, I ended up with this design and color. It is my first two tier cake and I love youtube :) This video by cake bot was the most helpful, I probably watched it a hundred times. I must say it wasn`t as easy as it looks in the video :)

I chose red velvet cake for this one. It is one of my favorites lately, very easy to prepare, no complicated instructions to follow step by step and no butter at all.

I brushed every layer with warmed nutella and spread homemade raspberry sauce on top of that.  I topped that with whipped cream and roasted ground peacans and repeated this process for each layer. I came up with this filling after a lot of experimentation so it is good :)

I wanted to surprise my friend with matching cards. The making process was alot of fun.

I start with some off white and yellow paper, Ikea cupid fabric and a yellow fabric I totally forgot about, some white tulle and I ended up with 13 different cards and a card bag.

I forgot to mention about bottons, I love them.

Have a great week, everyone!

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baking, button, cake, cards, fabric, nutella, pecan, raspberry sauce, red velvet cake, tulle, two tier cake, whipping cream

Being a paperholic, anything related to paper always get my attention. I first came across the concept of paper art through a Japanese paper cutout artist Mayuko Fujino. I found her pieces unbelievably beautiful, detailed and inspiring. She was inspired by Japanese stencil dyeing which was an very old Japanese tradition. It is said that paper art can be traced back to Japan where it was originated over a thousands years ago.

And last week, my friend Simge sent me the link of 100 Extraordinary examples of paper art and made my week. They are all gorgeous. I will feature here a few of them. It was a hard job to choose among them.

The first one is from Jen Stark. I loved the colors.

The second one belongs to Peter Callesen.  

The third one is by Yulia Brodskaya. Hers are the most beautiful and detailed pieces of quilling I have ever seen. 

Here is another piece from Yulia Brodskaya, it is gorgeous.

The last one is by Ingrid Siliakus. I wonder how many ours she put into this piece. My neck and shoulders ache by just looking at it :)

Have a great week, everyone!

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japanese stencil dyeing, paper, paper art

Last weekend, I was enjoying some sunshine with some friends and my 4 year old bff, Selin, in Starbucks when I realized that Selin was getting bored. I gave her my Michael`s coupon print out and some pens I found in my purse.

She loves drawing. I remember her drawing circles, triangleswhen she is two; flowers and ant-like humans around three; now she is fascinated with human form and drawing lots of family members and herself. So she grabbed the materials and I returned to my chat. After a while she informed me that she was drawing me and got my attention. I looked great :))

I am sure you all know that Mastercard “priceless” commercial, here is my own ”priceless” one.

The cost of paper : 5 cents
The cost of ink : 10 cents

The art I was gifted : Priceless

She put a smile on my face that lasted whole day. It was very sweet and touching and inspiring. And she inspires me a lot. We sit together around my stationary desk, she just asks me if she is allowed to use the thing that get her attention and never lets me make any suggestions about it. And it is a good thing since I tend to interfere a lot unfortunately. I love her self confidence and watching her little hands cutting, shaping, gluing. Sometimes she comes up with great things and gives me lots of ideas about my own projects. She loves spending time with me around that table making crafts and I cherish our time together. We are a good team :)

So it was a little risky asking her if she wanted to draw my husband too, since there was space on the paper. Surprising me, she accepted the challenge and I am very glad she did, it was hilarious.

She explained us afterwards that since Bilba (her nickname for him) is bigger than me she drew him big :)))

Now these two masterpieces are framed and decorate our living room and I scored very high points with that. When she saw them there, she got on her little chair and spend a lot of time in front them, my little artist :)))

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I don` t remember where and when I first found about her but I became addicted to her art as soon as I saw it. I love her style.

May Ann Lumbang Licudine is a Filipino Visual Artist who is hearing/speaking impaired. She is such an inspiration, just read her official speech. I love how Internet enables us to know about such amazing artists.

To see more of her stuff, visit her blog and gallery on deviantart.  

It is almost weekend :) Have a sunny weekend everyone!  

(images by Mall)

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deviant art, drawing, Mall, painting

For today’s post I was thinking about featuring an artist from Philippines but at the last minute I decided to do that later in the week, and start the week with some sweets. Here is the latest cake I baked.

For the cake itself I tried a new Martha Stewart recipe, Blackberry Buttermilk Cake. It turned out great, it was very delicious. It was more dense than my usual choice Genoise and it was what I was looking for. My concern for being too dry was unwarranted, probably because of fresh blackberries.

I am physically incapable of using that much butter and sugar for anything, so I skipped the buttercream filling :) I made some berry spread and used it alternating with whipped cream.

The recipe is for 18 cups. For an 11 inch cake with 3 layers, I made 6 cups. I would prefer it a little higher, so 7 or 8 cups would be better.  

Stamping on the fondant was a first for me. It is very easy to do and it looks really good. The ink is just a regular one I use for making cards, so this part is not edible. I just need to find out which is safe to eat, so I can play with them more while making cakes :) It was fun.

Have a great week, eveyone!

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Baby Shower Cake, blackberry, blackberry buttermilk cake, cake, martha stewart, stamping on fondant