Key To My Heart Keychain

Spacing is a little off on this one, but I guess it adds to the charm?

Need to get some larger jump rings and some other goodies to play around with.

Croissants

I got a bread machine for Christmas so I'm randomly trying out different dough and bread recipes. 

Henry I can't believe you make these so often. It's a lot of work!

Cupcakes Stamped Charm

I love cupcakes so I thought this was appropriate:

It reads, "cupcakes make me smile". I'm getting a little better at spacing and placement. There is a smiley face in the space on the other side of the cupcake that you can't see. I really need a closeup lens for my camera so that these photos are more worthwhile.

Lazy Sunday

After a stressful week following a break in, a lazy day is just what we all need.

Here's to a better, more relaxing, 2013 going forward.

Stamped Metal Necklace for Mindy

For Christmas I asked my mom for some items to try my hand at stamped metal jewelry. I bought myself a necklace for $20 off of Etsy and like the idea of being able to personalize items for myself and others. I've tried out a few random things, but this is my first full project. It is a lot harder to get a full print of a letter and to get letters in the right location with proper spacing and orientation on the stamping blanks than I expected.

It is too difficult to get a good close up picture of the stamping on the necklace, but the square holds the three names of my nieces and nephew and the two bronze pieces hold the names of the parents. I used ribbon and decorative white and purple beads to make it more feminine. If Mindy wants to switch it out or play with the overall setup of the necklace etc. I won't mind in the least.

Mindy will be getting a lot of random craft gifts I'm sure. I really like the stamping, but am kind of at a loss for ideas of things to make for now. Ideas welcome!

Japanese Cheesecake

My friend Henry is having a birthday soon. In celebration of his birthday I'm making two of his baking ideas. His current project, and one of his trusty favorites. We'll start with his current project, the Japanese Cheesecake:

I put a little raspberry jam with my first slice, but I'm not sure if I like it better alone or with the fruit.

It has an interesting nice airy, yet cakey, texture. Not like your normal cheesecake, more like a souffle. I followed this recipe. It ended up only half as tall as it started, but I'm not sure how you fix that... Henry?

Silhouette Cameo Giraffe Ink Printing

My first Silhouette Cameo ink printing:

It takes 20 minutes to dry enough to iron the ink on the shirt. I did place the backing from the transfer sheet under the first layer of the shirt so that the ink would not bleed through onto the back of the shirt. This step was not included in the instructions.

I love Giraffes!

Silhouette Cameo Keychains

The Silhouette Cameo can cut fabrics which makes it really fun and easy to do appliques.

The original instructions for this are located here.

New Year's Petit Fours

This idea has been on the back burner for about a year now. I knew it would be a lot of trouble and heartache from reading other bloggers.

However, I didn't realize they would turn out this badly. Flop! As soon as I started dipping them in the poured fondant they started breaking apart. Spooning it on top just made the fondant too thick and ugly.  At least I've tried it!

The inside is pound cake with raspberry between the layers. I used princess cake flavoring for the fondant. 

Happy New Year!

We survived the end of the world.

Welcome to 2013!