I've started a second blog for my other hobby: photography! I have a huge pile of great pictures dating back to 2004, so it will take me a little while to upload them all, but I have already posted my pictures from my Iceland trip in 2004 and will continue with more posts, soon!
http://myworldin1000pictures.blogspot.de/
(And as soon as the grading period in school is over I will return to some more jewelry crafting!)
~Sky
Tuesday, 30 April 2013
Tuesday, 19 March 2013
Steampunk Jewelry Giveaway!
Catherinette Rings is run by a jewelry maker in Canada. They have awesome wired steampunk jewelry. My husband and I both have some pretty cool rings from them and I just adore (but can't afford) their steampunk animals like spiders and stuff.
To celebrate their 5th anniversary they are giving away some jewelry! More infos on how to get your hands on one of their pieces follow this link:
http://steampunkrings.blogspot.ca/2013/03/steampunk-jewelry-giveaway.html
Of course I will join their giveaway, too, but I wish you good luck anyways! =P
To celebrate their 5th anniversary they are giving away some jewelry! More infos on how to get your hands on one of their pieces follow this link:
http://steampunkrings.blogspot.ca/2013/03/steampunk-jewelry-giveaway.html
Of course I will join their giveaway, too, but I wish you good luck anyways! =P
Monday, 11 March 2013
Turning 30 - a good reason to make Cake Pops!
And there it is. As a friend of mine called it: the "evil 30"! It's my birthday today, so instead of crafting I was busy making cake pops this weekend.
My sister told me about cake pops and how easy they are to make. When I started googleing and browsing amazon I realized how many people already know about cake pops! And as it is custom to bring breakfast to school on your birthday, I decided to make some cake pops for my colleagues. (Cake pops derive from the word lollipop, i.e. cake balls on a stick!)
A colleague lent me her cake pop form and a book full of recipes. Unfortunately all the recipes where based on American ingredients and the recipes I liked had ingredients that I couldn't find in our stores. So I picked 3 German recipes: Coconut, Baileys, and Black Forest Cake.
For the coconut and Baileys cake pops I bought ready made light cake. (They sell those over here and you only have to cover them in fruits if you want to make a fruit cake. ) For each flavour I cumbled 400g of cake into 75gr of butter, 175gr of cream cheese, and 150gr of powdered sugar.
For the coconut flavour I added 3 tablespoons of cocnut milk and 125gr of rasped coconuts. The Baileys balls got 5-6 tablespoons of Baileys mixed into the dough.
Then you mix everything well together until you have a sticky mass of dough. Form dough balls of about 3-4cm and put them in the freezer to cool them down and make them a little harder. (The original recipe suggested the fridge, but for me the freezer worked better.)
While the cake balls are cooling, melt chocolate until it is creamy. I used white chocolate as base and melted some brown and pink chocolate for decoration purposes.
Take the balls out of the freezer and start putting them on sticks. You can either buy plastic lollipop sticks online or use wooden sticks from the store. Because the balls were so heavy I had to use two wooden sticks per ball. Hold them over the pot with the melted chocolate and use a spoon to let the chocolate over the cake balls. If the cake balls are really nice and cool the chocolate will dry faster. Decorate them as you wish with more coconut bits, sugar pearls, nuts, or whatever you like!
I then stuck them on a plate of styrofoam that I had wrapped in aluminum foil to let them completely dry.
Making the black forest cake pops is very similar. Instead of light cake dough I used 400gr of chocolate cake dough (of course you could bake the dough yourself if you don't want to use the ready made dough). I crumbled it up and mixed it with butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar, and 4 large table spoons full of sour cherry jam. The recipe also suggests to cut up dried sour cherries, but as I got the jam that had cherry bits in it I used the dried cherries for decoration only. Then proceed as previously described!
And voilá!
My sister told me about cake pops and how easy they are to make. When I started googleing and browsing amazon I realized how many people already know about cake pops! And as it is custom to bring breakfast to school on your birthday, I decided to make some cake pops for my colleagues. (Cake pops derive from the word lollipop, i.e. cake balls on a stick!)
A colleague lent me her cake pop form and a book full of recipes. Unfortunately all the recipes where based on American ingredients and the recipes I liked had ingredients that I couldn't find in our stores. So I picked 3 German recipes: Coconut, Baileys, and Black Forest Cake.
For the coconut and Baileys cake pops I bought ready made light cake. (They sell those over here and you only have to cover them in fruits if you want to make a fruit cake. ) For each flavour I cumbled 400g of cake into 75gr of butter, 175gr of cream cheese, and 150gr of powdered sugar.
For the coconut flavour I added 3 tablespoons of cocnut milk and 125gr of rasped coconuts. The Baileys balls got 5-6 tablespoons of Baileys mixed into the dough.
