Flight of the (Marzipan) Bumblebee

Okay, so I haven't quite been chained to my workbench finishing off my shiny weather, as the small matter of the London Rollergirls season championship bout rather got in the way. I miss roller derby terribly, and it was really lovely to see everyone. Such a close and exciting game!

Obviously, being a former rollergirl, it would have been very bad form to show up without cupcakes, so I made some in league colours with my exciting new patterned icing embossy thing.

I have to say, I wasn't expecting it work at all, but I think they look rather good actually.

And look at these:

I found a super-fun icing attachment that makes the icing look like grass! Brilliant! Then I made some bumble bees to go on top of the cupcakes out of marzipan and flower paste. How cute are they?

Sadly, I had some of the little guys left over, bereft of a small cake to perch atop. I couldn't quite bring myself to eat them, due to their smiley little faces, but the boy had no such qualms and I believe has now munched through the lot. Poor little bees.


So, after my small diversion into confectionary , I'm back off to the workshop now.

A Small Pile of Weather

Shiny weather! Well, alright, it's not at all shiny just yet, this is what it comes back from the caster looking like:

Soon, it shall be turned into shiny silver cloud necklaces and earrings and sunshine necklaces too.

I get all excited when I collect castings - the two lovely guys who do my casting think I'm a teeny little bit mental. But I was especially excited to see how the sunshine turned out, as it was an absolute bugger to sprue and mould.

I shall now be chained to my workbench until they're finished.

I Has a Cuckoo Clock...

I love cuckoo clocks. I have been coveting one for quite some time and when I saw this lovely walnut timepiece of awesomeness by Diamantini & Domeniconi I knew it must be mine. It's possibly the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen and therefore perfect!

See? It has antlers and everything! And a swingy pendulum thing at the bottom. And it does match the furniture...

Sadly, I had to admire from afar for a while, as it was very, very expensive, but I finally tracked it down for cheap(er) in a furniture store in Islington. And now it is mine :)

Now the boy usually does a fairly good job of moderating my more bonkers ideas, but in this case all I can say is HA! FAIL!!! He actually quite likes the clock, and has complained that over time I have somewhat skewed his idea of ridiculousness. This can only be a good thing, no...?

I have also sneakily purchased some skull fabric, with which I shall be making a pouffe. Watch out for another of my inexpert experiments in making stuff soon.

New Shiny Project - Gothic/Baroque Initial Pendants

This is one of the new, entirely non-roller derby related projects I have been working on over the past couple of months.

I had been wanting an initial charm for my bracelet, which now makes a lovely jingly noise when I type, but could only find very boring fonts, machine stamped out of really thin sheet (which looks a bit rubbish to be honest, and the edges are all sharp and unfinished). Aha! I thought, I shall make something more chunky. Picked three of my favourite fonts and set about doing A, B, and C out of each. I cut them out of just under 2mm thick sheet, which makes them nice and solid. I think they turned out really well - just need to build a page for them on the website now...

First, a lovely tattoo style Baroque font:

Then, a kind of cute, curvy goth font

And finally, a kind of Tim Burton/Nightmare Before Christmas inspired gothic font. Although the C also looks kind of Olde English style.

I'm also working on something else which I'm very excited about and which makes me smile every time I think about it. More soon...

EDIT 15/5/11: You can now see all of the different letters and purchase initial necklaces here on my website. I also take commissions for Gothic/Olde English style name necklaces, just send me an email to hello@laurengrace.co.uk to have a chat about what you would like.