Oregon Coast Through the Viewfinder, Pt. 2

Oregon coast between Winter and Spring

Lil' Felted Mushroom

Felting is fun! My first foray into felting, with a smile, of course!



Chillin' with his felt friends:

Five Minute Art Friday

This was such a quick and easy craft. I used a small canvas + scrap scrapbook paper + an old children's book. I stapled the colorful paper to the back of the canvas, then cut out and glued a small picture from an old circus book on to it. To finish it off and add dimension, I cut out the P and set it using foam tape It fits quiet well into my wall collage!

Letterpress Fun!

I took a Letterpress class from Portland's amazing IPRC. I've been wanting to learn for awhile, given my love for all things paper. The class was great and I learned so much, now I can't wait to practice my skills! I'll be going a couple of times each month to use the studio, and hopefully will have a collection of notions I can eventually put into my craft-fair booth.

Rainbow Cake

All the colors mixed up! I used neon gel food coloring and I love how it turned out.
After the cake came out, the colors were beautiful!
An inconspicuous birthday cake
Quite the surprize when she cut into it!

I've been eager to try this recipe for sometime, and when my fun and spunky boss was celebrating her birthday, I knew it would be perfect for her! It was an inexpensive and fun cake. The only thing I would have changed was the frosting, which turned too hard over night in the fridge.



Here is the recipe:
Sunny Day Rainbow Cake

2 boxes white cake mix
24 oz of clear diet soda (2 cans, ginger ale and sprite work well)
gel food colouring
16 oz whipped topping
2 oz instant fat-free sugar-free pudding mix (2 smallish boxes)

The Rainbowing
Measure the total volume (by my estimate, 64 oz), then divide by 6 and measure into separate bowls. There are 8 oz in a cup, so 64/6 = 10 to 11 oz, or 1 cup + 2 tbsp.

Stir colour into each bowl with its own spoon. For the first colour into the pan, measure out 2/3 to 3/4 of your mix (in this case about 1 c) as close to the middle as you can. Drop in your first three colours, then work on the other pan with the last three colours. So if you’re doing rainbow order, the first pan should have red, then orange, then yellow, and now the purple, blue and green go into the second pan. As a recap, this is so both layers are roughly the same size.

Bake the cake for however long the box tells you to bake it. Check it when the box says to, but usually it’ll need an extra 5 or 10 minutes or maybe more because of the density of the soda method. Just keep baking, checking back every 5 minutes or so until a toothpick to the center comes out clean. Let cool completely before moving to a wire rack.

Source: Omnomicon makes

Soldered Pendants, Oh Deer!

My best friend and I made these pendants while I was teaching her how to solder. A lot of fun, and she was a quick learner!

Oregon Coast Through the Viewfinder

We spent a beautiful weekend on the Oregon Coast; beach combing Moolack Bay, exploring seaside shops, watching the autumn sun set over the Pacific ocean, and climbing a light house. Seeing everything through the viewfinder of my Duaflex was such a treat.

Here's what I saw: