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how to dye voile curtains ombre

April 29, 2013 by Ashlee · 6 Comments

Don’t forget to link up your window crafts on this month’s point of view link party!

We have no curtains on any windows in the basement, not that we HAVE many windows, but still. When this month’s challenge for “windows” came up I want straight to my pinterest board for inspiration. Picking lightly ombred curtains was easy, and just the bit of color this room needed!

The window in the living room is the largest window in the basement and the source of any natural light we get. BUT it was pretty boring and not very pretty. It doesn’t help that we have super low ceilings making it feel even more squished down here.

So I decided on full length curtains hoping it would make the room feel a bit taller!! I didn’t need anything to block light, just something airy and pretty. So I picked some voile curtains. It’s 100 polyester and I knew that it wouldn’t take the rit dye well (you need special sythetic dye- and have to boil the fabric) but I didn’t want the color too strong so I thought I’d give it a go!

I started by soaking the bottom of the panels in hot hot HOT water (I soaked them about 1/3 of the way up)

Then I added salt, and the powder rit dye. (I did purple and blue to get the shade I wanted) I stired until the dye was dissolved then added the bottom few inches of the curtains.

Every 15 mins I lowered the curtains into they dye a few more inches… then a few inches every 10 and then every 5 mins. creating a very faded effect. Then I rinsed them in cold water (top down so as not to get any dye on the top 1/3rd of the curtains. And dried them on the no heat setting of my dryer.

I wanted to hang the curtain rods from the ceiling, that’s why I got these cool round holders, but the air vent goes RIGHT over the center of the curtain rod and it didn’t work out. I attached them about 1/2 an inch down. The curtain panel are just a bit too long and my sewing machine is buried right now so I did a quick fold over and hand stitch so I could enjoy them until I can do a more permanent sewing job.

It was a bright day, and hard to take pictures of windows anyway… so you can hardly tell, but I LOVE the ombre effect. If you want a dark color don’t go with voile to dye, but for the light effect I was looking for it’s PERFECT!

You can see my slightly uneven fold over and stitch at the top. I’ll like it better when I can do it right without the extra bunch of fabric getting in the way. But for now I love walking into the room and seeing them. Just the perfect amount of color.

What color would you do in your living/family/dining room? I have grand plans to reupholster one of my vintage couches in purple this year…

Filed Under: Craft Tutorial, Crafts, sewing · Tagged With: dye, tutorial

Avengers birthday cake

February 6, 2013 by Ashlee · 8 Comments

When I got an avengers cake order for a sweet little boy I was SOOO excited. I’m a total geek deep down and I love all things hero, comic book, etc…

avengers-carved-birthday-cake-shield-hammer-glove-Tesseract

I was given free reign to do what I want and have fun. The only request was to have hulk hands and 3 D effect of some kind. ree reign is always a mix of super fun and very hard! Too much freedom

I actually went through about 6 drafts of this cake. When I finally came up with this plan I swear I heard a chours of hallelujahs, “Aaaahhhhhhh”.

avengers-carved-birthday-cake-hulk-hands-iron-man-gloves

Captain America’s shield being held up by the Hulk hands and Iron man’s gloves/hands, topped off with Thors hammer and the Tesseract!

I started it by shaping the hands out of rice krispy treats on the back of the 14 inch pan I used for the shield. I used two 12 inch cake plates and plastic hidden pillars to create the separation/wrists. I started out with pretty small iron man hands, but they kept breaking so they ended up MUCH fatter and thicker than I wanted.

Once they dried I flipped it over! Voila! Then I covered them with royal icing and then fondant! I spray painted the hulk hands green and the iron man gloves red, adding nails, and armor plating to each afterwards.

for the Shield I started with a 14 inch cake, that I carved into a dome.

frosted with chocolate ganache frosting, and then fondant.

to get the stripes I wrapped it in plastic, then cut a 9 inch hole. Then placed a 6 inch pan over the center leaving a 2 1/2 in strip! I airbrushed it…

then placed a 12 inch pan down and airbrushed the outside edge.

Take it all off and you have the stripes! I hand painted the blue triangles to create the white star.

I placed the shield into the hands! It was PERFECT!!!! I was so excited!!!

The hammer was easy, just a rectangle with the edges cut off at angles, ganache, fondant and some detail work. Finishing it off with some silver airbrushing.

The tesseract is another easy one, a square cake, covered in ganache and fondant. To try to get the inside look like it was glowing I spray painted different layers, silver overall, blue edges, pearl centers, more silver, more blue, etc… I’m really happy with how turned out!

Then I delivered the cake and set it up! Stacking as I went. I love love LOVE it!!! While there is always something I’d change about each cake it totally lived up to my vision of it!

I seriously took SO many pictures because I was so excited it came out so well!

I don’t often use my airbrushing gun, but I love the texture it created and depth on each cake layer! This entire cake is all white fondant and all the color comes from the paint!

avengers-carved-birthday-cake-Tesseract-hammer-shield-hands-glove

So… whose your favorite super hero? And what would you have wanted on your Avengers cake?

Filed Under: cake tutorial, Cakes, carved, Party cakes · Tagged With: airbrush, chocolate, fondant, tutorial

Baby Christmas Chair gift with Duct Tape

December 11, 2012 by Ashlee · 20 Comments

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Duck Brand® for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

When I got an email asking if I wanted to try out the new holiday Duck(R) Brand I jumped at the chance! I have always loved Duck Tape®, I used to make wallets back in the day, and my sister STILL has a Duck Tape® wallet!

