Neon Fairy Buns

It was a good friend's birthday last week, and I had the pleasure of concocting her annual birthday dessert. I've done a variety of cakes in the past, but decided that I'd opt for the increasingly popular batch of cupcakes this year. Cupcakes are everywhere, nowadays! There are tons of bakeries popping up devoted solely to the petite, more whimsical, cousins of actual cakes. The great thing about the cupcake is that it feels immensely more justifiable to eat than a whole cake. "I'll just have one cupcake...or maybe two...." When there's an entire sheet of cake sitting in front of you, however, there's always the burden, that someone will eventually have to finish it.

All that being said, cupcakes are chic, modern, semi guilt-free, and capable of being colored a multitude of colors in a single batch, so of course they seemed like the perfect choice for my little baking endeavor. Another one of my good friends, who happens to be my P.I.C. when it comes to all things crafty, and helped me whip up this premier bundle of icing, had recently given me a copy of "The Gentle Art of Domesticity" by Jane Brocket. As my cohort so eloquently put it, the book "is like chicken soup for the crafter's soul." Inside one of the delightful chapters is a recipe for "fairy buns" (I love that euphemism for cupcakes!) and the icing that accompanies them. The icing is made with gel food coloring instead of liquid, and appears thick and shiny in all of the book's pictures. The second that I saw, the sparkling, bright colors, I knew that I had to find an excuse to try the gel-icing for myself. Here's my adaptation of the recipe:

(Ices ~24 Cupcakes)

2 cups powdered sugar

Water (varies)

Teaspoon of margarine

A couple teaspoons of vanilla (varies)

Gel food coloring (Can be found at Michael's or JoAnn Fabrics, if it's not at the grocery store)

Medium-sized bowl

Small bowls or glasses (to mix the different colors in)

Pour the sugar into a bowl. Add the tiniest amount of water. Too much water will NOT work, because the sugar shrinks as it gets wet. Continue to add small portions of water until sugar becomes a thick, gel-like consistency. Add the margarine. Add the vanilla one Tsp at a time. How much you add will depend on how much vanilla flavor you want your icing to have. Once you've achieved the optimal consistency and flavor of icing, you can begin to add the food coloring. We used the end of a toothpick to add the food coloring, and that seemed to work pretty well. You dip the end into the little pot of gel coloring, and then into your cup of icing. Swirl the toothpick to mix the icing color. If the hue that you're left with isn't "pow-wow bright" enough, simply repeat the process until you get a color that you're happy with.

Note: The icing starts off fairly runny, but sets and stiffens with time. If you wish to save time, you refrigerate the icing before attempting to spread it.

I chose some bright, punchy colors for my icing. I also decided to decorate each iced cupcake with a little Nike swoosh, as the birthday girl has an affinity for sports, and Nike, in particular. In fact, if you were to walk into the women's Nike display at your local Dick's Sporting Good's, you'd find an array of sports attire in the color of these cupcakes. I was lucky enough to find some matching wrappers at Meijer, so I composed a mix of monochromatic and contrasting fairy buns. Some of my particularly favorite combos were purple icing with a green wrapper, and pink icing with a blue wrapper. This icing is definitely the most fun icing I've ever made, so I'll definitely be using it again.

finishing touches

I was able to make my last tissue paper pom-pom for my living room, so I have pictures of the finished arrangement of orbs. One project down!

I finally got around to taking pictures of all the knitting projects that I have to finish. The oldest unfinished knit work is a purse that I started making about two years ago. It's knit in a pretty blue/purple dyed yarn, that I can't recall the brand of for the life of me. All that I have to do to finish it is add a handle (which is easier said than done, since i'm braiding it myself out of strips of leather), and sew in a lining. There are also some construction details to work out, like do I reinforce the loops that will be securing the handle to the body of the bag?

Piece-to-be-finished #2 is the cute and very popular mini sweater that I got a pattern for off of glampyre knits. It's an adorable little shrug in denim blue, and would be perfect for the burgeoning spring weather. All I have left to do is finish knitting and seaming the sleeves, as well as attach a ribbon to close the front. My knit is a slight adaptation of the pattern as far as the sleeves and front are concerned. I like the poofiness of the sleeves, but want them to stop abruptly, without as large a cuff as in the original design. That, however, involves some creative decreasing to achieve the perfect fit and will take some work. I'm also going to forgo the original's crochet trim; I want to keep it simple.

