Happy Halloween!!

Thank you for all the wonderful Halloween instructions!!  My fingers have been very busy : ).  I do wish I could make them all, and I might be able to find time to make some more, but I wanted to share what we have so far.  At the end of the blog I will announce the new theme.

Our first monthly winner suggested candy corn, way back for candy month.  I will go back to locate your suggestion and contact you : )

The White Cinderella Pumpkin was suggested by Noell.  She actually grows them, and sent me some pictures of hers, they are beautiful!   I made some gummy ghosts 

I brough back one of  my favorites from last year too,  my Vampire Delight ice cream.     Idecided to create some freinds for our little white pumpkin too.

Contest Theme

You can make Halloween suggestions till the 1st of October,  but today the new theme starts as well.  The new theme is Fall/ Thanksgiving.   I already make a whole turkey, a turkey dinner plate with mashed potatoes, green beans and cranberry sauce, and  I make pumkin pie with whipped cream.   Everything else is up for grabs, so start making suggestions for your favorite fall and Thanksgiving foods. 

Rules:

 Try to make sure that you look over the suggestions that have been made, so you don't duplicate a suggestion.

Make up to one suggestion per day. 

Have fun,  I look forward to looking at your suggestions.  

Exciting News!!   I am doing my very first fair on Saturday Sept 24th.   If I get good ictures of my booth, I will share them with you in the next blog.  Keep an eye out on the blog, I intend to update it by the 1st weekend in October..  If there are any more Halloween winners, I will be announcing them then.

Heather


I made my last contribution to our global giving page.  I put 50.00 in from the sales of July, August and September.

In total I have donated 175.00 from sales since the big quake in Japan.  We have donated to the Japan earthquake/ tsunami relief, the New Zealand Quake, and the midwest U.S. tornado storm relief.
Here is the link of our charity page.
Heather

September- Better Breakfast Month

Hello everyone :)   I am pretty much caught up!!!  The September monthly mailings will be sent out within the next couple of days.  I will have the monthly contest theme and info at the bottom of the blog.  September is National Chicken month, and better breakfast month.

I decided on   Anti-better breakfast :)  Fro me this means pop tarts.  I have two of the three monthly pop tarts complete.  When the third is finished I will edit this post and include the new pictures.

My poor camera died, so the new pictures wont be as pretty.  I will try to replace my camera as soon as possible :)

Contest Info:
New Theme:   Halloween!!!!  Get out your ghoulish food ideas, and leave them here in the comment section.  If I make your suggestion for the shop, you win a free charm (the one you suggested).
I just ask you to limit your suggestions to one a day, and make sure you aren't replicating prior suggestions.
So far Rachel has suggested Candy in a skeleton bowl, and candy apples from a prior post. Katherine suggests Halloween suckers.  Jamie suggested carmel apples, mellocream pumpkins, eye ball gum, and sixlets.  Joyce suggested popcorn balls, and cupcakes for the Halloween theme. choc bottom, orange frosting and those licorice sprinkles that are black, orange, purple and yellow, and cupcakes .  Noell has suggested Frankenstien Cakes, Cinderella pumpkins, and sugar cookies with ghosts and spooky stuff.  During candy month someone suggested candy corn, so I will take that as a suggestion for this month. 

P.S.  If you have trouble leaving comments, shoot me a convo on Etsy, and I will edit the blog to include your ideas just like what you see above.  I will also make sure to add them to new posts if I create a new blog befroe we stop taking Halloween ideas. (Sept 15)....

As I create my pieces, they are entering the Etsy shop, so taking a peak will show you the new porducts before I post them here ;)

Announcment
For the time being I pulled the charm of the month club out of my shops on Etsy and Artfire.  I am planning on bringing it back, but due to baby sitting... I just haven't been able to complete them before the first of the month for the past 3 months.   For those of you in the club you will still be receiving your monthly charms until your membership expires.   I hope to make the club available again to you by January 1st.

I will still be making new charms monthly and continuing this contest I just didn't want to disappoint anyone with things taking longer to go out.    So if your membership expires before I bring back the club , I will give you the discounted price each month on the new monthly charms.

I will be making my next monthly charity payment soon, and will leave you the amount we have raised so far here once I make it:)  Here is the link to the business donations made so far.

Heather

   

August Charms

Hello,  I just finished and shipped August's charms.  They are a bit late, but  I am very happy with the results.    I made some peches with a leaf on the side, and slices of peach pie as well. 

If you made either of those suggestions please email me with your address at sweetandsavorytrinkets@yahoo.com

New Contest Theme.

