Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Han Solo Frozen in Carbonite Cake...

The final touch to Matt's Star Wars Birthday Extravaganza was his surprise Han Solo cake.  I debated for a long time How I was going to attempt it.  First it was a very simple.  Submerge Han Solo in cake and frost it.  Then I decided that wasn't good enough, and started researching others who had paved this path before me.  Since modeling fondant is uber expensive and I had to create this in 2 days, lol...I went the rice crispy treat method!!






Froze it, then wrapped it in fondant, giving texture to pants.  Made a little vest, some minor textures to face with eyes, nose, mouth, hair etc.












His hands were made with fondant and frozen.  It was a lot easier to deal with than I thought it would be.  It was actually kind of fun.  Like play dough lol.








Then I dug a little valley down the middle and placed him in...We ended up making 2 cakes, and pieced it together as one.  It's about a cake and a 3rd long =).  (Made in a 9x13 pan for both)























Then frost!!  I made grey frosting...which is more of a pain in the butt than you might think.  The insanely expensive "black" stuff we got to dye the frosting, ended up a lovely shade of lavender...Needless to say I was REALLY ANNOYED.  At the last minute we actually went to the local grocery store and bought a tube of black frosting intended for writing words or details on a cake.  And wahlah!!  Grey cake frosting.  Easy Peasy...mostly lol.

Happy crafting!!

Cher



Friday, May 4, 2012

May the 4th be with you! Return of the Crafter...

I figure I really ought to get in the rest of the Star Wars craft posts today, given that it is Star   Wars day and all...In addition to the ever so geeky bedding array, I also made a couple of other things I'd like to share.

This is a super plush towel that my cat had been sleeping on.  It was on the stack of things I really need to finish before Matt's birthday, and she adopted it as her place to sleep when she isn't on the back of my chair keeping my shoulders warm.

I wish the pics were a little clearer, but It's the same Imperial symbol as on the comforter, but smaller and using 2 Robert Kaufman space fabrics.  There is also a strip of the red fabric at the top and bottom of the towel in the area where there is usually some racing stripe of interest stitching.

I wonder undered the 2 pieces together for the Imperial symbol, and then stitched it onto the towel. Not EVERY little space is stitched but the main center area and the outside edges are.  We shall see how that holds up!  lol  Matt's great for letting me experiment my man scientisting ideas, as well is Mom.  lol.  The racing stripes on top and bottom were just stitched on after ironing under a 1/4" seam on each side.  Super simple!!



Next up is an uber geeky stitching project.  The template came from here:  http://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10263












The magic stitchy wash away transfer stuff that you can print with your standard ink jet printer can be purchased here:


http://shinyhappyworld.bigcartel.com/product/sulky-sticky-fabri-solvy
This stuff is like...shipped directly from Hogwarts school of magic, to your home...it's frakkin amazing.


Here we are about 1/2 way done.  I used 3 different grays on this and stitched it on black fabric.  Looking back on it now, if I ever did another one, I would have gone with a dark to mid grey to stitch on.  But, that said, I'm really pretty happy with the end result, and Matt loved it.







 

Here we are with the magic Hogwarts transfer stuff all washed away.  In addition to this being stitched, I also got grey glow fabric paint made by Tulip and added some highlights as a surprise when the lights are turned out.  The outer edge of the Death Star, the outer round of the eye, and the 2 horizontal lines through the middle are all painted grey over the stitching (which matched) and glow when the lights go out.






 THEN I decided to mount the it on a thin piece of cardboard and make it an applique for a larger piece.  Which lead to stenciling a space for it to be attached...AND to a silhouette of the Millenium Falcon in the lower left...AND it's all stenciled with Random Glowy Fabric Spray stuff...(forgive me...I don't recall the name and I don't have it before me at the moment but it was near all the fabric paints at Jo-Ann's and is permanent until washed.  Assuming that this won't ever be washed, I figured I was safe lol.)
Sooooo the final product is this!!  Glowing monstrous Death Star of stitched doom with silhouetted Millenium Falcon...this image is so much better than the framed version due to ever so much less glare when I took the pic.  It was dark and I swear every light in the house was on to illuminate the very intense construction of the Lego Millenium Falcon...
 And here is the slightly blurry, framed final version, glare and all, next to an adorable light saber candle stick.  (Purchasable from http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/collectibles/e9fe/?srp=4)

The image of the death star is about 8x8 to give you some perspective on size.  And the Death Star looks more ominous a stitching project than it really is.  I stitched it in about 3 days, but it only took that long due to the fact I MUST take breaks every 20 - 30 mins to rest my arms.  So honestly, it's a very easy project for someone who doesn't have damaged arms or hands, I promise!!

Thanks for reading, and happy crafting!!

Adi <3




May the 4th be with you!

There could be no more perfect day to post this lengthy, picture heavy update!  For the last few weeks I have been preparing a Star Wars themed birthday extravaganza for Matty Watty.  Below are just a few of the things I was up to...
The concept is like that of a rock bands "property of METALLICA" type painted tagging on all of it's precious cargo.

First off...The comforter.  I found a variegated grey striped comforter, bed in a bag deal at Walmart.  $49 for a king size.  The back of the comforter was dark grey, but not so dark as to not work for my project.

2nd, I found an imperial symbol online and printed it to be 40 pages enormous, gather up my faithful assistant Gwennie (as pictured), and took to cutting out my 4 foot round Imperial symbol.


Before I actually cut out the cogs, I took the huge layer of printer paper only imperial symbol and spray glued it to thicker drawing pad paper, so that it didn't just curl up on me when I went to spray it.

Also, not pictured, is the stencil for the "property of" written and xactoed out in Star Wars heiroglyphics which you will see situated in a later pic on the comforter when I go to spray.




The final decision on placement ended here!  You can see the Property Of stencils just to the left of the Imperial symbol. 












And then I used Tulip brand fabric paint spray in red.  Matt has a thing for Darth Vader, so we went with red instead of classic white, which I think gave it a really fantastic subtle look.  I don't know if many of you geeks have attempted to find sheeting or bed spreads that are King Sized and Star Wars, but there is a distinct lack of them, hence this enormous project LOL.






 And here are the finished product pics.  One on the bed, and one still sitting in the sun drying.  The pic inside is just the WORST possible lighting.  Sorry for that.  If you can see in the far corner of the room near the window, I also stenciled the packages for his birthday with the Imperial symbol.
 I let this sit in the sun after it was sprayed for about 6 hours, on a very strange but fortunate 90 degree day wedged between raging rain and thunder storms.  WEIRD weather this year.  lol BUT YAY for sun on this day.







I also stenciled the pillow cases and shams, as well as the bed skirt.  (Sorry no pic of the bedskirt)

All in all the longest amount of time spent was on cutting out the huge stencil for the main image.  The rest was cake.

A few things I would recommend tho.  One is to use cardboard at least as thick as a cereal box for your smaller stencils.  Otherwise they will curl up on you after your first spray.  I made some Imperial geek chubby girl undies and discovered one thin printer paper sheet is simply not enough!!  lol

I would also recommend experimenting with your spraying technique.  I started with the back of one of the shams to be used to get a feel for how it sprayed and how heavy a spray I would need to get it to show on the dark fabric.

And lastly, get someone to help you.  As simple as this project is, you don't want something as silly as a slight breeze to mess things up for you.  Fortunately my Mom is quite an amazing assistant, despite whatever strange new project I come up with, she's always there to help.

Thanks for reading!!  And happy crafting!!
<3 Adi