The Crafty Red Rabbit

When we got invited to RJ's cousin's wedding, it was decided that the family would wear black so that we would all be coordinated for family photos. Now I normally wear quite a bit of black, but usually not in formal wear, and especially not for a wedding. It's the one time I like to get super girly and pick out bright colors or florals and go all out with the jewelry. In fact, before learning about the black palette, I had pictured wearing a ballgown with an illusion style bodice embroidered all over with flowers. After a few sessions of trying to find a black dress that wasn't boring or unflattering, I decided that maybe I would try to put together what I wanted. So I spent a few hours combing Amazon and found a sheer black cape and several beautiful appliques in the craft section. I ordered several, most embroidered flowers in various colors, from cherry and magnolia blossoms to orchids and roses. In the end, I skipped the flowers and went with peacock f...

My aunt enlisted me to make cupcakes again for my grandparent's anniversary this year and asked for two dozen each of three different kinds cupcakes. This was slightly less than the number I made last year, but I was also short on time to prep and prepare the cupcakes, so I decided to try to do something different with the frosting. Rather than spending time on making fondant flower cutouts and rosettes, I wanted to try some new piping techniques. So I pulled out a couple of tips that I had never used before and did a little experimenting ahead of time. The first thing I tried was a tip that makes wide flat ribbons. Starting in the center of the practice nail, I spiraled the ribbon around on itself and tried to make a ruffled sort of carnation flower. It was a bit difficult trying to make them evenly, and they took a bit longer than our usual spiraling pile of frosting. But I also found that throwing some extra wriggles and ruffles made them a little more interesting. We...

We got invited to a couples baby shower for my cousin's brother-in-law's wife.  It got delayed and then because her due date was fast approaching, it was rescheduled at very short notice. Having met the new mother-to-be only once before, I didn't really know what she would like. The shower theme was flowers and the color pink. Since I didn't have much time to do something more creative, I decided to go generic. So I went with a couple pieces that I had used before in practice designs: a pair of embroidered ballet shoes and an adorable caterpillar figurine.  Luckily I had ribbon that coordinated well with the slippers, they even had the same shade of light blue that matched the embroidery. I pulled a lot of different flowers with different textures into the cake, from giant blooms to hydrangea and tiny flowers, ranging in various pinks and greens, and even more baby blue. I also included some berries to pull in more burgundy color. Looking back, the cake rea...

When my mom's birthday was coming up, Caleb asked me if we could make cupcakes for her. I love when he asks to do some kind of baking or cooking activity together. I asked him what kind of cupcakes he wanted to make and he immediately went with vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting. It's more his favorite than my mom's, but I liked that he had an opinion instead of just leaving it up to me to decide. The cake was boxed mix, but the frosting was all buttercream. To spruce them up and make them festive, I brought a variety of sprinkles. A few would be plain, some would have some classy silver sprinkles I found just for the occasion. And in true Caleb-style, the rest was a little bit of everything. Of course, like our last baking session where we decorated cake pops, much of the sprinkles ended in Caleb's mouth than on the cupcakes. But as he spent the entire time giggling and laughing, it was kind of hard to indulge him.  They weren't the fancies...

My coworker, Sara, has a carved wooden flying pig called Ham Sammy. He would sit on the edge of Sara's desk until he started getting pig-napped by other co-workers. Sara has brought Ham Sammy on all of her travels. He's a world-traveling pig. And you can't really think of Sara without thinking about her adorable pig. When Sara got engaged, I knew I would have to do something her themed around Ham Sammy. I was loving the whole wood-burning process, and really liking the idea of giving a custom cutting board to people as wedding presents. Sara is also an amazing chef, so having something related to cooking was an additional plus. So I went looking for cutting boards with the intention of burning Ham Sammy onto it's surface. I was so floored when I came across animal-shaped cutting boards at a craft store. And especially excited to see there was one in the perfect pig shape. I sketched out a feathery wing, and the requisite pig parts. added a tad bit of shadin...

Like all kids, my nephew loves to draw. He scribbles and colors. And every so often I get a present of a drawing made just for me. I wanted to encourage the hobby, and also give him a way to keep it collected and see how his drawing improves over time. So I bought him a sketchbook and decided to decorate it and make it feel special, like each of those wonderful sketches that he gave to me. I had picked the hardback black sketchbook because it was sturdy and durable. But not as expensive as some premium artist sketchbooks can be. Unfortunately, the black color made it near impossible to draw on, so I had to track down some metallic Sharpies, which come in limited colors. I contemplated the design for a while, and because of the metal shine of the markers, I ended up getting inspiration from the stars. I thought it was appropriate, after all, art is only limited by the imagination, as boundless as the expanse space and filled with wonder.

