From sToRagE RoOm" to CraFt RooM!

Woot! I've been super busy the last two weeks.

First of all I've been doing some specialty props for a local theatre company. I love theatre and have worked backstage in some capacity for years on a few different stages. I've done some stage managing, set building, faux painting, specialty props, special effects, lighting operator, sound.. blah, blah. I love it!

So, I made this lovely chicken (I named her Betsy after my childhood hurricane experience because she is fast like the wind) for a production of Into The Woods. She has to remotely make her way onto the stage where "Jack" steals her from the Giant when he realizes she lays golden eggs.

From the start to the finished hen

Giant's eye glasses

I made her from paper mache and then attached her to a remote car. I gave her a hole with some netting in her bottom to keep her golden egg safe and attainable to Jack.. all in all she was fun to create. I made a few other items as well, including these giant 6 foot wide eye glasses. ----->

With all the props out of the way and my sweet better half (Gord) away for the weekend, I figure I can play in my art/scrap room 

all day Saturday, 

uninterrupted..

but, no.

Instead, I went into my "Art / Scrap Room" which is a gross storage room full of boxes... behind the furnace... that I carved a hole into and added a table. I even refer to it as "The Hole."

Ew.

Did I mention there are no windows? When I went down there, for my day of scrapping, I realized it was a huge creative problem. It's dark. It's not inspiring or pretty or even comfortable. It's ugly and I really don't like going there. So, I decided to tackle it and make it better. I know there are more than a few scrappers in the basement. Hopefully, you can snag some ideas and I'll even post some mechanical instructions in future posts. 

Thirteen hours later and a few instances of "Oh no, what have I done??" moments while moving boxes over to one end and my stuff to the other end, plus getting two big rugs under it all (see scary photos below) I have something I can live with. 

Much later all the boxes
at the end wall. Getting there..
and coffee time!

Every things in the middle, sigh.

Yikes! Where's my table?

Finally shaping up with some DIY closet components

This too, shall come..
I found this unused hutch top in my storage pile

Yay! I can no longer see the furnace.

Ok. Not perfect yet, but soooo much better. Now that it looks like it should be a room, Gord has promised to give me some wall boards.. right now it's just plastic covered insulation. Still border line yukky but it's a work in progress. :)

I can no longer see the boxes
on the end wall..
kid at his new spot :)

I also added some curtains I found packed in some of the boxes I was moving around. With some aircraft cable and turnbuckles to string them up I now have draped walls to hide the junk on the back wall and the furnace on the other end. I even gave my college kid his own desk to use, now he won't clutter mine with his homework and snacks. A little more embellishment organizing and maybe some swag lights to brighten up the space and I'm happy.   

Ok, maybe a fake window is in my future. Thats what I'd do on a stage and I can look at whatever I want to put outside of it... a mountain view, the ocean, a patio, oh my.. yes, unlimited possibilities. <grin>

Hmmm. Creepy.

I can make that!

Warning.. long post about cakes.

So, this past week I've been busy creating theatre props and my art table is covered in paper mache leaving me no space to scrap (as if I'd have time for that anyway). Once those items start to complete, which will all happen by this weekend,  I'll post some pics and details. In the meantime I have my "How I came to decorating cakes" story to share while I have my morning coffee. I started making cakes after watching an episode of Cake Boss and my sweet husband, Gord (he never knows what he is going to start) said "That's a cool cake!" Of course I come back with "I can make that!" The reply that slipped between his lips and consequently set everything into motion "Yeah, righhhhhtttt."

And so it begins..

Never having worked with fondant I scoured the internet and found this  Fondant Recipe and made this cake to try a few different things.. I even cut the flower layers on my Cricut. We didn't eat the flower so no worries about germs. Gord was amused.

Practice cake using stripes, harlequin, dots, bead trim and a Cricut flower.

My husband retired a few years ago, but found himself bored silly. He had tried some new careers but missed his very long career as a TV news anchor. Keeping the news idea in the forefront, but claiming to no longer have a face for TV,  he jumped into news / talk radio. One of the young news anchor / reporters in his station was moving on to Vancouver and we decided to have a send off party for her.. So, I made a cake with her on it, sitting by a little pink retro radio, holding her mic. Gord was impressed.