The new theme is Halloween, get creative and start making your suggestions :)

Sorry this post is goin to be short. 

Thank you all so much !!!


Heather

Melty Summer Fun!

I can't believe how quickly the summer is passing!  As each year goes by it seems that each year goes by faster and faster.  It always feels like there is never enough hours in the day to do all the things you want to do.  When I look at my daughter, I remember sitting at school staring at the clock, waiting for the school bell to ring.  It seemed that time never passed quickly enough back then.  

Now I treasure the spare moments I get to slow down and just relax.  National ice cream month has been a perfect reason to slow down and savor some of the simple things in life.  Your suggestions have been wonderful, and I am sure that they are responsible for a couple extra pounds I have put on (researching ofcourse)  ; )

I decided to focus on nostalgic ice creams this month.  The first ice cream has a rich strawberry center, and is surrounded by a creamy layer of vanilla.  it is then rolled in a mix of cookie crumbles, coconut, and strawberry bits. 

There are several brands that carry these starwberry shortcake ice cream bars.  They were my absolute favorite as a kid, if you haven't tried them you should, they are awsome! 

The second ice cream of the month is a neopolitan ice cream sandwich.  There are several brands that make these little guys too.  Pam suggested the ice cream sandwich, and I love the memories that they bring back!

I loved dark chocolate cookies, and enjoyed licking the bit of cookie, that would always stick to your fingers as the warmth from your hands melted the ice cream.

The last ice cream of the month is an orange and cream bar.  This was suggested by Sher, I think think this is the dreamsicle?  My mom calls them 50/50 bars. What ever you call them, they are a wonderful ice cream.  A sweet creamy vanilla ice cream, surrounded by a slightly tart orange sherbert like coating.

 These are the three ice creams of the month, and will be shipped this week to all of you that receive the charm of the month club.

August's theme is peaches, we have received a couple of suggestions already, in the comment section of the last blog.  I hope that more of you will join in with more suggestions!  I really do enjoy looking up images of your suggestions.

The Rules:

1:  You can only make one suggestion per day, that allows you multiple entries but many can play :)

2: Read through the suggestions to make sure you aren't duplicating any suggestions already made.

I have made June's donations to the tornado and storm victims.  We have donated 125.00 so far : ) 

I am still donating through global giving.  we are now at 100.00.  My store contributions have gone to the Tsunami relief in Japan, and the latest 2 donations have gone to tornado and storm relief.  I will try to provide the link I donate through in each blog.. (last time I forgot)  At the link you can see all of my past donations.  Here is the link. 

National Ice Cream Month

I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July!!  

Things here have been pretty busy.  I have 2 of the 3 new charms of the month complete and am working on the 3rd.  I will be posting the pictures as soon as I have them all done.  The monthly shipments will be running a bit laet but I think they will be worth it : ).

In the mean time, I wanted to share one July creation and winner with you, and I want to introduce you to EscargotArtsyBits on Etsy.

  First, here is our first Ice Cream month winner Tearyeyedstar suggested snow cones.  I have been meaning to do snow cones for a while now :)

Thank you so much for the suggestion!
The other winners will be announced throughtout the month. 

August is National Peach month. You can start making  suggestions for foods with peaches. 


Escargot Atsy Bits

Escargot Artsy Bits is a wonderful business created by Sara Rask.  She does amazing collage pendants.  I have seen tile pendants all over Etsy with photos, but I was amazed by the detail of these little collages. 

Her work is beautiful and unique.  I love the colors she puts together.  Every little collage is a work of art. 

I must say that her customer service is amazing!  
I contacted her asking if she was willing to do special orders, and she has been a delight to work with.

I was unsure of what I wanted exactly, but I wanted her to make pendants of images of my miniature foods.   

 She made me many wonderful pendants, and she was very attentive through the whole proccess.  She was extreemely quick in answering all of my convos and requests.  I was planning on showing you all of the wonderful pieces she made for me, but her collages are so pretty that I really wanted to share them with you instead.

Here is the link to her store.  She is a wonderful seller! http://www.etsy.com/shop/EscargotArtsyBits?ref=seller_info



Contest info
To enter make your themed food suggestions in the comment section of the blog. 

The Rules:

1:  You can only make one suggestion per day, that allows you multiple entries but many can play :)

2: Read through the suggestions to make sure you aren't duplicating any suggestions already made.

A Piece O Cake!

Hello,  I just wanted to share my latest pieces, and announce one more candy winner, for June. 