Then you mix everything well together until you have a sticky mass of dough. Form dough balls of about 3-4cm and put them in the freezer to cool them down and make them a little harder. (The original recipe suggested the fridge, but for me the freezer worked better.)
While the cake balls are cooling, melt chocolate until it is creamy. I used white chocolate as base and melted some brown and pink chocolate for decoration purposes.
Take the balls out of the freezer and start putting them on sticks. You can either buy plastic lollipop sticks online or use wooden sticks from the store. Because the balls were so heavy I had to use two wooden sticks per ball. Hold them over the pot with the melted chocolate and use a spoon to let the chocolate over the cake balls. If the cake balls are really nice and cool the chocolate will dry faster. Decorate them as you wish with more coconut bits, sugar pearls, nuts, or whatever you like!
I then stuck them on a plate of styrofoam that I had wrapped in aluminum foil to let them completely dry.
Making the black forest cake pops is very similar. Instead of light cake dough I used 400gr of chocolate cake dough (of course you could bake the dough yourself if you don't want to use the ready made dough). I crumbled it up and mixed it with butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar, and 4 large table spoons full of sour cherry jam. The recipe also suggests to cut up dried sour cherries, but as I got the jam that had cherry bits in it I used the dried cherries for decoration only. Then proceed as previously described!
Friday, 15 February 2013
DIY Steampunk Nerf Guns
I saw this steampunk gun at a friend's house and loved it. But I didn't really wanna spend 60€ or 70€ on a nerf gun. So I went on Amazon and looked at other nerf guns.
picture from steampunk.net
I ordered the following two guns: The first one was this little Jolt. I thought that if I could make a nice garter, I could wear this hidden under a skirt and pull it out when no one is expecting it.
picture from Amazon.de
The second one I ordered is this Nitefighter gun. I liked its size and the fact that it has a red light when you aim your target.
picture from Amazon.de
For my husband I also ordered a plain maverick. He used to have one, but he left it in the States when he moved to Germany. We're still working on turning his gun more steampunk, so the pictures for that will follow at some point.
When the guns arrived I wanted to take them apart and spray paint them. With the Jolt it wasn't too difficult because you could only take of the bottom part. With the Nitefighter I sprained one of the screws so that taking it apart wasn't possible any more. I wouldn't do it with the Jolt any more either, because when I put it back together afterwards the pressure wasn't right any more and the gun is not shooting any more.
Anyway, I used reddish-gold and bronze spray paint to spray the guns. The gold one I used to highlight a few areas while the bronze covers the whole gun.
I tried to spray parts of the jolt silver, but it was a metallic effect spray that didn't really work, so I used acrylic paint to turn them silver.
With some brown and silver acrylic paint I added more highlights. If I'm doing this again, I'll use real brown and silver spray paint. Especially the brown trigger of the Nitefighter is tricky, because the acrylic paint is so thick that it rubs off when I try to pull the trigger.
And then the bedazzling (or be-gearing) started! With industrial glue I added lots of details to the guns, making them unique and special!
DIY Steampunk Cane
Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures before I started working on the cane.
I found this cane at the flea market last weekend. It was only 3€ and black. It had scratches and the paint had flaws at the bottom, so I used sandpaper to roughen the cane and to get lose paint parts off the cane. The lower half was almost completely paintless, so much colour came off. I then used brown spray paint for the stick and reddish-gold spray paint for the handle.
I cut a piece of brown leather and used a body painting stencil and more spray paint to spray a gear pattern onto the leather. I punched holes along the long side of the leather and used some leather string to give the cane a little leather corset.
I twisted some wire and nailed it to the cane. With a cute setting, a gear and cameo I added more to the leather corset. from the setting I have chains hanging down with a dark purple and a music-note ribbon. And then I went crazy on the charms and added charms, beads, and gears everywhere.
I love the result. It is my kind of gentlelady cane!
I found this cane at the flea market last weekend. It was only 3€ and black. It had scratches and the paint had flaws at the bottom, so I used sandpaper to roughen the cane and to get lose paint parts off the cane. The lower half was almost completely paintless, so much colour came off. I then used brown spray paint for the stick and reddish-gold spray paint for the handle.
I cut a piece of brown leather and used a body painting stencil and more spray paint to spray a gear pattern onto the leather. I punched holes along the long side of the leather and used some leather string to give the cane a little leather corset.
I twisted some wire and nailed it to the cane. With a cute setting, a gear and cameo I added more to the leather corset. from the setting I have chains hanging down with a dark purple and a music-note ribbon. And then I went crazy on the charms and added charms, beads, and gears everywhere.