This time I tried making molding chocolate and used it for the girl and her radio

That very same week, a friend asked for a Pokemon cake... uh oh, two cakes!

Poliwhirl cut on Cricut Expression

 Working on the two cakes together...

Two weeks later it was my friends Birthday and she jokingly begged for a cake, but I was busy fretting about making a huge cake for another friend that required the Birthday girls golden retriever dog and a cat!! Yikes!

Anyhooo.. once the mess is out why not make more cake? 

I made my begging friend a small, personal cake and delivered it to her office, she loves Disneyland so I added a Hidden Mickey for her (can you see it?) Gord wanted to eat it up!

Not being able to make fondant black enough,  I gave in on this challenge and use Duff's black.

Now the biggest challenge and first cake someone is paying for. So, I can't screw up but I want to try so many things. I scoured the net and combined a couple of ideas from some different cakes to add with my own ideas and tried them all out on this baby to see what I was capable of. (I would credit the designers of the tree and snail but I can no longer find their cakes.) The tree is built using rice treat, the bark on it was a happy accident. This cake was definitely a challenge and took me 14 hours to complete. I may be able to do that in less  time now, but I'm not sure, it is very detailed. There is no Cricut used here, so they could eat everything. Gord was amazed! 

Without further ado... Cake #5 

Fondant Kitty! Idea from "Icing on the cake"

Fondant Retriever! I had to make this guy up on my own.

Fondant Snail, complete with slime trail..

This cake pictured on facebook has garnered me a lot of request, most of which I have to turn down as I'm not in the cake business. In the nine months since that first practice cake I have made a few more, but this is the cake that really pushed it over the edge and now the bar has been set. I can no longer make a simple cake. That my dear blogger friends is how I got my start using the artist medium know as fondant. 

Hugs and sweet sugar kisses,  Patricia 

Happy Mother's Day!!

Yay! I finally get a morning to myself.. of course it's only a couple of hours than I have to start working on some specialty theatre props for a local dinner theatre I occasionally work for.

I wanted to share the Mother's Day card I made for my Mother-in-law. She is a lovely, beautiful, Italian Woman who is a joy to sit and chat with. She loves her time in the garden and always has perfectly manicured flowers and veggies. So, I wanted to reflect that.

The torn piece of Polka Dot paper is by K&Company.. the ruffled flower is two sided paper (Ducks in a Row: Pat a Cake) by October Afternoon. I had a piece of wired ribbon in a scrap heap and bunched it up.  Lot's of edge inking going on..

 The butterflies were punched, glittered and layered.

I cut the tag on my Cricut using Fabulous Finds and popped it up on a couple of foam dots.

I decided at the last minute (ok, 20 minutes ago) I wanted a small flower on the inside and didn't want to turn on the Cricut.

So, I was going through my punches when a light bulb went on!

My small Hidden Mickey was to be reborn as a flower. I punched out 4 and overlapped them into this cute little flower. 

Magnifico!

Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms in the world!

I'm submitting this design to the Make it Monday linky party, drop over and join the fun!

That's a Wrap!

I had to wrap a Boxed CD set for my Husband's Birthday last year and wouldn't you know I'm unable to just do it like a normal person.

Instead I altered a cigar box to do the job.

Click on images to see larger sizes

We have a room for his guitars, a garage for his fishing gear and we like to play scrabble. So, keeping all that in mind I started by photocopying a Scrabble board and reducing the size till it fit my little Scrabble tiles. After printing the image I dunked it in very strong tea, and then used a blow dryer on it. I have to say this is my favorite distressing technique and I use it often. The recipe was found online and already distressed, I only brushed on a light spot or two of tea.

The pole is a twig and I added a real fishing fly to the string (with the hook cut off).. but I see it's missing.

For my manly projects I like to use black nylon screening and natural papers such as Mulberries and plain old brown paper bags. The screening can be cut to size unevenly and then if you pull the threads off a few at a time you get that eyelash effect along the edge.

