Rainbow macarons & Merry Christmas!

Rainbow macarons ... but I suppose this is a pastel rainbow. One day I would attempt macarons in the real rainbow colors.

My little one has fallen sick on Christmas eve. Oh dear! I hope she gets well soon. Fortunately I managed to post this in time to wish each of you a very Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year. I've not been very active on blogland and miniature making due to my commitments so I really appreciate you for accompanying me throughout my crafting journey. A special thank you to my cyber friends for leaving encouraging comments on my blog/deviantart/etsy/flickr. In short, THANK YOU and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Daisy Cakes and Cupcakes

Made these some time back. Daisy cupcakes and cake. I love that cake but the more I look at the cupcakes, the more I dislike them. The cupcake bases weren't perfect.


However, I got to admit although I didn't like the cupcakes, I adored these photos.


Especially the shot with the toothpick. Finally, you don't have to see my wrinkled fingers.


Oh... did I say that too soon? Here comes my wrinkled finger again. ^_^

Yes, I dismantled all the daisies from the cupcakes and put everything on the cake.



They have been fixed with glue and there's no turning back. :D

Chocolate Fondue & Some Food Jewelry

This is my fourth chocolate fondue. If you are interested, just type 'fondue' in the "Search This Blog" function on the right. This is an unintentional piece as I wanted to make something with my remaining ice cream scoops. Or ice cream balls I call them. The result? An ice cream chocolate fondue. Heh heh...





This is suitable for 1:6 scale. Pictured below with my wrinkled fingers. No no... I'm not very old. It's just that I have wrinkled hands which run in the family.



And recently I made some mini food jewelry. I don't know how the response will be but I will slowly fill my Etsy store with more food jewelry. It's going to be tough as there are just too many food jewelry and miniature sellers on Etsy these days!

I love this Oreo jewelry picture. It's a real Oreo cookie in the background. Quick! Heart my cookies here.





There are more rings but the above two are my favourite. To see more, hop over to my Etsy store here. Thanks for staying with me and have a GREAT WEEKEND!

Gingerbread men attack!

Warning. Lots of gingerbread men ahead.

Another gingerbread men preparation board but something different from the one I made last Christmas.

I don't even eat gingerbread in real life but I really enjoy making miniature versions of them. Perhaps I like their happy faces too much. It makes me happy too.







Very very tiny M & M candies (or chocolates?)...



Told you there were lots of gingerbread men.

Here is a tin of gingerbread men biscotti. I deliberately made them in a lighter shade of brown as it shows off their happy faces better. And personally, I like them unfrosted.





If you like these gingerbread men, they are all available at my Etsy store. There are many new items as well, including some food jewelry. So do pop by and take a look!

Mimo 7-11 Miniature

This is my 4th wedding anniversary gift. A convenience store drink cabinet set from Mimo! Mimo is the Hong Kong version of Re-ment and I love it, especially since it has been years Re-ment produced something I like. I didn't get all the sets as Mimo is quite pricey. Each set costs about US$50 and the shipping cost is already US$20. I don't know how many sets there are in total but judging from this box, there is a Set H which implies there may be 8 sets in all.



Mine is Set F. It was a tough choice between E and F for my case.



The bad news is that for this particular series, you have to stick the drinks labels yourself. The photo below shows one of the many sheets of stickers. Love it or hate it.



Here are the "blank" bottles, cans and drink cartons. Can't wait to get started and see the final result. These look like 1:6 scale and those living in Asia would be more familiar with the drinks, such as Vitasoy, Minute Maid, Oolong Tea...



Told you I can't wait to get started. I've already started labelling some of the plastic bottles. Will keep you posted of the progress!

Making blueberry pancakes

I love it when there is nobody at home. Silence of the night. Inner peace they call it (I feel like Po in Kungfu Panda). Tonight is one of the rare nights I have time all to myself. So no matter how tired I am, I must finish this post.

Did you know I have something for prep boards too? I love how all the tiny items come together on a board. Occasionally I need my 'prep board fix'. Here is the most recent one that took me several weeks to complete (not that I'm slow but I seldom have free time with a toddler to look after) - a blueberry pancakes prep board!

Oh yah, I love pancakes too. I also love making miniature pancake/waffle stacks. I seem to love everything don't I? No wonder I'm called "i love little things". I'm getting crappy. My dear bed, here I come!

Available at my Etsy store.

Quarter Scale Cheesecakes

One of my lovely customers asked if I could make quarter scale cheesecakes and I immediately fell in love with the idea. While most of my fellow miniaturists in Singapore are indulging in 1:6, 1:4 and even 1:3 scale items, I went the opposite and did 1:48 scale. Maybe quarter scale items are out of fashion? Doesn't matter to me. I had so much fun making these tiny cheesecakes.

So there you go. A teeny weeny strawberry cheesecake posed with my husband's finger. My finger is too wrinkled to be pictured. *LOL* The cake measures only 1/4" inch across. No molds or cutters were used (erm... is penknife considered a cutter?). If you click on the pic, you can (hopefully) see the dots in the strawberries.


I like the blueberry cheesecake better, but the strawberry one seems more popular on my Etsy and Flickr.

I think there will be more quarter scale cakes to come! Maybe not cheesecakes but the sweeter flowery types of cakes. Meanwhile I'm working on a 1:12 prep board which suddenly looks gigantic to me now!

PS: Jennifer from plushpussycat - congratulations! You've won a surprise gift as mentioned in my previous entry. I'll contact you at your email shortly.

Finally, a Rainbow Cake ...

For years, I've been dreaming of making a dollhouse miniature rainbow cake.

