Part 1: Mummified Faries

I went to a Renaissance festival a few weeks back while there I saw a vendor with dead fairies and leather masks.  She had the faeries displayed in real cute little settings.  She was also selling them between $60 and $80.  Which was way out of my price range, I showed them to my mother.  Who promptly said it is about 3 to $6  to make one at the most per fairy.  She figured she could make something similar or explain to me how to do this without purchasing them at that crazy price.   This is what she and I came up with.
I am making mummified fairies for the fairy homes which I am currently building and will post photos of that as well in the future, that was another thing I saw at the Renaissance fair but the item I liked was not for sale a three story fairy house.  So once again we are making it instead of buying it which was not an option on the fairy house.

What you will need in order to create your own mummified fairy is:

• a 4 to 6 inch plastic skeleton (a great time of year to buy them cheep is around  Halloween we bought 6 for $5  but thy went on sale right before Halloween for 6 for $2.50)
• tissue paper in skin tone colors: brown, tans, creams and so on
• mod podge is a thick white glue
• pan
• water
• stove
• tongs or slotted spoon to remove hot fairy from water
• rubber bands 
• something to make wings out of either feathers, flower shop floral butterflies or netting 
• parents supervision while working with boiling water and hot skeleton
• black paint for antiquing
• fabric scraps silk flowers and other nick knacks used to embellish fairy when done making it a mummy

Part two will be on boiling your fairy and forming it to the desired pose.

St. Paul's Cathedral

 I am learning how to make pop up cards.  I use card-stock and an x-acto knife .  This is one I have made and gave to my teacher I had last school year.  She has been to this cathedral several times and was thrilled to receive this.

If you would like to try your hand with such as this read on to find the link to the template.

It is hard to see in the photo but I did use a light yellow paper for the inside of the cathedral to make it look like light was showing from with in.  It was also meant to look like the inside of the cathedral floor was tiled you can see it a little better in the close up.  The flash did seem to wash out the yellow so that you can not see it well  in my other photos.


Go to this link to the  template.  You can buy one already done at the link above or you can download the pattern for free and make your own as I did.

Ladybug

Lady Bird cupcakes me and my mom made for a school celebration. They were Red Velvet, Chocolate, and Vanilla with butter cream frosting.  They are my favorite but do not eat to many they can make you quite sick to the stomach (too sweet).  This is one of my favorite frostings if you would like the recipe read on.

Butter Cream Frosting

3 sticks soft unsalted butter
1 stick solid white vegetable oil

 cream these together and add the following mixture 1/2 cup at a time:

approx. 2 lbs. C&H powdered sugar (it has less cornstarch then other brands) mixed with 1 or 2 TBSP Meringue powder. (this helps achieve a frosting that will hold its shape.

For a silkier texture, add 2 (or more if needed) heavy whipping cream.

Piping and decorating may require a bit more powdered sugar.

1 TBSP clean vanilla.

Have fun and I hope you think they are very tasty

Crayon experiment

 

I saw on the internet that supposedly you could use a crayon as a candle in a pinch and that it would burn for 30 mins.  So with my mother's supervision we gave it a go.    If you would like to do this experiment please read on for the tips and hints from what we did.
It ended up burning for about 25-26 mins.  We also discovered that the candle needs to be a fairly new candle as an old candle that had a dirty wrapper did not seem to burn as well as a brand new one.  The paper acts as the wick and also holds the wax of the crayon inside the paper until it is wicked through the paper to burn.  The picture to the left is our experiment to see how this works.  For safety reasons we placed in in a jelly jar on top of a ceramic plate on top of the stove we also used painters tape to hold the crayon up right  this does form a form a bigger fire hazard when the crayon burns down to that point.  I do have to admit not fond of the smell of a burning crayon but if you needed light and had no candles this works. : D