On the inside there is more of the same idea.. I also added a little
brown bag that holds a tag. On the flip side of the tag is a description of a fishing trip I planned for us at a cozy lakeside cottage.

I wrapped the CD set in plain Kraft paper (not shown) and I made the tiny tag on twine to add to it.. I lined the inside of the box with torn pieces of paper bag instead of the usual tissue. Recycle! It made a nice cushioning for the CDs.

The long edges of the box were plain so I spruced them up with some music sheets, mulberry paper and a couple of sentiments I had around the scrap room.

The bottom of the box is a lovely wood. So, I only added another old recipe I found online for Possum Stew.

Here is the card... simple but effective.  Inside verse is on vellum and reads "Let us celebrate the occasion with wine and sweet words"- Plautus.

I made the envelope with more paper bag and cut a corrugated heart to make a seal.









So, next time you need to wrap a gift,  see what you have laying around!

This project is being added to : Inspire Me Fridays link up party!
                                                : Salvage it Saturday linky party!
                                                : Creative Cutting Room linky party!

Free beez..

I had to make some pages with tabs. So, I quickly designed these and thought I'd share. Handy when you need them. There are a few other free SVGs on my download page, I'm trying to add more as I have the time or I create one for myself. Enjoy!


Six Tabbed Pages

All of my free SVG files at Cropacabana.com can be opened with Safari or Firefox browsers. Internet Explorer will not open them. To download any SVG, click on the download button. When it opens, right click and save (“save page as” in Mac) to your computer. If you have any trouble contact Patricia directly.

Download the SVG. Open in SCAL, resize to your needs and then ungroup to cut individual pages. If you need pages ungrouped by me, please contact me.

Dirt Bike Cake!

So I had to make a cake..

Not just any cake, but a dirt bike cake.

I have only been making fondant cakes for about 4 months now and learned all I know through trial, error and the Internet. So, being a bit nervous about creating the actual bike (I was certain it would break apart), I bought a toy model and made the guy riding him out of fondant. Everything except that bike is edible. This cake was so much fun to make I'd do it again in a minute. I used marshmallow fondant for this one, as it didn't need to be perfect. I did use Duff's fondant in Black and brown as I had them on hand and black is almost impossible to get the black dark enough. The client wanted certain things such as "Over the Hill", "40" and "BRP" (Big Red Pig) what he calls his bike. I accidentally added an apostrophe, but didn't have another sign made up and dried to correct it. Oh well... they were very happy and "Paul" loved it so much he didn't cut the cake at the party. He saved it till the next day.

Petal Envelope tutorial

I give my apologies in advance. I seriously need a new camera.

Mine has died a slow and pathetic death, tattered images marred with eerie bars of light where none exist in the real world.. I swear my last video had The Milky Way running through it, complete with stars.

I'm really not sure what, specifically, caused it to stop working but I'll assume it was "delicate". Yes, I've tossed it into bags while vacationing, dropped it and dragged it around the beach all summer.

So?

Sand, humidity and falling over never hurt me. What a wimp.

Anyhooo.. I digress. I have made a short tutorial video on my iPhone to see if it could stand up to the test. Bah! Ever try to mount an iPhone to a tripod? Finally, settling on standing it up in my used coffee cup that was sitting on a portable set of plastic drawers I got down to business (I know, I know.. it's delicate (a few more dirty cups and I'll be saying goodbye to my little friend.) Sadly, because of the coffee cup camera holder, I could not shoot sideways which would make a bigger picture. When your done making fun of me, send duct tape.

Honestly, thanks for hanging in there while I sort through the camera issue.

I'd like to share my simple yet effective petal envelope with you. The SVG can be found in the downloads page on my website and you can cut it on your Cricut using Sure Cuts A Lot or Make The Cut. In my Baby Boy album this was one of my favorite pages. So easy to make and decorate to your liking. If you don't want the fold outs with 5 pictures, just make it and add one photo mat inside. Easy peasy. If you do that you won't even need a string closure and can just close it flap over flap (see image below.)

I also ended up adding a second large brad as I wanted to bring the string back up to the top and the little brad couldn't take the load.

And now, the iPhone video tutorial...