When the tape arrived my kids saw it and asked if they could make something too! They love to craft as much as I do.

It was the same day I made a Costco trip and they had made a chair for the baby out of a mozzarella box filled with pillows. He loved it, so we decided to make a full holiday chair for him!!!

(I had my iso off for the first few images- sorry) So we picked our favorite Duck Tape® from their amazing holiday collection. Then we grabbed the box and some used some 3 inch foam we had in the garage!

we started out by cutting the foam down to the exact shape we wanted them. The Reader actually helped with all of this, but with the ISO off so many of the pictures were unusable that I don’t have any of her! boo. She was extremely helpful!

Then we covered the foam with the Duck Tape® creating cushions. We overlapped the design for the seat and back. We wanted to be able to flip it too, so the other side of the cushions are all red… We ran out of the polka dots so we covered both sides with all red.

Then we used the green to cover the box (yes it was already green, but now it’s plain.) The Reader did this entire part herself, I’m so proud of those straight lines… she totally has my OCD ness!

Then we put all our new cushions back into place!! What do you think? I love the red/polka dots against each other. We doubled the foam seat cushion so it’s extra soft. And because of the Duck Tape® it’s also water proof… so no worry for leaky diapers (lets face it, he’s the 5th so he doesn’t always get changed asap)

We put it under the tree and the baby saw it when he woke up from his nap! Everyone was SO excited for him to see it!

he ran STRAIGHT for it, and jumped right in! He was so so SO excited! he has barely left his chair since he woke up yesterday!

See this face? He is so happy with it. He carries it around the house and uses it everywhere, for everything. He’s sitting in it in my office next to my computer right now.

So what would you do if you had a few rolls of holiday Duck Tape®? I still have some left! We used it to box of Christmas presents to mail to family members, as well as reattach my husbands side mirror my FIL broke off when he got to close backing up (my in laws aren’t known for being good drivers.

For more ideas head over to the Duck Tape® Facebook page

Filed Under: Craft Tutorial, Crafts, review · Tagged With: tutorial

Gold Leaf Wedding Cake

November 14, 2012 by Ashlee · 17 Comments

When my cousin came over for her wedding cake consultation we spent most of the time talking about what she wanted for her cupcakes! Once we got the the small cake for the bride and groom to cut it was easy. Sticking with the metallic theme she was looking at gold and silver painted cakes, then I showed her a silver leafed cake and she fell in love! We decided to go with GOLD and I LOVE how it turned out!

We added lace to match her dress and offset it with a super large flower! It turned out SO lovely, I can’t wait to try it again.

Start with a fondant covered cake… Now we want to make it tacky. I considered spray painting the whole thing with spirits (clear vanilla or vodka) but in the end I decided to use my travel steamer (best steamer EVER). I usually use it to make a cake shiny (like the lego blocks cake and the 13th birthday cake)when it’s all finished, but it does that by getting it barely damp. if you leave it it will dry a bit and end up slightly tacky, perfect!

The first one I tried to grab the edible gold leaf foil out of the booklet and place it on the cake… FAIL, do NOT do this. it crinkled all up, stuck to my fingers, etc… It just sticks to itself like static cling, it’s worse than plastic wrap!

Instead leave the leaf in the booklet. Carefully open it up to the first gold leaf. I say carefully because the thin leaf is easily destroyed, it doesn’t take much of a breeze for it to fold and crinkle. So CAREFULLY open up the booklet, first hold the bottom of the leaf against the bottom of the cake and SLOWLY roll up the booklet softly pressing the leaf to the cake.

Here you can see how I hold it against the bottom (as well as the messed up first leaf). Once the leaf is stuck on pull the booklet away (careful not to flip the pages and ruin the rest of the sheets) and use a soft brush (this is one of my CAKE ONLY brushes) and softly run it over the sheet, making sure it is all stuck down.

Now for the second layer… This is also a bit tricky, once the leaf is on it’s still delicate. you can see where my knuckle touched the bottom layer and pulled small pieces away… grrrr So hold the bottom of the leaf to the top of the last layer and roll up the page- trying not to touch any of the finished leafing. Mine was taller than the cake itself so I folded it over to start covering the top!

The top was actually the trickiest part, cause I couldn’t flip the booklet upside down so I had to jiggle the booklet sliding part of the leaf off. Once it stuck to the cake I SLOWLY pulled the booklet away letting the leaf come to rest on the fondant., brush it down… once I was done I want back through carefully covered up gaps, holes and mistakes!

TA-DA! do you love it? I love it! How amazing would this look on a full 3 or 4 tier wedding cake???? I used 24 of the 25 sheets the booklet came with to cover this 8 inch cake. It took me about 20 mins to cover the whole thing, so it’s a pretty fast way to go once you get your groove. BUT expensive.

Then the finishing details! The lace and flower! It was actually supposed to be a different flower, but the florist apparently didn’t understand the SCALE we wanted the flower. the one he left was this puny 2 inch bud… so I raided the centerpieces to get this big fluffy hydrangea instead! The cake was a lovely centerpiece for all the cupcakes and most important the bride was happy with it!

Metallic & Turquoise Wedding Cake and cupcakes
Gold Leaf Cake tutorial
Five Wedding cupcakes and recipes
Dye your own sprinkles and sugar crystals