Pumpkin Carving

Look what Jenny and I did yesterday.



Can you tell who they are?

Added Note- Since everyone's having such a hard time, I'm thinking of giving the extra incentive of a prize. The first person to figure it out wins an aromatherapy necklace.

(The answer as well as a fifth carved pumpkin can be found here.)

I’ve been thinking about carving these particular jack-o-lanterns for over a year, even before I carved this little guy on a watermelon. Since these were relatively simple (with only white, black and 1 shade of gray), the actual carving part (minus the cleaning out and scraping) took just about an hour per pumpkin.



We've finally built up a pretty handy little collection of tools, which makes the whole process go much smoother.
-For cleaning the inside of the pumpkin (as well as scraping it down to a good thickness) ceramic loop tools or pottery scrapers work really well.
-We mark the design with a regular push pin.
-We use the little saws from the pumpkin carving sets to cut out the pieces, though I'm thinking of making something like this for next year.
-For refining the depth of the design on the areas with the skin removed (thinner equals lighter) cheap wood carving tools or a linoleum cutting set work really well.



The night that I came up with the idea for these designs, I sat up late, searching the internet for the right pictures to use. Every time I opened up a picture of the guy on the left, I would hear a sound from the kitchen. The sound was a minor one, something like the house settling, so I didn’t pay attention at first. But as I clicked into the various pages, there it would be again and again.

Eventually, I noticed it and I started to freak myself out. It was at this point that I realized that it was well after one in the morning and I was the only one awake in the house. And here’s the thing, I was actually unable to get myself to stand up from the computer and walk down the hallway to the bedroom. To do that, I’d not only need to walk past the kitchen where the noises were coming from, but also our sliding glass door and I was pretty sure that I hadn’t pulled the curtains that night.

I thought about calling for help, “Jeeeeeeeff, honey, please come and walk me to bed.” But I really didn’t want to admit how freaked out I was. So, I opened up an audio book and listened to it for, honest to God, another hour before I had distracted myself sufficiently to be fairly confidant that I could walk down the hallway instead of running at a full sprint, giggling and squealing like a little girl.

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Related Posts
Kam-tastic (this one's on a watermelon)

Secret Window Pumpkin

Crazed Self-Portrait Pumpkin

Fine Art from the Recycling Bin

For the last year I've been reading all over the internet how #6 recyclable plastic works as shrink plastic material (you remember Shrinky Dinks?). And I figured that the girls' birthday party would be a perfect time to try it out, since we almost always plan some sort of craft to do.

For those of you who are interested in that sort of thing, I'm including a simple tutorial.



Click here to see the giant picture of everything we made.

How To
-Cut out a relatively flat piece of clear #6 plastic.
-Sand one side using fine grit sandpaper (we used 220).
-Cut out your design, either with scissors or if you're not too particular about your punches, use those. (I did get a piece of plastic irretrievably wedged in my sun punch so I think I'll be sticking to scissors from now on out.)



-Color them on the sanded side using either colored pencils or thin sharpie markers.



-Punch any necessary holes BEFORE you cook them.
-Cook them in either a Shrinky Dink oven, a toaster oven or your regular kitchen oven (325 for between 1 and 5 minutes- or about 30 seconds past when they shrink and flatten back out).



-And I should mention that not all of the number 6 plastic works. So far, the only ones we've had success with was clear #6. The black #6, not so much. Those dustbunnies above were the second try where we colored the clear plastic with black colored pencils.

They worked so well that even the adults got involved.





This last one was done by our friend Allison, who unsurprisingly also happens to be a fantastic artist.

And to round out this post, I'm including links to more fun ideas of what to do with your little melted pieces of plastic.
-Wee Wonderfuls: Shrinky Dink Pins
-Elsa Mora: Buttons (I love this idea so much. Imagine... homemade buttons.)
-Craftlog: Spirograph + Shrinky Dinks = Nostalgia Overload
-Craftster: Shrinky Math (This is some impressive jewelry.)
-Planet June: Ring Tutorial (This one looks especially cool, but I haven't had the guts to try it yet.)

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Totoro Party #4- Totoro Cake

For those of you who are still here with me this week, here's the Totoro cake. Isn't he freakin adorable?



I made the base out of Scotcheroos (Are you tired of hearing that word yet? 'Cause it's starting to sound all weird to me. Like when you repeat something over and over til it loses all meaning. And it had already started out fairly strange to begin with.) He's mostly just cake and buttercream. The ears are gumpaste and toothpicks. The whiskers are toothpicks colored with black gel food coloring. And his nose, eyes and mouth are royal icing.



Anyway, I made this bottom part and then Jeff made several chocolate cakes. Then I cut them into circles and layered them on the bottom with buttercream. Now here's the genius thing about using buttercream... it's all soft and easy to spread when you put it on, then you can put it in the fridge overnight (or just a couple of hours if you're really short on time) and it will totally firm up. This makes it so much easier to carve because, you know, the layers won't be all sliding around on you.

I had the cake all put together and carved and even had the crumb layer on. (Does everyone know about the crumb layer? That's another brilliant thing I've discovered within the last year or so. You frost the cake thinly and it's a total mess, but then you put it in the fridge and, just like magic, the buttercream hardens up and seals in all the irritating pieces of cake that want to keep working their way to the surface. And they're trapped. And you can spread another layer of buttercream on and it'll be crumb-free. And what's best is that you then get an extra layer of buttercream, which is so so yummy.)


