Studio 27 - By Jennifer Adams: November 2020

Saturday, November 28, 2020

DIY Faux Christmas Cookies

Remember when I shared this post featuring my faux holiday chocolates? Shortly after creating them I posted a pic in a Dollar Tree Crafts And Decor group that I belong to on Facebook. That's when a commentor responded by telling me that I should follow the Glittz And Glue page hosted by Cristal Gonzalez, and I'm so glad that I did! It's a wonderful place full of tutorials how to make decorative food items called 'fake bakes' and I have been inspired ever since 😍

My first project was to try my hand at the salt dough cookies that you see here, check it out:

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Here is my first batch of salt dough cookies. The recipe I followed calls for 2 cups of flour, 1 cup of salt and 1 cup of water. I mixed my dry ingredients first before adding the water little by little until it was all mixed together. The dough may be a little sticky but dusting your hands, table top and any cutters/ molds with flour will help. Once I had my shapes cut out I placed them on a floured cookie sheet and baked at 250. I would recommend starting at two hours baking time and going from there depending on how thick your items are.

Like the shirt? You can find the SVG file for this design (Christmas Baking Crew) in my Etsy shop here.

Fresh out of the oven my 'cookies' were dry but had gotten a little puffy. I've since read that if this happens (and you are not using self rising flour) it's because the oven was a little too hot. I haven't experimented with temps yet so if you have any tips please add them in the comments!

Keeping with the current holiday season I used acrylic paint to make half red and half green.

Then I used some joint compound to act as icing and piped it on to my cookies using a large flower tip.

A few beads for sprinkles and I was happy 😊

The red and green cookies turned out so well that I decided to continue with a few other varieties:

The gingerbread snowflakes and men I painted front and back in acrylic paint and then used puffy paint to add detail.

I also make some more traditional shapes that I also decorated with acrylic and puffy paints.

This project was so much fun and I've been 'fake baking' ever since - more posts coming soon!

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I hope you enjoyed this holiday decor post, thanks for stopping by!

-Jennifer

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This post was added to the following link parties:

You're The Star

The Really Crafty Link Party

Wonderful Wednesday Oh My Heartsie Girl

Wonderful Wednesday (Penny's Passion)

Your Whims Wednesday

Party In Your Pjs

Thursday Favorite Things

Friday, November 20, 2020

DIY Faux Caramel Apples

After seeing several pictures of artificial caramel apples online, I decided to try some for myself.

Here is how easy it was to do:

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Supplies

For this project I used three faux apples from the dollar store, clear glue, acrylic paint, Mod Podge, wooden dowels and granola.

(You can click here to find many of these supplies at Dollar Tree)

Note: I used real granola for my apples because that was all I had on hand at the time, but I generally don't recommend using actual food products as they don't hold up as well. I haven't tried it yet but I've heard a lot of people suggest using cat liter or animal bedding in place of perishable items. To be safe, I coated my granola with a thick layer of Mod Podge and so far it has been fine.

Remove Stems

The first thing that I did was to pull out the stems from my apples. These holes are where I later attached the wooden dowels.

Paint

Next I mixed some acrylic paint with clear glue. Since I was going to be sprinkling on granola, I wanted the paint to be really sticky and the glue did the trick. Place your apples on a disposable surface and slowly pour your 'caramel' coating on top. Go ahead and insert the wooden dowels now too, as the drying glue/ paint mixture will help to secure them in place.

Add Nuts

Before sprinkling on the granola I used a kitchen hammer to mash it into fine pieces. The smaller they are, the easier it will be for them to stay in place while they dry. Once that was done I carefully transferred the apples onto a new set of dry plates. A lot of my paint had puddled around the bottoms and I didn't want it adhering to the apples as it dried.

I let the paint dry overnight before adding a layer of Mod Podge to seal.

And here they are!

After the apples turned out so well, I decided to do a couple of pears too. This time I used a darker shade of paint and applied from the bottom up. I love how they turned out!

And that's how easy it is to make your own faux fall fruit treats.

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I hope you enjoyed this seasonal decor how-to post, thanks for stopping by!

