Steampunk Necklace

To start off, I'd like to clarify that despite the fact that this is my second necklace-making post on this blog, I am definitely not an avid jewelry maker. However, I have been digging the long-chain-with-pendant necklace trend this past year, and lucky for me, it's a pretty easy one to replicate! So, without further ado, I present my easy-peasy steampunk pendant necklace:

Pause. Backtrack. I realize that I might need to clarify the term 'steampunk' for some, so let's take a brief rabbit trail, shall we? Steampunk.com gives a pretty nice definition for the term:

[A] literary genre, or least a subgenre of science fiction and fantasy that includes social or technological aspects of the 19th century (the steam) usually with some deconstruction of, reimagining of, or rebellion against parts of it (the punk).

I know what you're thinking - OF COURSE it started off as a literary thing! And it's true - think Jules Verne, à la The Time Machine:

Source: Travel News

The image above illustrates one of the key aspects of the steampunk trend - its ability to transcend media. Steampunk.com gives examples of steampunk games (Bioshock II), steampunk graphic novels (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), and even steampunk movies (Sherlock Holmes) and TV shows (Warehouse 13). And it doesn't stop there! Which brings me to my necklace, an example of the steampunk design aesthetic:

What with all the cool contraptions in the stories, it was only natural that some people would decide to make some of them (or at least things like them). Thus, steampunk gadgets came into the real world. People have “steampunk’d” everything from computers, desks, telephones, watches, and guitars, to cars, motorcycles, and whole houses. These objects can vary from a grungy look of a forgotten antique to the shiny overwrought newness of a Victorian gentleman’s club. Think brass and copper, glass and polished wood, engraving and etching, and details for the sake of details. So, steampunk is also a design aesthetic. (Steampunk.com)

So interesting, right? But, I realize that I probably need to actually start talking about my necklace at some point in this post, so onto a chat about keys. Yes, one of the key elements of steampunk jewelry is an antique key. I've always loved old keys - I would buy them at yard sales when I was a little kid (weird? or telling?). At any rate, I love how popular they've become within the steampunk design aesthetic, especially paired with other classic steampunk elements (compasses, gears, clocks, etc.). Take a look:

Bronze key/compass combo on Etsy

Super steampunk'd key on Etsy

Source: dragonweave.com via Marc on Pinterest

Michaels actually has/had a steampunk section in their bargain aisle, which I visited several times (mostly to lament my inability to figure out uses for various items I wanted... which meant they stayed at Michaels). I did find a set of steampunk keys for $2.00, though, that I snapped up immediately. Pardon the picture quality - my phone is remedial:

Only $2.00!

I knew from nosing around Etsy for ideas that I wanted to incorporate another element in my necklace, and this collection of charms in the jewelry section of Michaels caught my eye:

Not a fan of wings, but the owl was adorable.

I also picked up some necklace chain (see pics below) for $3.99 that complemented the tone of the key and charm - as it was just chain, it didn't come with a connector. However, these necklaces are long enough to slip over your head, so you don't really need one. I just used needle nose pliers to snip off the length of chain I wanted (around 30" give or take) and then to connect the chain into a loop after slipping on my key pendent. Full disclosure: I initially threaded the chain through the key's preexisting loop, but I didn't like how the key kept twisting sideways with that setup. A jump ring connecting the key to my chain fixed the problem. I ended up using two jump rings in my necklace - one to attach the owl charm to the key (using pliers again) and another to attach the key to the chain so it hung in the right direction.

Closeup, with real camera

In-store, with (sub-par) phone camera

And there you have it! Here's a quick photo of the hanging length, if you're curious:

Cake Pop Semi-Flops

A few weeks ago I went with my family up to PA to celebrate the first birthday of my cousin's twin boys (whom I had never seen!). Let me tell you, they were seriously adorable little guys. Their party had a western theme, with desserts like Rice Krispies hay bale treats and miniature horse cake pops. My mom was especially taken with the cake pops that my (other) cousin made for her little nephews, especially since her annual Reading Rodeo was approaching. So, we decided to test out our cake-pop-making skills a few days after the party. Our first step was research on Pinterest (of course). Mom found a few images for inspiration:

Source: web.stagram.com via Shadow Creek on Pinterest

Source: cakecentral.com via C on Pinterest

Yeah, they are pretty cute, huh? Mom decided to try making ones that are a bit L-shaped, so we started out by taking our pre-baked, pre-crumbled cake and mixing it with icing until it held together while still being a bit crumbly. Then we started pinching out little bits and rolling/shaping them into the little L's for our horse heads (feel free to insert a Godfather reference here). They don't necessarily look very... appetizing in the pics below, but I faithfully rendered each step of the process for posterity (you can click to enlarge - Blogger's sizing options are super limiting, and I already messed up this entire post once by thinking I'm an HTML master... which, sadly, I'm not):

Step Two: Mix cake and icing...

Step One: Bake, scrape, and crumble!

... and mold into L-shaped horse heads!

So... yummy...?