A friend commissioned me to do a diaper cake for a gender reveal she was helping to throw. They didn't exactly have a theme, but they were having it at a barbecue. So I took that as a theme for the diaper cake. And went through a lot of ideas of how exactly to use that theme. And with a short time frame. I considered grilling utensils. Fire. A grill. Picnic tables. And that was my first breakthrough. I found red and white checkered ribbon, reminiscent of  those distinctive and traditional table cloths. With a base color I considered tiny red solo cups, plastic utensils, and mason jars. And then I thought of a mason jar with a sippy cup top. My friend loved the idea of the mason jar and decided that would make the perfect topper. And inside the jar she would put something to indicate the baby's gender. So I had to leave space on top of the cake, but I still couldn't figure out how to decorate the rest of it. I was still considering plastic utensils or a doll...

My cousin-in-law has always had an appreciation for beer. He and RJ would discuss various craft brews for hours at a time. He even has a room in their house dedicated as a his bar. So when his birthday rolled around this year, I figured I would put my new pyrography skills to use in making him a bar sign. I wasn't sure exactly what to put on the sign. After settling on an interesting font for the lettering, I drew a blank on the imagery. I looked at Rob's family crest, at antique bar signs, contemporary bar signs, and clip art for brewing ingredients. Being more comfortable with drawing florals, I immediately latched onto the images of barley and hops. These I drew around the outside of the lettering, which left a lot of empty space in the middle behind the words.  Not wanting to cover the entire thing in plants, I decided to squeeze in a mug of beer. Which led me to the debate of whether to do a glass mug or something more historic like a tankard or a stein. In th...

After making the mandrake sculpture for Halloween, my mom asked if I would show her how to work with clay. I went a step further and suggested that we do so as another activity with Caleb. Looking back, there are things I would have done differently. One, I would have picked something specific for us to make. Leaving it open made it hard for my mom to decide what to do and Caleb's first choice was to build a snowman. Thankfully, it was an easy thing to make, though rather out of season. Two, I would have picked a less ambitious subject matter for my piece. I originally thought to make a sculpture of Mater from Cars, being one of Caleb's favorite characters. But once I started, I realized that I needed to start with a foam base like I did with with the mandrake in order to make a statute of sufficient size to work in details, otherwise I wouldn't have enough clay to work with. And third, we should have had more colors of clay. My initial idea was to make the sculptures...

Having newly acquired the skill of pyromancy, er, I mean pyrography, I wanted to apply it to a wedding shower present for a friend of mine. Nicole has always been encouraging of my crafting projects. And her husband to be is a graphic designer and artist who appreciates anything handmade. So I hit up a couple of discount home goods stores and went searching for interesting pieces of wood to burn. I found some more sets of wooden cooking utensils (much like the ones I had decorated for Danielle) and several very pretty cutting boards. I picked a paddle shaped one and went to work sketching out a design. I drew their initials and the year in the center of the board and then some roses. Since I wanted to add something that would represent both of them, I did some searches for some images that represent Puerto Rico, flowers, fruit, and eventually came across the Coqui... an adorable species of tree frog. It had a tiny body, over-sized head, round little toys and huge expressive eyes. I...

My good friend, Danielle, is a master baker of cupcakes. When the Cake Expo came to Orlando last year, we went together to attend some classes, watch some live competitions, and view the amazing entries into the decorating contests. So when her birthday rolled around this year, I wanted to do something bakery themed. Perusing Pinterest for some unique gift ideas, I came across images of wooden spoons with designs burned into them. Quieting the voices in my head that told me I would just end up burning my skin off, I looked into what it took to do Pyrography. Basically, you need a wood burning tool, some tips for the tool, and something to burn. Control of the tool involves managing how long the tool touches the wood. Pressure shouldn't be used to burn the wood because it just causes the tips to bend while they're hot. Some tools allow you to adjust the temperature that they heat up to. It seemed rather simple. So I bought some inexpensive bamboo cooking utensils, a rather...

When our company's general counsel announced he was retiring, I knew I wanted to make something special to mark the occasion. After all, he had spent the past 20 plus years leading not only our company, but specifically our department... helping us to make well informed decisions that kept us compliant with state and federal laws, but also treated our customers with compassion and integrity. Before coming to our company, he had served in the Navy as a JAG officer. And also served many years in the Air Force Reserve. Having come from a military family and met RJ when he was still in the Army National Guard, I had a great respect for Gary's military service and the affect it had on his personality and work. We nick-named him "The General", even though he was technically "only" a Colonel. I knew, like the previous project I had done when he made that promotion to colonel, that I wanted to do something that called back to his military background, so...

For Halloween (yeah, I'm a bit behind in my posts), my team at work agreed to decorate in a Harry Potter theme (we're all super geeky about Harry Potter). I decided to turn my cubicle into the Hufflepuff Common Room (the House yours truly was sorted into). Besides the usual House-centric banners; yellow and black damask "wallpaper" made from scrapbook paper; and the framed picture of House founder Helga Hufflepuff, I figured that the common room would be full of cheery plants. After all, the House sponsor was Herbology Professor, Pamona Sprout. Besides mini pots of plants that look like gilly weed, a womping willow, and some devil's snare, I decided I needed a mandrake plant. I got some Crayola air-dry clay, a mini terracotta pot, and got to work sculpting an angry, baby-faced knot of roots and vines.  Mistakes were made... air dry clay isn't quite like the clay I used in grade school that would stick together if you added water. Adding water cause...