Birthday on a Spring Saturday

This Saturday Mr. P celebrated turning...a certain amount of years. We had family over for coffee and cake and we prepared a traditional Danish bday table. Note the obligatory Danish flag, home baked buns and the monster in the middle - kagemand or the cake man (see also photo below). Kagemand is traditionally made for kids' bday parties. The dough varies and can contain a variety of additives (such as marzipan, chocolate, sugar or honey). But the unifying quality of every cakeman is the insane amount of sweets that are placed on the cake after it is baked.

In our case the dough was made with yeast and as little fat as we could. The top layer was made of glazed brown sugar, powdered sugar icing, Haribo jellies and licorice candies. We were also going to use blue jungle sprinkle mix but there simply wasn't enough space. Anyway, you understand now the essence of the cakeman I think - and that is sugar-induced coma.

After we stuffed ourselves with sugar and fat we decided that the least we could do, was to have a little walk in the park. The weather was wonderful and I couldn't stop myself to take pictures of the fresh spring colors.




And in the evening, the weather turned. Storm clouds came about and the colors changed again.

Blue and White Polymer Clay Beads

I am very excited about this new beads I made this weekend. Look how awesomely blue and girly they are! I made 7 of them and it took me over 2 hours - a little bit long, no? It is precise work, but I hope I can shave some time of this work in the future.

Anyway, I love them and I am very excited to make more. Do you also like them, or am I completely blind? Should I make more? What colors should I use now? Tell me, tell me, tell me!

PS.
You can see more photos on my flickr account and if you work with polymer clay and share your photos online, you can also join Polymer Clay Art and Craft group on flickr. I checked and all the other groups seem restricted geographically or by type of polymer clay items. My group is open to everyone and invites all types of polymer clay works. So feel invited!

100 Hearts Giveaway!

My Etsy shop has now 100 hearts! This is such a nice and round milestone that I decided to say thank you to everyone by hosting 100 hearts giveaway. You can win ANY item of your choice from my Etsy shop.

What you need to do, is very simple.
1. Join my Facebook fan page
2. Write a comment under the giveaway post, saying which item you would like to get.

Giveaway lasts until Sunday 9th night. The winner will be chosen at random on Monday morning. So don't wait!

Polymer Clay: Second Date

It's been quiet here for a moment. But I have an explanation, really. I spent the last week honing my polymer clay skills but couldn't show you anything because the weather was really gray here and photos wouldn't be any good. I still don't have really good equipment for product photo taking (donations anyone?). Anyway, today the sun came out for a few moments so here it comes.


So, what do you think? Have you tried polymer clay? How did it go for you?

Polymer Clay: First Steps

Just two polymer clay pendants I made today. They are far from perfect but it was my first time, so please be gentle in your comments. Also, I really liked making them so there will be many more in the future. After all, practice makes the master.

Doilies Galore

I love making doilies. The repetitive work that leads to development of regular pattern, visible only at the end of work, has something zen-like to it. I always think about them as mandalas of crochet art. Unfortunately they don't fit my house decor so I lack reasons to make them. And that is why I was so happy recently when I got an order for a few doilies.

So let me brag about a few finished and unfinished projects:

Eggs, eggs, eggs...

Easter eggs galore. It is traditional in Poland (and several other countries) to ornament eggs for
Easter holidays. I usually use onion peels to colour my eggs from light yellow to dark crimson and leave it at that. But I thought you might like to see what my mum does with eggs from Easter:



The two eggs below are ostrich egg! They are bigger and much harder to break but the surface is also porous so it's harder to paint.




The next two eggs are coloured by boiling in onion peel. My mum uses a small knife to scratch the images on the shell (that's some skill, no?). It is good to use goose eggs or white chicken eggs because the greater the contrast, the better the pattern looks.


To see a few painted eggs from previous Easters, have a look at my flickr account. And now I am back to the kitchen, where everything is ready and smells so good :D I wish you all a very Joyful and Happy Easter.