-Jennifer

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This post was added to the following link parties:

You're The Star

The Really Crafty Link Party

Craftastic Monday

Inspire Me Tuesday

Tuesdays With A Twist

All About Home

Meraki

Wonderful Wednesday (Oh My Hearstie Girl)

Wonderful Wednesday (Penny's Passion)

Your Whims Wednesday

Creative Crafts Linky Party

Party In Your Pjs

Sunday, November 15, 2020

DIY Faux Holiday Chocolates

I have been wanting to add some faux chocolates to my collection of food decor forever, but they can get expensive and so far I've been focusing on my cupcakes. It kept entering my mind though, can't I make some myself? Finally I stumbled upon this post from Kurolace and learned how to use hot glue to create artificial chocolates. In the post Kurolace uses glue directly from her glue gun to fill in silicone molds, becuase my mold was so much larger I ended up experimenting with another method, check it out:

(You can click here to see some of my faux baked goodies)

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As I said, my mold was quite a bit deeper than the one pictured in Kurolace's blog post. In order to avoid spending all day with the glue gun, I decided to cut up glue sticks into small pieces and fill up the mold.

My mold is from Wilton brand and can be found here on Walmart's webpage. It's about $4 in the store so keep that in mind when browsing online. I noticed a few third party sellers listing them for quite a bit more 😉

Another tip is to check out the seasonal aisle with the baked goods supplies. There I was able to find a Christmas themed mold for only $2, also Walmart.

Top: After filling my mold with the cut up bits, I placed the mold onto a cookie sheet and baked it in the oven at 250 for about 8 minutes, just long enough to get the pieces to melt down and sink.

Middle: At this point I pulled out the tray and added a few more pieces to each mold. I didn't add enough glue at the beginning to fill the mold completely because I wanted to avoid it overflowing, since the glue pieces don't always fit in all that well. If you do have overflow, you can easily trim it off with a craft knife and then reuse the excess.

Bottom: After a second round of glue my mold was filled nicely and I pulled it out to cool. You can speed this up by popping it into the freezer.

Once dry I used acrylic paints to create dark, milk and white chocolate pieces and followed up with Mod Podge to seal.

*Notice the real chocolate in the top pic, that's very important to quality crafting 😊

Here are the chocolates with just acrylic paint and Mod Podge. Not bad, but I thought I could do a little better and so...

...used puffy paint to drizzle on a topping.

I also made several more sets and painted them in a variety of colors for differing holidays.

Remember that Christmas mold I found in the Walmart seasonal aisle? I gave it a try as well, here is how they turned out 😍

As far as storage goes, I would keep these inside where temperatures stay consistent. If placed in a garage or attic, they may melt down during the summer months. I am also using tissue paper to keep them from touching one another, as glue/ paint/ Mod Podge can sometimes be a bit sticky and I don't want to mar the painted finish.

And there you have it, easy and inexpensive faux chocolates that you can do at home!

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I hope you enjoyed this holiday decor how-to post, thanks for stopping by!

-Jennifer

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This post was added to the following link parties:

You're The Star

The Really Crafty Link Party

Craftastic Monday

Inspire Me Tuesday

Tuesdays With A Twist

All About Home

Meraki

Wonderful Wednesday (Oh My Heartsie Girl)

Wonderful Wednesday (Penny's Passion)

Your Whims Wednesday

Creative Crafts Linky Party

Party In Your Pjs

Thursday Favorite Things

Friday Favorites

Funtastic Friday

A Themed Link Up

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This post was featured at the

Sew Can Do Craftastic Monday Link Party

And the

Meraki Link Party

Sunday, November 8, 2020

Creating Fall Owls From Christmas Tree Ornaments

I've been wanting some cute little owls to add to my fall decor and have been seeing a lot of them, but they tend to be dressed up for the winter holidays. That's no problem though, with a bit of creative re-style Christmas intended ornaments can easily be transitioned for fall. Here is how I did mine:

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I started with these winter/ Christmas themed owl ornaments. The top two are from Dollar Tree, the bottom three from Walmart.

You can click here to visit Dollar Tree or here to visit Walmart.

The first thing that I did was to remove all traces of winter holiday decor by gently pulling off the attached fabrics, pinecones and other accessories. Most of the owls looked just fine, though the little guy on the top was rough where his plaid fabric had been removed. I used a bit of chocolate brown acrylic paint to cover up his issues and reattached his nose with hot glue 😊

Since my owls would no longer be hanging ornaments, I needed a way to help prop them up so they could sit independently without falling over. I dug into my craft supplies and found these small wood cuttings (Dollar Tree) and bird nests (thrift store find). I removed all of the plastic eggs and leaves from the nests so that they would have room to hold an owl as well as looking more fallish.

Here you can see my little guys sitting nicely in their nests or upon their log posts (with a good amount of hot glue). Cute as they were, I wanted to add just a little bit more fall and so pulled out some fabric fall leaves to add.