I am finally starting to add some cake to my store.  Here are some photos, of my tester batch,  I am quite pleased, and plan on making more soon.  They are very time consuming though, and will more than likely be made to order. 

All the roses are hand made..  I shape each tiny petal by hand, and form the roses one petal at a time. 

I do like making roses,  and it has been far too long.  Today was the first time I have made these tiny roses in 8 years.  I hope you like them :)

There are four different cakes, A raspberry with a raspberry mouse, a raspberry with white frosting layers, blue raspberry the blue raspberry layers, and blue raspberry with white frosting.  They are each topped by a little rose, some of the roses are light, some are dark, a there are three multi colored roses (pictured above)

Now,  for our last June Winner!!!  Cotton candy was suggested by Tearyeyedstars!

This will be a very limited item in the shop..  as they are made using the glazed the polyform re-formulated. 

I did make 18 of each color..  I am unsure how many more I can create, so if you have to have them grab them.

Tearyeyedstars, please email me your address at sweetandsavorytrinkets@yahoo.com

July Contest.. 

I am still taking suggestions for ice-cream.  I am a little behind, so You have at least one more week before I start really making the ice-creams.

The Rules:

1:  You can only make one suggestion per day, that allows you multiple entries but many can play :)

2: Read through the suggestions to make sure you aren't duplicating any suggestions already made.

I am still donating through global giving.  we are now at 100.00.  My store contributions have gone to the Tsunami relief in Japan, and the latest 2 donations have gone to tornado and storm relief.  I will try to provide the link I donate through in each blog.. (last time I forgot)  At the link you can see all of my past donations.  Here is the link. 

Rock Candy A Tutorial

Welcome to my very first tutorial.  I hope to take video, and make you tube video tutorials in the future, when I invest in better video equipment.

I was recently asked in my Etsy shop how do you make those little rock candies?  I must admit I pondered many ideas, through trial and error I came up with the rock candies you see at the right.

This is definately the easiest of my miniature foods, so I thought it would be a great first tutorial for you all. 

Meterials:  
Sculpy gloss glaze, powdered food coloring, head pins with a ball at the end, clear micro glass beads, paper plate, a tooth pick, and a sheet of paper.

If you are making it into a charm, you will also need wire cutters, flat nose pliers, and round nose pliers, and a jumpring.

 Sculpy gloss glaze was some amazing stuff!  Unfortunately they changed the formula.  I decided to make the rock candy with the old and new formula to see if the new one will work for the rock candy.. 

The clear bottle on the left was the old formula, the one on the right is the new formula..  if you happen to see the old formula grab it!!  In my opininion it is liquid gold. 

The micro glass beads I used were the Martha Stewart brand. 

Step 1:  Pour some micro beads on a paper plate.
A small pile will do, keep the bottle near though, you will need it.

  Step 2:  Prepare your headpins

If you are doing miniatures, just cut down the length, mine are 1" long

If you are making the into charms, use the flat nose to form the right angle, and use the round, and flat nose pliers to form and close off the loop.  You can add the jumpring later.

There are great tutorials online showing you how to do this . :)

Step 3: Prepare your glaze.

Pour a tiny amount of glaze (size of a dime) on to your sheet of paper.

Dip your toothpick into the food coloring and scoop out a tiny bit.

Step 4:  With your toothpick stir the food color into your glaze.  Thouroughly combine it. 

Step 5:  Paint the colored glaze on the head pin with your tooth pick. 

Now very gently lay it on your small pile of micro beads, and gently pour on additional micro beads (just enough to cover it).

Let it rest for around 8-10 minutes

Step 6:  Repeat step 5 :)

Only make sure to paint on the additional glaze very gently..  otherwiseyou will lose your first application. 

*** If using the new glaze you will have to wait at least 30 minutes to repeat step 5.  You may have to create more colored glaze if yours has dried already.

Let them dry for 24 hours, and they should be ready to go!

The one on the left is the old sculpy gloss, and the one on the right is the new.  I just made these now for the tutorial, so I can't vouch for the strength of the new glaze.. 

I will however test strength after the 24 hours, and report to you  back here about the strength.
The new glaze is a dismal failure for this use.  It crumbled completely away, no strength at all.  I did contact polyform about the formula change.  Here is what the chemists response was  

“Our new glaze is not going to give her the “candied” look she was going for and it never will give her the three dimensional look.

Not sure we can help her here with this one.

She may have to switch products.”

One other clay artist suggested krylon? triple thick  Hopefully this product will work

I hope you have enjoyed my first tutorial :)

If anything here was unclear, please let me know, and I can address any questions the the comment area :)  Thanks

Heather