I love the result. It is my kind of gentlelady cane!
Earrings
In between all the steampunky stuff I also made a few other things: EARRINGS!
I am a total earring addict. This Christmas I had my ears pierced again. Now I can wear 3 different pairs of earrings at the same time!
OK, let's see: here we have some cute Ginko leaf earrings. From the distance you could think that they are mermaid earrings, the ginko leaf being the fish tail!
These are a little simpler than what I usually wear. But I just love the Japanese beads!
Feathers! I cut the feathers myself and put them in a clasp before I added them to the earrings. I just love them all!
I am a total earring addict. This Christmas I had my ears pierced again. Now I can wear 3 different pairs of earrings at the same time!
OK, let's see: here we have some cute Ginko leaf earrings. From the distance you could think that they are mermaid earrings, the ginko leaf being the fish tail!
These are a little simpler than what I usually wear. But I just love the Japanese beads!
Feathers! I cut the feathers myself and put them in a clasp before I added them to the earrings. I just love them all!
My all time favourite colour: purple. And especially in winter I love this pale purple to go with the snow outside!
Other steampunk accessories and experiments
These necklaces I call "Steampunk in a bottle". I have filled the bottles with tiny watch parts that I couldn't use in my other creations. I didn't really want to throw them away, so I tried to see what they would look like in these tiny flasks that I had bought years ago and voilá! I think they are pretty neat and I like wearing them!
These cute earrings are Alice in Wonderland inspired. The white rabbit charms are losely attached to the gears so that they can move seperately.
I got a very pretty dragonfly necklace for Christmas from my husband's aunt. Her daughter is friends with the designers and they make some really gorgeous stuff. I had these dragonfly charms, so I thought I'd make my own smaller version, with different gears and different colours. I kept one of these to myself, one got my photographer friend for helping me with my Valentine's gift to my husband, and I still have one left to give away.
I like sets, so I also made these dragonfly earrings. The dragonflies are glued to the gears.
I like grammophones. I'd love to have one, even if it's just for decoration. My husband and I have been talking about turning one of the rooms into a steampunk room when we have a house. I'd love to have a steampunk living room. ;) But for now these earrings will do.
I've been back at the fleamarket for the first time in months and I found this great merchant who had a box full of clock pieces. I found the following two pieces there. What I like about them is the swinging part in the bottom. The first one I have decorated with additional gears. I was hesitant about adding a rhinestone because I think it is pretty as it is.
With the second one I am not that happy yet. I added some filigree base as well as gears and beads. But the special something is still missing. Maybe adding some rhinestones will give it an extra spark.
I love feathered earrings. Surprisingly I realised that I don't have a single pair with feathers. So I sat down and made several pairs of feathered earrings. These are the two steampunky ones I made. A friend of mine got the pair on the left, I kept the one on the right.
Here I was experimenting with colours. I got the chain as gift along with my order of gears. I've never made anything out of copper, so I experimented a little and made this. as you can see, the clasp doesn't match because I just don't have anything else in copper! Maybe I'll take it apart again and turn it into something else, who knows.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE these arm warmers!!! They are my favourite winter accessory right now. I ordered some cheap arm warmers on ebay. I picked these because they had this part of different knitting on the hands because that is the perfect area to add something to them. I chose a filigree base, added these very pretty gears and the balloon charms. I then hand sewed them to the gloves.
I cannot state how much I love them, lol. I wear them every day when I leave the house.
Steampunk hair accessories
Ok, this post is for everything hair related I've created in the last few months. ;)
I like this cute geared hair pin.
This headpiece also was for my friend Viola. She needed something to complete her Halloween Steampunk vampire hunter outfit.
I love those pins! One I gave away for Christmas, the other two I kept for myself. Unfortunately I've already lost one of them. :((( The needle is not strong enough to actually hold the hair together and should only be used to be added to your style.
This is my favourite headpiece at the moment and I wear it almost every day!
I like this cute geared hair pin.
This headpiece also was for my friend Viola. She needed something to complete her Halloween Steampunk vampire hunter outfit.
I love those pins! One I gave away for Christmas, the other two I kept for myself. Unfortunately I've already lost one of them. :((( The needle is not strong enough to actually hold the hair together and should only be used to be added to your style.
This is my favourite headpiece at the moment and I wear it almost every day!
Steampunk Pins
My husband always watches me partly amazed, partly annoyed when I work on my stuff. Amazed because he likes what I create - annoyed because I always take up so much space. I either sit in bed watching TV while I work away, or I have the living room table occupied with all my boxes. It's really time we move out of our two-room-apartment and find something bigger. ;)
Anyway, he asked me to make a pin for him for his jacket and I came up with this:
And while I was at it I made a ring to go with the same theme.
