Etsy Favorites

Here are a few of my favorite Etsy shops for holiday gifts. 

Spiderbite- nightmare journals

Art by Mikie P

Gnome Doors

Hand stitched finger puppets

Ramonsterwear- Coloring/Activity Book

Tinymeat- Handmade Wallet, coin purses, etc.

Green Baboon Designs

WeeOnes Stitch Markers

Handmade toddler and kid backpacks

tiny handknit fingerpuppets

Ninjago Cake Walkthrough

So here's how I made the Lego Master Wu Ninjago cake... follies and all. As I said before I was inspired by these two cakes I had seen online: Ninjago Cake with Spinner and the Lego Chocolate Mold. I couldn't find any place to buy the lego cake mold online- apparently it isn't available in the US anymore- but after a quick plea to my Facebook friends I found a friend who had one and was happy to loan it out.

I started WAY early so I wouldn't feel rushed. I made the cakes a few weeks ahead of time and stuck them in the freezer. I made the chocolate guy throughout the week before the party. The day before the party I focused on putting the cake together and that took a LONG time. More on that later.

To make Sensei Wu I got melting chocolate from the local Decorette Shop and painted in the yellow parts, then the white. I kept one half hollow and another one I filled in with white chocolate to make it solid. I figured two hollow ones would be too difficult to line up perfectly. As it was I broke one hollow one and had just enough chocolate to make a second hollow one. The head broke off on the second one, but I was able to repair it and use a rope of fondant to cover the cracks. Two solids would probably work better, but thats a lot of chocolate!

I used the stove to heat a knife and blend the edges so it looked fairly seamless. I wish I had been more careful handling him, since he had such a lovelt plastic-looking shine when he first came out of the mold. Oh well. I also used melted chocolate to fill in the eyes since I wanted to paint them on to look more like Sensei Wu. The picture below is mid-smoothing. I stood it up in a bowl and poured a little melted chocolate in the bottom to make a base.

They have cool food markers that you can use to write on chocolate or fondant or both (make sure you know which you are getting!) I got a black one for the eyes and belt. I painted on chocolate food coloring (different than regular food coloring) for the design on his shirt but I would recommend adding chocolate or using the markers for this bit since the straight food coloring directly on the chocolate didn't set and later when I went to pick it up it smeared. It was salvageable, but would have been better had I used a marker. I used white chocolate to paint on the eyebrows.

For the beard I used gum paste and laid the beard out on the opposite side of the mold to harden so it would match the shape of the chocolate face. I used royal icing to stick it to the face.

I made the hat out of gum paste with food coloring mixed in. Actually, I made 3 different hats. The first one was great- plain white gum paste with little sticks of rolled gum paste for the lines. When they dried they all fell off and the hat ended up cracking. The second I made by making indents instead of sticks and after it dried I tried painting a little water with food coloring on top of it- looked beautiful, but got sticky. When I went to remove it from the mold it stuck to the mold. So then I made the one below by mixing the food coloring in first, then rolling it and putting it on saran wrap over the mold. I also put some oil on the saran wrap so it would come off nicely. It took too long to dry (after the two foiled attempts this was the day before the party, I think) and was too thin in spots and broke. With no time to make another one, I went back to the second one that was stuck to the cardboard and tried to cut the cardboard off. I got about half of it off and was not happy with being able to see the cardboard under the hat. I'm sure nobody noticed (and I took the hat off at one point) but next time I would do it the third way and just allow time for it to dry, or find another way to paint the hardened gum paste that will not cause it to get sticky and soften.

OK, so then I started the cake. I was so happy with how Sensei Wu turned out, but I was nervous about the cake- and rightly so! I was trying to save time by using a box cake mix. It was light and fluffy and delicious, but because it was light and fluffy it didn't carve very well and the fondant was too heavy for it. In retrospect I should have either used a pound cake, or other more dense cake, or simply omitted the fondant and gone with buttercream alone. Oh! And I should have just bought a 16" or 18" round cake pan and saved myself the trouble of carving a circle out of rectangle cakes!

So, lessons learned. I cut the cake into different pieces around a foam piece that I bought at the decorette shop and cut in half. Then I piped buttercream around the edge to make a barrier for the strawberry filling, and added the top cake pieces. So far so good.