But it's mission impossible with air dry clay, specifically air dry resin clay. Resin clay is very soft and can't be sliced properly. When it turns hard upon drying, it is already too late to do any texturing to the sliced area of the cake. Yet, I didn't turn to polymer clay (I'm too poor to afford an oven). I could only STARE in admiration at other artisans who made rainbow cakes. O_O


Finally, my dream came true! I made my very own rainbow cake using Hearty paper clay. For those of you who have been reading my posts faithfully, you'd know that I've been experimenting a lot with Hearty recently. I'm loving it more and more. It was however not possible to do the very crumbly texture like polymer clay but you do get a rather realistic mousse-like cake texture.

How do you like the result? I'm happy! It's my first step towards more layered cakes. I'm not selling this one though as I'm not perfectly satisfied with the frosting yet.

Then again, would you prefer a rainbow cake with mousse-like cake texture or a crumbly texture? Would you also be interested in a rainbow cake tutorial using air dry clay instead of the usual polymer clay that almost everyone is using? I would love to hear from you! Leave me a comment or drop me a mail at ilovelittlethings@gmail.com . You stand a chance to win a surprise gift (it's miniature food of coz).

Goodnight and have a colorful weekend! ^_^

Hearty Mooncakes

Time flies. I bought the mooncake mold last year around this time. The mold waited one year! I finally made my favourite snow skin mooncakes in mini version and I used Hearty air dry clay for these. You can see that Hearty holds texture really well. I mixed with acrylic paint and liked how the colors turned out.

As my mum goes .. strawberry mooncake, durian mooncake, green tea mooncake ...



The completed look with tea pot and cup. The golden placemat is made by me too.

CONTEST !!! WIN THIS !!!

Hi everyone,
You can win this lovely box of chocolates. To enter the contest, please click here.
The contest ends 31st August. Please show your support for Mini Treasures Wiki!



By the way, Aiclay is also having a giveaway. So please hop over to her blog if you wish to win some gifts from Hokkaido!
http://www.aiclay.com/2011/08/giveaway-gift-from-hokkaido-find-deer.html

Failure.. and some tips

I had a short break recently and was able to try out new materials. I bought a few items and I'd like to share with you some review / tips.

(1) Floree daisy mold
My verdict - lousy lousy lousy. The sharp edges of the flower make it very difficult to remove the clay from the mold. I tried baby powder and vaseline cream but bits of clay still get stuck in the edges. I did several daisies and I think only one can make it. I don't think I can use them especially after my husband said they look like kueh tutu before the centre was painted pink. Now you know where to get the mold for kueh tutu!




Picture of kueh tutu from Wikipedia. By the way, they are yummy!

(2) Hearty White Clay
I've been using resin air dry clay (ADC) since I began my miniature journey. And I never figured out how to make cakes easily. You've got to work hard with the needle, painstakingly poking the piece of clay to get the texture. I accidentally found the answer through hearty clay. I cut through a dried piece and tada... you get the natural texture of cakes or bread! Easy work. Just make sure you use a sealer/varnish when using this paper clay.


(3) I found mould on my polymer clay collection from other artists!!! Polymer clay?? Mould?? I must be kidding right?? It's true. They grew mouldy. I almost panicked but sweeping it with a dry cotton bud solved the problem. So make sure you don't stash your precious collections away too long. Take them out, air them, admire them and wipe away any dust very gently with a DRY clean cloth.

Oh yah, before I forget, I'm having a giveaway in my next post so please be sure to come back! It's my way of saying thank you for following my blog all these years.

Email me ilovelittlethings@gmail.com

My favourite creation

My Etsy shop has been opened for almost 3 years now. I never dreamt that I would have a hobby that lasts me this long. I think I'm still enjoying this hobby even though I have less time for it now. Hopefully my shop will go on and on until I'm 70. LOL

I looked back at some old photos of my creations and decided to feature my favourite one. It's a tough fight between the rainbow popsicle and the mini steamboat. Oh well, just feature both!





Recently I made some croissants but ran out of bread tongs and plates. I was feeling lazy and wanted to just relist an old listing and put a disclaimer "Please note that the tongs and plate are not included". But hey... does this sound like confusing or tricking the customer? Not good to be lazy! So I decided to take a new batch of photos. There you are... another series of croissant pictures. Hope you don't get bored with them!





Contact me at ilovelittlethings@gmail.com
Visit my shop at http://www.ilovelittlethings.etsy.com/

Chocolate + Banana + Ice Cream + Waffles + Husband

I told myself I have to update my blog tonight. No matter how tired.

Looks like I can only do one miniature project a month. It took me 1 week to make the waffle stack, 1 week to do the bananas, 1 week to make the ice cream bowl and scoop, and 1 week to make the waffles on the plate and the chocolate...

My husband played a great part in this project too. When he saw the bowl of vanilla ice cream, he went "Ooooohh... this looks so real. This bowl of flour mixture is just waiting for the egg to be beaten into it." I think he can't get his mind off my prep boards with broken eggs. But hey, I still think my ice cream looks real. It has the texture that ice cream should have, just that it is in a bowl and not a tub. Can't we have homemade ice cream?

At first my banana and ice cream are lying on the chocolate sauce (no drizzle or sprinkles). He went "This is not realistic. You must have chocolate drizzled all over the ice cream and banana." At this point I got quite irritated but he is right this time. So there you go - the realistically messy banana chocolate waffle.

How do you like the end result? I'm happy. ^_^ And I'm happy with my husband too (other than the bowl of flour). LOL.

Going to be made available at my Etsy shop. Have a great week ahead!

Fairy Tin Macarons

Hello there...

It's been more than a month since my last post and I apologise for that!

I'm starting to miss making miniature preparation boards. I made a few two months ago but didn't have a chance to complete them. In the meantime, hope you enjoy the new range of macaron collection.

And... Happy Father's Day to my papa. I love you Dad. I love you Mum (even though Mother's Day is over).