Decoden Cupcake Fascinator with a Cherry on Top!

I recently discovered clay... the air dry clay... the kind you don't have to knead the bajeesus out of before trying to throw on a wheel and then keep your hands hella steady to work up a vase.. I've done that.. in high school It's been some years now :). I miss getting my hand dirty then making something pretty out of mud. I do. But then my yarn get jealous, and there's a lot of yarn in my house.. so its best to not make it jealous... right? ;)

Not sure how long I will play with clay.. this play date was inspired by my ever creative and spontaneous coworker... :) yes, the one with a love for flamingos:). She's a bridesmaid in her brothers wedding coming up and not to be outdone by the black bridesmaids dresses she wanted to add some flair of her own. It's Laura, she's one of a kind and well, she likes to dress the part :). God love her for it! lol :D She shared with me a picture of a cupcake fascinator complete with a strawberry on top that she really wanted and thought I might be able to make. With all the craziness of work lately and the projects I have lining up (did I mention I have a queue? :s) I didn't see how it would be possible, and made a sheepish... "I don't know much about that craft genre" comment... it was true, I don't. I didn't. Did I have time for it? Maybe... evidently yes.. because here I am, making time to share the post and the creation/items with you. Honestly I think this is just what my creative juices needed. Was a break from yarn. There I said it! ^-^ And no, no I don't feel guilty. DO I think I'll wake up with a yarn noose around my neck from the jealous strings? No.. no I don't! Muha. MuahahahahhahaaaHA! :D

Youtube helped me out a lot on this project. I found many varieties of this "recipe" for making clay into decoden. Some mix the clay with water, others mix with glue and still others mixed the clay with lotion. I started with water and then got creative and grabbed a lotion I had called sweet pea. My coworker is in a play where she was cast as a My Little Pony. do you remember those lil toys? I remember they all had a picture on their butts of a rainbow, or cupcake, or shamrock, heart, etc. and the ponies themselves smelled like whatever symbol they had branded into their butts. I figured it would stand to reason that sweet pea lotion smell would add to the cupcake fun, no? The first time around I added much too much lotion and the clay was too wet to mold. The second time around I grabbed from the wet clay and incorporated it with the dryer clay to pace myself. Luckily that did the trick!  I think they turned out pretty okay! I like that they look a lil cartoony :). .. and I'm thankful I was able to come up with a cherry alternative that wasn't super heavy either! :D

What do you think? What fruit would you have done? Do you decoden?

And... yes... they were dry in time for her birthday! :D

...and for showtime! :D

Working on Fake Cherries now... for decoden later ;)

It's true! SEE :D

While I hope to update this post in the future with a youtube how to video, I might be getting ahead of myself. ;) There are so many projects in queue and if I didn't already tell you I was recently promoted at work - yay me - but with the promotion comes training my replacement, fumbling through the new stuff and making that learning curve my you-know-what ;). Progress is being made everyday, but my schedule is a bit sporadic and lets suffice to say there's a lot to do. I've stayed late a few nights already in an effort to get ahead of things, but I've ironically been working on historical stuff. In the times when I get overwhelmed, and feel like I'm not moving I press on with Dori's reminder from Finding Nemo... to 

 ♪♫ Just keep swimming, Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming ♫♪ 

Pass, fail or otherwise, sometimes just putting one foot in front of the other is what is needed. 

In any case, I had time enough to work on a project tonight that involves faux cherries... I'll reveal this project in it's entirety once it's complete but I was so tickled pink having come up with this idea I *had* to share at least a photo.. I mean come on! ;) Knowing I needed fruit... fake fruit... tiny fake fruit. I was stuck on the idea of a strawberry until I saw the slim pickings that Michaels had for fake ones. Moving on I spotted a bag of pink glitter balls - and envisioned they just might work for pseudo cherries. It was the next best thing I'd seen to fake plastic fruit so I decided to bring those puppies home. 

That was Friday...

On my way home from work today a light bulb went on ;)... 

I had green piping that was equally sparkly... 

and so... I give you... 

Cherries 

^-^ 

Stay tuned for the finished project in the next week. Lord willing I'll be diving headfirst into the rest of the project this weekend ^-^.  Are you excited? I know I am! ;) 

Happy Creating everyone!

♥

I'll be back with an update soon!