Lightsaber candle holders

Hello! May the Force be with you! I try to make a Star Wars craft for every International Star Wars Day and this year I made lightsaber candle holders! ^___^

I actually started making these for *last year's* ISWD, but I didn't finish them on time! This year, although I finished them, they are kind of a fail craft so I haven't done a full tutorial.
 

Basically I started off with the coloured candles; they were surprisingly hard to find! I ended up with these mini candles, but they came in lots of different colours! It was hard to limit myself to only buying four packets ~___^
 

I used Sculpey to make the actual holders; I basically made a thick but short sausage and then inserted a skewer and rolling it around on the inside of the clay until it was hollow. Then I added all the little lightsaber details and baked them according to package instructions.
 

After painting and glazing, I inserted the candles but I must have made the holders slightly too snug because three out of four of my holders cracked!  *insert sad trombone noise here*

The only good thing I can say about that is at least they cracked on the backs?

So, that's my fail craft confession! Looks like Master Yoda was wrong - sometimes all you can do is try! ~___^
 

I think all I would need to do to make this project work is to make the holders slightly bigger before baking them, but since it's taken over a year to get them to this stage, that might take some time!

I hope you all have a marvelous International Star Wars Day, and you can check out some successful Star Wars projects through the links below! ^___^

BB-8 amigurumi

Sarlacc cake

 

Darth Vader coffee cup cosy

 

Leia and Han watercolour quote art

 

 

Wicket the Ewok crochet cushion

Princess Leia hoop trio

Bless this Mess Death Star cross stitch (with free pattern!)

Princess Leia crochet and spool knitted bun hat

 

Star Wars finger puppets (with free patterns!)

 

Lightsaber perler bead brooch

 

Leia and Han card

 Han shot first cross stitch

 Perler bead Stormtroopers

AT-AT string art

- Lisa xx 

BB-8 amigurumi

Hello! Well, I decided it was finally time to show you the photos of my completed BB-8 amigurumi!

I used a pattern by Mysterious Cats and it was totally worth the $4.66! ^___^ It was very easy to follow and quick to work up. I actually finished making this little BB-8 at the end of last year, on the same day that I started making them. That's gotta be some kind of record!

 

But then I had all these ideas about staging for the photos - like making a background of Jakku and making a Rey costume for one of my Blythe dolls so they could pose together - and as a result I procrastinated over taking any photos for four months. I expect that is also some kind of record!

Anyway, when I was taking photos of my Bee cosplay, I also grabbed BB-8 and finally did a little photoshoot. There is a little sandy patch under our letterbox in which nothing grows, which I figured was close enough to Jakku ~___^

 

Also, can you believe it's only just over three weeks until International Star Wars Day? I haven't even decided what I'm going to make this year!

 

I think there is a strong possibility it will be another iteration of BB-8 though; just look at that adorable little face!

- Lisa xx

Baking, succulents, and parties

Hello! I realised recently that I have an awful lot of photos of little things I have made/ baked, but I haven't shared them with you! You may have seen some of these on Instagram, but here we can talk about them a little more without having to make those huuugggeeee comments that end up looking like a really dense wall of text ~___^

First up: ugly cake! Scott and I recently celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary for which the traditional gift is salt. I thought that sounded a little boring so instead I decided to make a salted caramel cake. I wanted to make a layered cake, but I also didn't want it to be huge so I made a rectangle shaped upside down cake, and cut it into smaller circles. The caramel part of the upside down cake means that I didn't have to put anything between the layers.

However, cutting nice looking circles from cake is actually a lot harder than I expected it to be! When I layered them up, I realised how wonky my cake was! >___<

I thought about covering the entire thing in buttercream icing to try and make it look nicer, but ultimately decided that salted caramel layers and a salted caramel sauce poured over the entire thing was probably enough forms of sugar for one small cake so I left it naked and ugly ~___^ We ate it anyway, and it tasted pretty good!

I also made a simple card for Scott. I used a black and white chevron paper to cover a blank card, glued on a square of gold heart patterned paper, and stuck a black and gold embellishment in the middle. I messily scribbled a border around the heart paper with my silver metallic pen and it was done!

Bunnings had a heap of tiny succulents for sale recently, so I brought, ummm, way too many of them. I put one in a tiny teacup to give to a friend for her housewarming, and put two more in two empty tins I kept because they're cute. I added dinosaurs because dinosaurs are awesome.

I put the rest in a bigger pot, and added more dinosaurs and some pretty little rocks. I'm not sure how well that one in the middle is going; I brought it because I thought it was a cool colour, but I'm now thinking that perhaps I brought a dying succulent. Hmm.

I designed a badge to give to some of my derby pals, and recently two of my buddies from skating star classes had their birthday so I used two of the leftover pins to decorate some hair bows. The fabric I used is the same design as the badges, which I got printed from my Spoonflower store.

