Art, Craft and Needlework, June, 2013

[Harriet]

When we're designing or planning a new project to paint, weave, scrap, knit, sculpt, crochet, sew or write, what fun we have to look forward to!

There's also so much satisfaction to be found in going back to an UnFinished Object and completing it to enjoy.

When we can balance our creativity with keeping up with our work (so that there's no guilt, no worry that we "should" be doing something else) we can have the best of both worlds - a calm, well-ordered home AND the chance to create things of beauty to place within it! That's a double blessing to strive for!

Welcome, and please let us know about the project you have at hand, compliments received, struggles to balance work and play, and your creative direction!

[Harriet]

Here's the Fishy that HRH and I made for DangerBoy's birthday party. It is a white cake - 2 round pans from one mix and the sheet cake from the second mix. It has Fruit-Roll-Up triangles (double thickness, cut with pinking shears) along the back and Skittles decorations on the tail, gummy worm decorations on the fins, half-marshmallow eyes with the blue icing dots in the middle. The water has blue sprinkles in rows diagonally to look like waves.

[sherinjoy]

Absolutely darling! So creative and fun colors with candy. Should be the hit of the party. Thanks for sharing the photo.

[Nancy]

Love it!

[Ivy]

That's an adorable cake! It looks delicious, too.

[Cowinkie]

Too cute !!!!

[Sunny]

So cute, Harriet. Such a fun way to celebrate dgs's birthday!

[Harriet]

Thanks so much - I think HRH and I were both hungry for a little creativity, and I appreciate having creative people to "show".

I certainly learned again that the refrigerator is magic as the finishing touch for a cake's icing and decorations, isn't it? It caused the decorations to set up well. For instance, the flippy-floppy fruit roll-ups stood right up the way they were supposed to as soon as they hit that cold air. Also the cold gave the cake a look of matte finish rather than shine, which meant the photos looked much better.

One question would be whether you let children know there is a cake in the refrigerator. little britches kept opening the refrigerator door to tell the fish to stay in there.

It was truly a joint effort - I knew to use a lot more food coloring than HRH thought, so we would have a vividly colored fish. He knew to frost the fish first, so that if any color "splashed" onto another it would be water splashing onto fish, not the other way around. He sure was using some tiny utensils getting the last of the "water" into the crevices! We figured out how to make the fish look "up" by cutting the marshmallow in half slightly diagonally, so that the "eye" could be larger at bottom and smaller at top.

Finding out that doubled fruit-roll-ups worked this well and can be cut with decorative-edge scissors got dd33 and I brainstorming other cake ideas using them, but she will likely be the baker for those. She had already had good luck using "fruit-by-the-foot" for the hasps and bands on her Pirate Treasure Chest cake for one of the boys last year, but never thought of cutting the shapes you need out of sheets.

[Ivy]

Ddil called, I told her the baby crochet items were shipped. Ddil suggested she try on everything, on our dgd to see how they fit, before I do anymore crochet. Dgd has a long torso and short arms and legs, which is a family trait from DH's side. She said we can decide what to do from there. I told her it's hard to find short-sleeved tops for her, like pullover sweaters with shorter sleeves. We might decide to start working on 12-month sizes for fall/winter months, instead of anymore summer items. I have some cute halters I'd love to make, too, which would be quick and adorable on her during hotter weather.

[Nancy]

I knit a few rows this morning as this current project a prayer shawl winds down.