(Isadora wanted to help.)

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Related Posts-
Totoro Party #1- Scotcheroo Recipe
Totoro Party #2- Dustbunnies
Totoro Party #3- Catbus
Fine Art from the Recycling Bin

Totoro Party #3- Catbus

So did I mention how much I love Scotcheroos? And did I also happen to mention what good luck that is? Because I made countless flippin batches of this stuff over the last week. I would say about half of it went into the Catbus. I know that those of you who've never seen My Neighbor Totoro are just wondering what the hell I'm going on about, but it's one of my favorite movies. Really, go see it. Even if you don't have kids.



Oh, and an interesting bit of info... it wasn't until I started looking around for Totoro images for inspiration that I found this, which really cracks me up for some reason. Maybe because I have the maturity of a 10 year old. And just for the record, our Catbus was not anatomically correct. In fact, the more observant of you may have noticed that he doesn't even have legs.

At first we were planning to just make the top part of the bus out of the Scotcheroos and put it on top of a couple layers of cake. And it was Jenny's brilliant idea to form the top part over a greased up loaf pan. However, at about 10 o'clock the night before the party, not only did it completely squash the cake when we put it together, but part of the top started to fall apart as well. (I guess that's another Don't Do What Donnie Don't Does- don't put the heaviest part of the cake on top. Doi.)

So, after Jeff and I sat staring silently at the cake for about 10 minutes, trying to figure whether to just scrap the whole thing, I went to the store to buy my third giant box of Rice Krispies in a week and we put that sucker back together. This time, using the Scotcheroos for the entire thing.



Beyond that, the most difficult part was getting the head to stay up. So we decided not to. We just left it in the cake pan and used the sides as support.



Kenzie even piped "Happy Birthday" on the destination sign, which I think might possibly be my favorite part of the whole party.



BTW, for anyone attempting this, the sign, eyes, nose and teeth are all made out of gumpaste. And the piping was done with royal icing.

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Related Posts-
Totoro Party #1- Scotcheroo Recipe
Totoro Party #2- Dustbunnies
Totoro Party #4- Totoro Cake
Fine Art from the Recycling Bin

Totoro Party #2- Dustbunnies

I think that my favorite characters in the Totoro movie are the Dustbunnies. They're called Makkuro Kurosuke in Japanese and the actual translation would be "Pitch Black Blackies." They're essentially little black soot spirits that live in old houses. Calling out and laughing loudly seems to get rid of them. And if you want to keep them around, they eat little star food (like in Spirited Away).

We made two different kinds of dustbunnies for the girls' birthday party.



The edible ones were made of Scotcheroos, which we coated in melted chocolate then piped the eyeballs on with both white and black royal icing.

Joey and Kenzi made the other dustbunnies out of black pom poms, white glue and google eyes. These were the party favors, along with little Chibi-Totoros that Joey made out of Sculpey.



And the girls made the giftbags (using this tutorial) with paper that Kenzi designed and printed up.



And stay tuned. Tomorrow I'll have pictures of the Catbus.

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Related Posts-
Totoro Party #1- Scotcheroo Recipe
Totoro Party #3- Catbus
Totoro Party #4- Totoro Cake
Fine Art from the Recycling Bin

Totoro Party #1- Scotcheroo Recipe

This past weekend, we had a party for Joey's and Kenzi's birthdays (10 and 16). They have always loved Totoro, so that was the theme for this year.

The problem I ran into when forming the Totoro cake was the fact that the top of the cake cannot be bigger than the bottom or it will go all slumpy. When you need to make a cake like that, though, you can to use some other form of support for the bottom part and then stack the rest of the actual cake on top.

I chose to use Scotcheroos and they worked perfectly to help provide structure to the cake. Scotcheroos are something my mom used to make. They're essentially Rice Krispie treats with peanut butter instead of marshmallows. (And I'm pretty sure that the reason for the name is that you're supposed to coat these with melted chocolate and butterscotch chips, but I rarely do because butterscotch chips are gross.)


(For now, I'm just putting up a picture of what traditional Scotcheroos look like; I'll show you the cake later in the week.)

Ingredients
1 cup of light corn syrup
1 cup of sugar
1 cup of peanut butter
6 cups of Rice Krispies

Instructions
-Combine the corn syrup and sugar together in a fairly large pot and heat over medium heat, stirring often.
-When the mixture begins to bubble, take off the heat and stir in the peanut butter until it is well mixed.
-Stir in the Rice Krispies with a folding motion, making sure to scoop all the peanut butter up from the bottom.

Now you can do one of two things. Press the mixture into a well-buttered pan using a buttered spoon or your hands. Or butter up your hands and very carefully begin to mold it into whatever shapes you want. Just be careful 'cause this stuff is pretty hot at first.

It tends to slump when it’s still warm, so you can either keep reforming it, or wait until it’s cooled a bit more. The girls were able to form a lot of the Makkuro Kurosuke (or dustbunnies) themselves.

And since this party involved so many different things, I've decided to do a little series for it (as opposed to one ginormous post).

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Related Posts-
Totoro Party #2- Dustbunnies
Totoro Party #3- Catbus
Totoro Party #4- Totoro Cake
Fine Art from the Recycling Bin

Bloopers

You know, I like Martha a lot more after seeing this.



I think her show would be so much better if were more like her blooper reel. They must just edit out all the really interesting stuff.

'Wooly, hairy balls' indeed.