For my birthday I had an Adventure Time themed party - I didn't take many photos but I did remember to photograph some of the food (the most important part, right! ~___^)

I made Lumpy Space Crackles with using this recipe ... except I didn't put in any cocoa and I used honey instead of maple syrup. I also added some blue and red food colouring which didn't mix in that well. I was hoping for it to make purple, but it mostly didn't. I also put on some star shaped sprinkles to make them more space like ^___^

I brought some Adventure Time cookies, but they didn't taste that great so I made them into chocolate bark, with the addition of salted pretzels and pop rocks. They were a big hit!

I also made a Tree Trunks apple pie; the fancy lattice top was trickier to make then I expected it to be! It tasted really great and even though it was huge, it got demolished really quickly.

These sunglasses were made for my friend Clare for Christmas. Clare has an adorable style and is a big fan of daisies, so I wanted to make her something to suit her look.

All I did to make these was glue little daisy cabochons around the frame of some round sunglasses. It was really easy, but they turned out really cute!

I also made these Wookiee cookies after seeing these super cute biscuits by Sugared Nerd.

I used a mini gingerbread person cutter, and melted chocolate for the details. I adore how they turned out!

I made this chocolate bark for my dad for Christmas - I added almonds, pepitas, pistachios, dried cranberries, and white chocolate chips to melted dark chocolate. I also made Dad some coconut ice using this recipe (except I used Stevia instead of rice malt syrup), a trail mix, and more gingerbread. I added twice the amount of ginger into Dad's batch than I used for the Wookiee cookies because both of us like our gingerbread really spicy (not that he wanted to share! ~___^)

Inspired by Messy Nessy Chic, I made this cheese platter Christmas Tree for after our family lunch. Honestly, we were all a bit too full for this, but we did our best anyway! ^___^

Lastly, I've been working on the Death Star blanket. If you've been a long time reader of this blog, you may remember that I started this project in, oh, 2011. It's been in the WIP box for a long time, but the new movie inspired me to get it back out. I've started joining the squares, which makes the whole project a little more inspiring - I've almost finished the rows with the laser! (Baby steps!) ^___^

- Lisa xx

Brooches, leather stamping, and glass painting

Hello! I wasn't sure what to show you today, as I haven't finished any new projects this week. However, I do have some little projects that I haven't shown you before so now I figured you could see all of them! ^____^

 I made this brooch for my friend Clare as a "leaving Perth" gift. I designed the image using Illustrator, printed it out, glued it to balsa wood, cut it out, coated it with mod podge, and attached a badge backing. Unfortunately, since I'm such a procrastinator, I didn't have time to take any photos of it before getting to the pub and giving it to Clare!

Luckily, she didn't mind me stealing it back for a few quick snaps ~____^ The tiny banner says "home is where the heart is", but Scott said I should have made it say "they can break a man's arm you know!" (you'll have to watch Hot Fuzz for that reference!) The brooch image is of a black swan on the Swan River (yup, that's what we called it! Clever and original, huh?), in front of the Perth skyline. I drive around and over the river on my way to work and the city, and I always love seeing the swans. I hope they will remind Clare of some fond Perth memories while she makes her new life in Melbourne ^___^

I used basically the same technique to make myself this Glow Cloud brooch. I used scrapbooking paper for the background, and a pen to write on the letters, and then mod podged it onto the balsa wood. I also coloured in the edges of the brooch with a black sharpie, which I really like the look of.

 

I made these little key ring charms for my brothers using leather, metal stamps (courtesy of Bek who knits), a black felt-tip pen, rivets (courtesy of Bec), and some large jump ring type things. As you can see, the red leather has more texture which made the stamping a little less visible; the black pen helps with that a bit, but overall the green leather worked out the best. I haven't actually given Brett his gift yet, but he doesn't read my blog so I think we're safe ~____^ Craig liked his, which was a pleasant surprise as they don't often appreciate handmade gifts.

I also made a key ring charm for Scott; this one is done on black leather but the stamping actually showed up quite well! Perhaps by this time I was actually using enough pressure when hitting the stamps ~____^

Emma from A Beautiful Mess painted some gorgeous cactus bottles, and I decided I simply had to give it a go myself! I don't have many colours of glass paint, but I had the primary colours so I mixed up some green and got painting. I've been using them as water bottles, which I think is much nicer looking than constantly reusing old plastic bottles. When I'm not using them, they also make a pretty little garden on my kitchen windowsill ^___^

And since I had my paints out, I decided to decorate the jars I use for making chia puddings and overnight oats in. I did some gems and an ice-cream cone, but my favourite is Space Kitty! They certainly brighten up my mornings ^____^

I've got skating tonight, and I'm sincerely hoping it's not as cold as last week - we were all breathing out fog and steam actually came off our limbs when we took off our knee and elbow guards! Brrr - think warm thoughts for me, please!

- Lisa xx