Knit project number three is the best friend cardigan from Wenlan Chia's "Twinkle's Big City Knits." I fell in love with this sweater when I bought the book, and couldn't wait to knit it. I love that it's knit in super chunky yarn but has such a shrunken fit. Now I just need to make myself finish it so that I can wear it for a little while before it gets too warm. I've finished the right front and back of the sweater, and only have about 1/4 of the left front left. What's really deterring me from completing the chunky cardy is the thought of finishing the sleeves. The pattern calls for the sleeves to be knit back and forth and then seamed together all the way up the arm. I really don't want to sew two large seams. I just keep imagining tumor-like growths attacking my arms when I go to put the sweater on. What I would like to do is pick up stitches around the arm hole and knit the sleeves in the round. The difficult thing about that idea is that I would need to use size 17 double pointed needles, which are impossible to find in the store. I'm sure I could get them online, but that just seems like a lot of work, so, here I am. I guess I'll be hunting online for double pointed needles tonight. Oh, and I need to find clown-size blue buttons, too...another online special!

The color is a bright sky blue, but it looks more blue-grey here.

The last knitting project is one that I started a couple weeks ago. I was inspired by the scarflettes and neck warmers that I saw in one of the Etsy featured seller's store, Knittles. I thought, cold, northern Indiana winter needs warm chunky little scarflette. I was also thinking that it would be a really fun, quick knit. This is the first object I've made where I've come up with a pattern all on my own! Exciting!! (However, you can see how I was influenced by the cables and bobbles from the best friend sweater.) It's a sea of flowing cables with a couple of bobbles acting as buoys in the cream-colored fluff. I'm going to add a variety of buttons to allow for wrapping and bundling a couple different ways. I'm at the first button hole stage, and then it's knit a little more, find/add some cool buttons, and finito! I'll have a cute little neck muff that I probably won't be able to use until next winter. In my defense, it was still freezing when I started knitting this.

So that's the summary of my knitting tasks. I also have a bundle of pillows that I need to reupholster in my living room. The pillows are a part of my "make my living room feel/look like someone lives there" movement. Two of the pillows were supposed to be green, but after compiling some more decorative objects, I think I want to remove the green and replace it with a robin's egg blue. Banishing the green also means discarding the cool, but not-quite-chic lamp that I found at Goodwill two years ago. It's a green and blue swirled concoction. Luckily, there's a more elegant aqua-colored lamp that I've had my eye on at TJMaxx (another one of my "love" stores). I might have to go check it out again.

My current couch and pillow situation

On an unrelated note, the other night I was in lab pretty late, and in my tired and distracted state ended up dousing myself with a bunch of fairly strong-smelling, but not terribly harmful chemicals. Afraid of the effects they would have on the community washing machines in my apartment complex, I decided to throw out the t-shirt and jeans that I was wearing (I typically have a spare set of exercise clothes around, so I didn't have to spend the rest of the night unclothed.). The t-shirt was a cute, graphic, bright purple number that I got from Forever 21 a couple years ago. I don't own very many girlish, fitted t-shirts, and after sacrificing one for the sake of science, I've decided that one of my future projects will be to buy an inexpensive one (probable from Forever, again) and decorate it myself. It will fit me, be way better than anything I can buy, and have lots of personality. Unfortunately that's one more project to add to my list. Oh well, as long as I finish some of the old ones, I guess I can work on the new ones, too.

circles du papier

I wasn't able to make it to the craft store last night before it closed, so I had to settle for a trip to my nearby Meijer to fulfill all my tissue paper needs. (For those of you who aren't from the midwest, Meijer is like a super Walmart; it's a combo of both cheap stuff and cheap groceries.) I was actually surprised by the tissue paper selection there. Although there was no burgandy, which I was really hoping for, I was able to scrounge up some paper in silver, raspberry, and sky blue hues. After returning to my apartment, I quickly realized that the raspberry looked much more pink than red, and clearly wasn't going to work in my space. Slightly disappointed, but not discouraged, I assembled the other, cooler-colored pom-poms du papier. I really like the result.

