3 Tier Cake Stand

Now that I'm caught up on previous entries, I can blog about my most recent and most favorite craft yet!

MY 3 TIERED CAKE STAND!

I've been wanting to make a cake stand for quite a while, but have always put it on the back burner. Since my niece's birthday was coming up, and I make her a cake every year, this was the perfect opportunity to pull the cake stand idea off of the back burner. Originally, I was going to just make one tier, but I liked the idea of doing cupcakes for her and making 3 tiers. Again, another very easy project. 

My first step was to find plates and glasses/vases. I would use the vases/glasses as the stand/base.  The patterns on the plates and the glasses didn't matter, I was just interested in the size, shape and details because I was going to spray paint them. I went to the local thrift store and had endless choices! I honestly could make about 20 of these with the plates that I fell in love with there. I made it out of the thrift store spending less than $10 and got all this..

Now that I had the goods, I needed to pick out a color of paint and buy a sealant which could be epoxy, clear caulk, or some other heavy duty sealant. I used a tube of clear caulk. I've never spray painted ceramic or glass before so I was a little worried about the end result, but was pleasantly surprised. It was SO easy, with no problems at all. I went with a light purple spray paint from Walmart. The only thing you have to make sure is that the particular paint is ok for glass and ceramic. It took 2 coats and I didn't even need to do a clear coat over it because it was a very smooth finish. 

After the spray paint has dried (I waited overnight to be sure), it's time to stack the plates and seal them on. Once I knew which way I wanted the glasses to be, upright or upside down, I was ready for the final step. I put a line of the clear caulking on the rim of the glass and centered it on the plate. There was a little extra ooze, which was cleared away with a Q-Tip, but can also be removed with some alcohol once dry. You have to work pretty quickly with the caulking because it dries fast, although it does need to set overnight. Using a heavy duty sealer makes the cake stand incredibly sturdy. I am SO happy with the finished product and know that I will be using this all the time. 

This is a picture of the first use of my cake stand, for my niece's fairy themed birthday party.

As you can see the pictures above this one show the glasses reversed, before the gluing process, then I changed my mind. 

Honestly, if anyone wants one, I'd be happy to do this craft again and make it for you, it was a lot of fun!

Argyle Love Silhouette

Going back to an old favorite, the silhouettes! These never get old to me. There are so many variations that can be done, it's endless!

A friend of mine wanted a silhouette done for the anniversary of her and her boyfriend. I thought it was a great idea, and now we had to get the perfect picture. The picture was taken during the summer at a BBQ/Beach Day that I had planned for a group of my friends. We had an idea of a pose she wanted in mind, but couldn't make it obvious. Fortunately, it's never weird for me to have a camera in my hand or not far from reach at all times during get togethers, so, this worked out well.

Following the directions I posted on a previous post from 8/25/10, "Not Your Grandmother's Silhouettes," I had my template. The couple is a very artsy and open-minded duo, so I didn't want to just go for any old frame. I wanted to find something different...

I liked the roughness of the wood which would be filled with a soft and loving picture. I spray painted the box brown, mounted the silhouette onto a solid background, green, and added in a shooting star, as I know that the star is very symbolistic of this particular couple. (Through good old girl talk). 

I thought the frame was missing something and I wanted to make it a little more personal. After thinking about the dude in the relationship, something jumped out at me. I know the male of the couple is an avid fan of argyle since every pair of socks he owns is argyle, I would help match the socks during some girl talk/folding laundry sessions. I wanted to paint the outside argyle pattern. 

The gift was a hit and I hope they will continue to keep this as a piece of work in their home.

Tea for Two...The Frog and the Toad.

For Christmas, I like to make gifts, surprise surprise. I tend to buy a present, and make something for the same person. So when it came to my sister-in-law, Rachel, I had something specific in mind. Rachel and my brother, Joe, have a little one, Drew (he's almost 2, and we still call him Baby Drew, which he will always be known as), and I knew that Rachel's all time favorite children's book was the Frog and the Toad. I had never even heard of these books before Rachel mentioned them a long time ago while she was pregnant and we were grazing the children's section of a bookstore in downtown Newburyport. For some reason, I always remembered that little "golden" tidbit. , my goal was to tie in her favorite children's book, with something they could use to decorate their new house with, and have it relate to being a mom as well, something that she can pass on to Baby Drew.

I had it! A framed picture of a page from one of the books.

I went to the local library to find a couple of the Frog and the Toad books, I then sat on a comfy couch in the children's section and started to read. What was I looking for? Just a page in one of the books that jumped out at me. I had a few favorites, and I proceeded to the copy machine to make photocopies of my choice pages. Those of you that know me know that I cannot make a single decision to save my life, so I copied quite a few to be thought over and decided upon. Luckily, it was only 5 cents/page.

Then, the fun begins. I ripped the edges of some of the pages and burned the edges of the others because I wasn't sure which I exactly wanted. 

Next, crumble them up into little paper balls. 

Open the paper balls back up and time to tea dye. If you've never done this before, it's easier than making a cup of tea! Get a bucket, a pot or anything else you have, boil some water, and put tea bags in your container. Let it steep for 5-10 minutes. The darker you want the dye to be, the more tea bags you use. Once the tea is steeped, take the bags out, and put the paper in. 

There's not really a science to it, I just kept the papers in and took them out when I liked the color, which was about 20 minutes. Take them out, and let them dry. Be careful at this point, as the paper is easily torn. 

Once the paper is dry, it's then time to start the watercolor fun. I used my niece's set of watercolor paints to put some color into the book page. I didn't want too much, just a hint here and there. Having several pages actually worked to my advantage at this point because I could play around with color and not have to worry about ruining it. It's actually really easy to do and it looks so good! The only thing you don't want to do here is worry about too much detail in your painting because it runs very easily. 

Unfortunately, due to holiday rushing around, I didn't take a picture of the final product, the framed, tea-dyed, watercolor page. This is a gift anyone can do, and it's extremely affordable, but at the same time has a lot of sentiment. I even got tears when she opened it, there's nothing better than that!