Once we had our horse heads prepped, we melted some chocolate almond bark and prepped our lollipop sticks (you dip them in the chocolate, then insert them into the bottom of your pop - I suppose it strengthens the attachment?). After placing them in the freezer for 20 minutes, we were ready to coat the pops with chocolate. We melted more almond bark and dipped our pops in the chocolate, which was pretty thick, so it dried a little unevenly in places... While it was still cooling/hardening, we pressed candy eyes (yup, they're back!) into each side of the heads. Despite our best efforts, the placement was off a bit on some... At any rate, we eventually had some funny-looking horse heads drying on our cake pop stand, which we bought from Wal-Mart:

Step Three: Melt almond bark...

...and dip sticks, then insert in pops!

Step Four: Coat pops in chocolate, press on eyes.

Don't... let... them... touch!

Once all the pops dried, they were ready to be iced so that they resembled horses... and not dinosaurs... We added manes and ears, bursting into peals of laughter in the resulting personalities such finishing touches created. We also added little nostrils with black food coloring paste and a toothpick.

Candy eyes and oatmeal ears!

^_^

This was our exemplar... which should tell you something...

Well, are we going to go into the cake pop biz? Uh, no. Mom made up a fun little reason for the more deformed pops (not pictured... because they were embarrassing!) - it went something along the lines of "These cake pops aren't the same - they are all different. And some look like they were in a car accident." And, bless them, six-year-olds don't really care what cake pops look like. Some of them actually got a kick out of the story and deliberately chose the more disfigured horses to consume. And, I must admit, they were delicious, albeit a bit too ambitious for my dear mother and me. :)

Clowns and Gingerbread Men

 Another collaborative post with my mum - and this one's full of whimsy. ;) First up - paper plate clowns. For a creative writing assignment in English class, my mom's first graders had to write stories about the circus - and what better way to display these mini narratives (we're talking two-sentence stories here) than with clowns?

Silly clowns made his 'famy' happy! Well, he used enough letters to get the point across. ;)

Draw Head and Neck on Underside

Aw, isn't it clever? While the one above came out pretty well, they all had their own uh, personalities - haha. Mom found the idea of creating people from paper plates in The Mailbox magazine (it was originally paper plate witches for Halloween) and adapted it to suit her Big Top needs. It's a pretty simple craft - you just take a paper plate (she used dessert plates), draw a head and neck on its underside, and cut along the pattern (see right). Blue plates worked well for the clown bodies and offered a nice contrast with their white undersides.

Flip Plate - Attach Head Opposite Break in the Circle

After cutting the plate into two pieces, flip the semi-circle part back over (blue side up) and attach the clown head directly across from the break in the rim, creating a clown figure with a head, shoulders, and arms. Then it's time to decorate! Kids drew on facial features with crayons and learned the tricky art of clown mouths (my mom showed them that they are like hot dogs). The crazy clown hair is made of crinkle cut paper shred (what a mouthful!). Finishing touch - they drew and cut out mittens for hands to 'hold' their circus stories in place.

You know what they say - no two clowns are alike! I personally think the one below is hilarious and slightly mischievous (and check out the one in the lower left-hand corner!).

Here's another thing they say (or they should): no two gingerbread men are alike! Or at least the ones my mom's first graders made. Let me tell you the story of *echoing voice* THE EPIC GINGERBREAD MAN COMPETITION.

Gingy from 'Shrek'

It all began when my mom's students read the classic story of the gingerbread man in their reading book (the link is a reading by John Krasinski, which means it's awesome). Mom thought that giving her first-graders gingerbread men of their own to personalize would be a fun tag-along craft - she made 8-inch die cuts of gingerbread men using brown construction paper, then passed them out to her students with the instructions to decorate them any way they wanted. She fully expected them to be little mini-me's of Gingy, however her kids surprised her by how ridiculously creative they are - she had swashbuckling gingerbread men, dressed-to-the-nines gingerbread girls, and even a ninjabread man! Because they did such a great job, she decided to turn the activity into a contest in order to recognize those who worked so hard on their gingies. She numbered all seventeen gingies and placed them on a table outside her classroom with a sign that said "Vote for Your Favorite!" The voting stand was complete with pens and slips of paper upon which voters noted their favorites, then tucked them into a little collection box. And as you may have noticed, letting the will of the people decide the winner saves the teacher from having to do so. ;)

The turnout was enormous, especially given the complete lack of advertising (though Mom's single sign was in the imperative mood). Beyond her students, who went around campaigning for their gingies, other students eagerly took part in the democratic process, with entire classes filing by and voting on their way to specials. Then it reached beyond the school - one father was dragged from his car by his daughter before school one morning to vote for her gingerbread girl, and when he discovered that the paper slips had run out (which happened a few times), he improvised a ballot with his business card. A two-year-old even cast her vote - when her older sister asked if she was allowed to do so, my mom asked how the toddler would communicate her selection. The sister's response was simple: "She grabs the things she likes, so whatever gingerbread man is her favorite, she'll just grab it." Which is exactly what happened.

