ruffle cake.

 

I have been in love with the ruffle cakes I see all over Pinterest and decided to give one a go for my mom's birthday! I watched a few YouTube videos for help holding the piping bag and a Wilton #104 tip.  Try holding the piping bag as vertically as possible the entire time and keep the small end of the tip facing you and the thicker end almost touching the cake.  I also did a quick crumb layer of buttercream before starting the ruffles for the best coverage!

Vegan Orange Layer Cake recipe from the Joy of Cooking

a pop of neon.

 My mom and I embarked on this chair project a few weeks ago and I have been so excited to blog about it!  I must admit that the results were pretty fantastic.  My mom's kitchen is gray, white and black and was the perfect canvas for us to experiment with some bold colors.  We both bought this neon spray paint in hopes of bringing more brightness into our homes, but not quite sure how we would use it.  The chairs were white with black cushions. We decided to spray paint them gray, and give the appearance that they had been dipped in these bright colors!  We tried multiple things to achieve this "dipped" look.  We tried painters tape and cardboard masking, but it was all too difficult to manage or it peeled off the gray paint.  SO... this idea was born.  Originally we thought saran-wrap and it probably could be done but when we saw the Press'n Seal in the drawer it was over.  We knew that the cling quality of the material would be perfect!  We then measured the same distance up on the chair and started wrapping!  We sprayed the first 2 chairs using neon spray paint and the last 2 we painted on with can colors that we already had. 

before

 And here's a peek of them in her kitchen! The spoon art is from IKEA and my dad built a frame around it that we painted pink!

paper cut design.

Here's a project I did recently with my art intro students.  I found the idea for the project here in the SchoolArts magazine and just made a few adjustments.  My classes loved it! It's rather time consuming and takes patience, but they all were so excited to see the end result. All the cuts are made using an x-acto knife.  You could do as many layers as you like- My students did a black or white top layer of cuts, a middle layer of color cuts, and then a black or white backing.  I advised them to make the top layer very intricate  and to create designs that really lead your eye around the piece.  The 2nd layer is meant to contrast the top layer and help those top designs pop, so they made more repetitive cuts.  At the end they carefully glued each layer down with Elmer's art paste! I'll post some student examples soon but here's the one I made with them!

after finishing my 1st layer...

and the 2nd...

1st and 2nd layer of cuts

end result

polymer clay earrings.

I've been experimenting with jewelry lately and here are a few of my recent makings! Each earring is made out of oven bake polymer clay. So easy to work with and lots of easy design variations!