Anyway, he asked me to make a pin for him for his jacket and I came up with this:
He likes green, so I had to incorporate a green stone somewhere. ;) It has enough filigree to make it look steampunky or Victorian, but it is still male enough to look good on his collar.
For myself I made this gear pin. I bought a very cute fake leather bolero jacket that looks awesome with this pin.
And while I was at it I made a ring to go with the same theme.
This is another pin I've made, I just don't remember when. But I know I haven't posted pictures of it yet, so I thought I'd put it up here.
Graduation gift
A good friend of mine passed her teacher training exam and I knew she liked birds, bronze, and long necklaces. So naturally I wanted to give her something personal along with a bottle of champagne. Therefore I made this pretty necklace for her:
A photographer's Christmas
Since our wedding we became very good friends with our wedding photographer http://www.violabecker.de/
She celebrated her birthday at the end of last year and is also a steampunk fan. So she got one of my bracelets that she enjoyed.
For Christmas however I wanted to give her something more personal for Christmas. I found these cute camera charms and this awesome picture frame you can actually slide a picture in from the back and I thought this set of necklace with two sets of earrings would be great for her.
She celebrated her birthday at the end of last year and is also a steampunk fan. So she got one of my bracelets that she enjoyed.
For Christmas however I wanted to give her something more personal for Christmas. I found these cute camera charms and this awesome picture frame you can actually slide a picture in from the back and I thought this set of necklace with two sets of earrings would be great for her.
Christmas
Wow, it's again been so long since my last post. Since the book fair I was busy making Christmas gifts, helping out at the local Christmas market, and I was at the police station. My plan was to give friends and family members little pocket watches with personalized chains. I found the perfect ones on Dawanda.de and even got lucky because they had a 12% pre-Christmas sale going on.
Unfortunately we have two different postmen. One is really nice and either rings your doorbell or leaves a message if the mail didn't fit into the mailbox. The other one, however, tries to stuff things into the mailbox if no one's home. I came home several times to mail hanging out of the mailbox. When I ordered the metal bracelets I had issues getting them out because they got stuck and I was really worried about damaging them. Now, I can only guess that it was his turn to deliver the mailbox, because when I came home I saw some ripped envelope hanging out of the mailbox again. But when I opened the mailbox I had a bad surprise waiting for me. I also had ordered two loop scarves for my sister and my mother-in-law. But when I opened the mailbox I only found half an envelope in the mailbox. Even the bill inside was ripped in half. The content and the second half of the envelope as well as the scarves were missing. I reported it to the mail company and they started an inquiry, but I haven't heard anything from them until today.
My best guess is that the mailman didn't push them into the mailbox far enough and someone just walked buy and pulled them back out. My package with the watches never arrived, so either it got stolen along with my scarves, or the mail got lost somewhere.
But you can imagine how frustrated I was. So instead I made everyone these butterfly necklaces. They'll get the pocket watches for birthdays/next Christmas then.
My mother-in-law admired the watch bracelets I had posted earlier that year, so along with a replacement for the stolen loop scarf she also got this bracelet:
Unfortunately we have two different postmen. One is really nice and either rings your doorbell or leaves a message if the mail didn't fit into the mailbox. The other one, however, tries to stuff things into the mailbox if no one's home. I came home several times to mail hanging out of the mailbox. When I ordered the metal bracelets I had issues getting them out because they got stuck and I was really worried about damaging them. Now, I can only guess that it was his turn to deliver the mailbox, because when I came home I saw some ripped envelope hanging out of the mailbox again. But when I opened the mailbox I had a bad surprise waiting for me. I also had ordered two loop scarves for my sister and my mother-in-law. But when I opened the mailbox I only found half an envelope in the mailbox. Even the bill inside was ripped in half. The content and the second half of the envelope as well as the scarves were missing. I reported it to the mail company and they started an inquiry, but I haven't heard anything from them until today.
My best guess is that the mailman didn't push them into the mailbox far enough and someone just walked buy and pulled them back out. My package with the watches never arrived, so either it got stolen along with my scarves, or the mail got lost somewhere.
But you can imagine how frustrated I was. So instead I made everyone these butterfly necklaces. They'll get the pocket watches for birthdays/next Christmas then.
My mother-in-law admired the watch bracelets I had posted earlier that year, so along with a replacement for the stolen loop scarf she also got this bracelet:
My maid of honor and her husband got their first child on November 1st, so along with useful baby stuff she got this baby bracelet from me: the stars hoping for some good night's sleep, a little baby/child charm looking up to her, a comfy chair to sit in while rocking the baby, and a stroller for all the walks they'll do together.
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