I used buttercream frosting and put down a crumb coat (very thin layer to adhere to the fondant) Oh! I made a few holes in the styrafoam so I could pour white chocolate inside and under Sensei Wu to make him stay standing up.

Rolled out the fondant- I have used Satin Ice both times I've worked with fondant and it actually tastes pretty good. I've heard marshmallow fondant is good too, if you want to make your own.

Placed it on the cake and squish! the nice clean edges sunk down and the cake kind of fell out the bottom. It looked pretty bad. I wasn't sure how to salvage it or cover it up until my husband suggested that putting a bunch of legos around the base of the cake would hide it. Voila! Still lumpy, and not the smooth spinner I had envisioned, but it worked.

I made chocolate covered oreos for the dots. You could probably just put oreos under the fondant but I was afraid it would tear and I thought it looked just fine placing the oreos on top. I used Royal Icing to stick them on.

Colored white chocolate and edible markers to draw on the birthday cakes. I poured white chocolate in the holes on the foam so they were overflowing, then set Sensei Wu on top and poured more white chocolate over. Once it hardened he was pretty sturdy.

So there you have it! I'm sticking with animal cupcakes for his sisters birthday this month, but I'm already wondering what next years cake will be.

Ninjago Cake

My son turned 5 a few weeks ago and he really wanted a Ninjago (new Lego theme and game) cake with Sensei Wu on it. Here's what I came up with.

It was a challenge! I was inspired by several other ninjago cakes I found on the internet. I wanted to combine this spinner idea with this chocolate lego guy. I made a TON of mistakes, but considering I'm just a mom and not a baker or decorator I think it turned out pretty well. I took pictures along the way and will post a tutorial asap!

Hello!

I'm trying to revive this blog. While I am no longer selling my capes (although friends can always ask... if the timing is right I'm usually up for it) I still have crafty projects that I'd like to share. Stay tuned!

Messy Mama

I see pictures of immaculate sewing rooms. Beautiful, color organized fabric walls... inspirational rooms that would motivate anyone to create. There's even a flickr group to share photos. Drool-worthy. Then there is my sewing room. Until about a month ago we called this the office. Then the desk got taken over by my projects and now it's officially the sewing room- and it's a disaster. Granted, it's the week before Christmas and Hanukkah, so I not only have loads of cape orders but also my own projects for family and friends... but to be honest, if you stopped by in the middle of June it just might look like this. My plan is for a few more shelves above the sewing table. And bins. And I would like to organize my fabric by color. And I should do something with those two bins of scraps that I don't know what do to with but just can't throw away. But for now, here it is. My sewing space. Soule Mama I aint.

More capes coming soon!

I will be listing about 15 in-stock capes in the next couple of days. Head over to my Etsy shop to check them out! More will follow. I will have limited custom capes available over the holidays as I focus on spending more time with my family and finishing my own projects! Of course, gift certificates are always available and would make a great gift for kids who want to design their own cape.

Creative Handmade Holidays

We are taking the Handmade Pledge again this year. This means that we are making many of our gifts by hand, and are shopping for handmade, preferably local, gifts for the rest of our gifts. You might be thinking, "Lame. There are only so many knit scarves and macrame plant holders a person can take." but I encourage you all to think outside the box! Etsy is an amazing place to shop for creative, unique gifts. Here's what shopping for the holidays looks like for me.

"Hmmm, what are we going to get for Dave? He's really into bicycling. Let me do a search on Etsy and see what I find." I do a general search throughout all of Etsy and it yields 2332 items. I add the word "mens" and it narrows it down to 305 items. I can handle that. I also try it with "bicycle unique" and "bicycle man" to see what that gives me. Then I sort by price. Here are some of the cool things I find that I could get for Dave that are handmade:

These pins are $1.50 by lolabot. They also have a lot of other bicycle related items.


Shirt by Vital, $24


Recycled Bicycle Gear Bottle Opener by Foundry Wear $25


Matted and Framed 8x10 print, "The Bike Mechanic" $75 by Mary Williams Photography


Custom Bicycle Headbadge for $120.


Two Bicycle Pint Glasses by Bread and Badger, $28. They have loads of other cool etched glass pieces, and they are located here in Portland.

So you see- cool stuff! You just have to look for it. In the next few days I'll be posting a few of my favorite unique items from Etsy. Check back in for ideas for kids, teenagers, baseball lovers, and crafters!