I still want to add a third fluffy, floating orb to the mix, so I'm going to try and run out to the craft store in a bit. I'm thinking a nice, small cobalt pommy might do the trick. That was the one color that Meijer didn't sell in a single color pack, which surprised me, because I thought that a primary blue would be pretty standard. Oh, and for those who would like to know, I bought packs of 10 sheets of tissue paper for $1.99, used jewelry wire I had lying around to form the structure, and hung the orbs with a clear jewelry elastic. So these little beauties were $2 apiece, except for the silver one which was $4 because it's metallic (at least that's what I'm assuming).

Yesterday I forgot to add that one of the reasons I was drawn to the poms is because I have three petite floral balls resting on my coffee table. I found them while on a trip to Walmart for something completely unrelated. So yes, pretty things can be found anywhere and everywhere. I don't adore shopping at places like Walmart, and when I have the money I'm going to be all about the ShoLo, and organic markets. On a graduate student salary, however, I can't be as earth and people friendly as I'd like. Well, I suppose I could be, but then I wouldn't have cute things in my apartment. Oh the dilemma.

Walmart Floral Orbs

I still need to take those photos of unfinished projects; that will be tonight's task. Since I don't have those, I thought I'd share some of the thing's I've recently discovered that are on my "love list."

• I love these shoes that were on the undiscovered seller list on Etsy. All organic, custom-made, recycled ballet flats. What's not to love? Every time I check back at the store, more have sold. Crazy!
• I love the ruffled cardigans that are a mainstay at J. Crew. Every time I walk into a store (or outlet) I eagerly seek them out, only to let out a disappointed moan when I discover that the price is way more than I should ever spend on a little sweater. That being said, making my own adorable, ruffled, and best of all, one-of-a-kind cardy is definitely on my must-do list.
• I love this awesome shower curtain from Anthropologie. It reminds me of a giant flamenco skirt. For future notice, anthro is my "love, love, love" store. It speaks my soul's language, if that makes any sense. It's one of those places where I walk in and know that I'm at risk of falling in love with anything I glance at or touch. It has an aura that just makes me feel like I've come home. Tiny bookstores, hole-in-the-wall cafes, and vintage clothing stores elicit the same response from me. Sometimes I strongly dislike living in a place that lacks all those things. Sigh....
  

too much of a good thing

I have the unfortunate tendency to lose myself in the present. Each of my actions is not simply the task at hand, but instead a conglomeration of the multitude of activities that are flooding my mind in that moment. In simpler terms, I find inspiration in everything and am constantly dreaming up new projects to add to my to-do list. While I love and cherish my fifth eye (third eye's already taken, and I don't like even numbers, so...), my list of future tasks has grown to giraffe height. To make things worse, my actual occupation, graduate school, takes up approximately 12-15 hours of my day. Why a crazy, creative girl like me decided to try and get a PhD in chemistry I'm still trying to figure out. Anyway, I have no time, and the ideas keep coming, so I need to make some headway in knocking that giraffe down to at least an ostrich.

That's where this little venture into blogging comes in. I figure that if I take the time and effort to share some of my ideas, and the progress that I've made on them, then I may actually be inspired to attempt and/or finish them. As I've neglected to mention, I loooove starting new projects, but as my inspired cogs continue to crank out new tasks for my poor excuse for spare time, I never seem to end what I start. However, it's a new year, and I resolve to finish the ends on all the tails I've left hanging (literally in the case of my knitting projects). As to how I'm going to keep the new ideas at bay, I haven't figured that one out yet, and to be honest, I really don't want to stop them, just slow them down a bit.

I'll try and post pictures of started, but unfinished projects soon. My latest idea, is to make tissue paper orbs to hang from the ceiling of my sparsely decorated living room. The room was in desperate need of sprucing, and during one of my 5,000,000 daily visits to Etsy I found this shop: pomlove. I loved the poms, but decided that I could save some money (my constant mantra) and make my own. So I did some google-ing, and came across this how-to from Martha Stewart (see picture below). It's fast and super simple, so now I'm off rushing to the craft store to purchase the desired paper. Pictures of finished orbs to follow!