At the end of the week, the votes were tallied. In a mere four days, 477 votes were cast. That's over 100 votes a day, in a PK-8 school of roughly 450 students. And I should note that my mom's classroom is not really in a high-traffic area. Who won, do you ask? Before placing the gingies out for voting, my mom took a picture of the ones she felt were the most original - turns out that the top three made her cut. Now, does that lady know her gingies or what? :) Check them out below:

1st Place went to our grass-skirt-wearing Native American (9), Ninjabread Man (8) came in 2nd Place,
and our pig-tailed Gingy Gal (3) came in 3rd Place

Hmm... anyone else in the mood for cookies and milk?

Door Décor: Guest Post

My mom sent me a photo of her door décor earlier this week, and I had to do a mini-post about it because I think it's so lovely! Plus, she put it together for less than $7 (and over half of that was for a can of spray paint!), which is pretty awesome, imo. Check it out! The component/price breakdown is below.

Frame - purchased from a thrift store, spray painted gray ($1 for frame, $4 for spray paint)
Wooden Letter H - purchased from thrift store [she ended up speckling it gray later] ($.50)
Flowers - purchased from Dollar Tree ($1)
Ribbons and buttons - on hand (free!)
Sticks - from the yard (free!)
Metal Washers* - on hand (free!)

Project total = $6.50

*The frame leans a bit due to the weight imbalance, so my dad attached washers to the back of the frame to even it out.

Speckled Egg Cake

I like to follow craft blogs - they are both fun little escapes and an occasional source of inspiration. And unlike Pinterest, the good ones always have step-by-step instructions for creating the craft (usually by the blog author, detailing the minutia and mistakes alike). Please note, however, that I have discovered there are essentially two different kinds of craft blogs - those whose ideas I see and think Ooh, I could do that - perhaps even better! (see one of my new favorites, Dollar Store Crafts) and those whose ideas I see and think I'd like to take a shot at that, and we'll see how it goes (see any DIY craft from my bestie Martha). This cake craft was definitely one from the latter category, but I'm still pleased by it. That being said, no, I will not show you the inspiration image. You'll have to leave this page and go see it for yourself because I'm not offering up a side-by-side comparison. ;)

At any rate, I've been baking cakes since I was a kid - don't ask me about my frozen dinner last night (and the night before, and the night before...), but I have a solid set of baking skills that will get me through many a future potluck. So, without further ado, here's my basic set of skills put to use to make a speckled egg cake in honor of spring (yeah, that theoretical concept).

Step One: Bake a cake! Seriously, pick up a box of Duncan Hines or Pillsbury (whatever is cheapest, imo) and follow the directions. We (my mom and I) made two round chocolate cakes because thanks to our brief stints in the food services industry, we now know how to assemble layer cakes. Golden Corral ftw. Tip: Line the cake pans with parchment paper beforehand - it makes it easier to pop out the layers.

Step Two: Frost the cake! While the cakes were baking/cooling, I scooped the vanilla frosting out of its tub (we had an extra-large one - otherwise you will need maybe 1 and a half normal tubs of frosting - layer cakes are a bit high maintenance when it comes to frosting, I know) into a bowl and added blue food coloring. My mom had the paste kind, which I haven't worked with much, so I ended up putting too much in my first time, and there's no going back! So, our cake is a bit more vibrant than the inspiration image, which isn't a big deal.

After the cakes have cooled, simply frost one cake entirely (you can keep the top thin and imperfect, since it's the layer part), then stack your second layer on top of your first and frost it. I ran my knife under warm water a few times to get the icing looking as smooth as possible, since we aren't professional cake-bakers like my friend Ashleigh who bakes cakes for clients on the side (of teaching high school and working on her Masters!). And here's our finished result:

Step Three: Speckle the cake! First I had to whip up the paint. Yup, there's chocolate paint in this recipe! The mixture from my inspiration site is as follows:

In a small bowl, mix together 1 TB of cocoa powder with 1 1/2 TBs of vanilla. Stir well until cocoa is completely dissolved and you have a thin, chocolate paint.

Once it's all mixed up, take a clean (unused) paintbrush or toothbrush, cover the surface of your work space (i.e. kitchen counter), and flick your paint mixture on your cake. You should probably test it out first, and watch out for drops of the mixture from your painting tool - definitely had a few of those happen. And, yes, it's messy! Also - the chocolate paint is NOT like icing, meaning you shouldn't taste the leftovers afterward. My mom found that out the hard way.



Step Four: Decorate the cake! For our finishing touches we added Whoppers Robin Eggs around the edge to cover up the messy bottom (and heck, more candy is always better!) and made a nest out of chocolate icing on top, with more Robin Eggs inside. Pretty easy recipe - the only additional work was dying the icing and the speckling part. And picking your favorite cake/icing flavor combo pretty much guarantees your satisfaction with the finished result, even if it comes out a hot mess.

The menfolk of our family were duly impressed, except my grandfather didn't eat his Robin Eggs. Lame.