Studio 27 - By Jennifer Adams: September 2021

Friday, September 24, 2021

DIY Spooky Blackbird Pie

I am on a roll with fun and spooky Halloween decor! This week I put together a 'blackbird pie' that you can copy for yourself. Check it out:

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I have a handful of these tiny Styrofoam birds in my craft supply and thought they would work just fine with a little makeover. After a coat of black paint and some yellow detailing on the beak, my bird was ready!

I made the bottom of the crust just like I did with these miniature pumpkin pies (salt dough in the oven), and filled it in with extra dough. After placing my blackbird, I continued adding clumps of dough until I had a nice pie shape. Then I flattened out a circular shape just bigger than the pie to serve as my top crust.

After cutting a hole for my little bird to peek through, I crimped the pie crust edges with my fingers and used a knife for the detailing on the top.

After getting the dough to look the way I liked, I popped the entire pie back into the oven to get the top and filling dried out.

Though the dough did just fine, the eyes on the bird melted away! It's hard to see in these photos but I ended up using black puffy paint to recreate the small, shiny eyes.

Wanting my pie to be a bit more baked looking, I mixed some brown acrylic paint with water and brushed it on.

And there you have it, a DIY faux blackbird pie for your Halloween decor!

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Want more Halloween fun?

Halloween Eyeball Plant

DIY Harry Potter Spell Books

Dollar Store Halloween Cloche

Halloween Jeweled Skulls

DIY Halloween Spooky House

Skeleton Fairies

Halloween Decor

Snow White's Poison Apple

I hope you enjoyed this Halloween 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

Craftastic Monday

Inspire Me Tuesday

Tuesdays With A Twist

All About Home

Wonderful Wednesday (Oh My Heartsie Girl)

Wonderful Wednesday (Penny's Passion)

Party In Your Pjs

Thursday Favorite Things

Creative Crafts Linky Party

Funtastic Friday

BFF Open House

A Themed Link Up

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This post was featured at:

Funtastic Friday

Friday, September 17, 2021

Snow White's Poison Apple

I love decorating for Halloween with items that are spooky and fun!

With this project I brought a little fairy tale lore into the holiday with a display of Snow White's poison apple. Read on to see how easy it was:

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I found my cheese dome and faux apple for less than $5 at the thrift store. After giving them both a good cleaning I sprayed the wooden platter in a rose gold (not pictured here).

While the spray paint was drying I used my Cricut to cut out my text in black permanent vinyl and applied it to the front of the dome.

In case you can't read it clearly, the text reads:

One Bite

And All Your Dreams

Will Come True

Never heard of a Cricut cutting machine? The best place to learn is with Jennifer Maker.

This vinyl information page of hers is a great start!

Here is my apple in it's new home complete with painted wood and the vinyl sticker.

It was cute, but not quite enough for my whimsical side...

...So I decided to add a 'store' label. Using my printer and regular old Microsoft Word, I inserted a shape into a document, layered a text box on top of that and then added in my text.

It reads:

-Evil Queen Apples-

The Enchanted Forest Apothecary

(Here is a post where Abby from Just A Girl And Her Blog shows you

exactly how to make similar labels)

And there you have it, an easy to make poison apple for your Halloween decor!

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Want more Halloween fun?

Halloween Eyeball Plant

DIY Harry Potter Spell Books

Dollar Store Halloween Cloche

Halloween Jeweled Skulls

DIY Halloween Spooky House

Skeleton Fairies

Halloween Decor

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

-Jennifer

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This post was added to the following link parties:

The Really Crafty Link Party

Craftastic Monday

Inspire Me Tuesday

All About Home

Wonderful Wednesday (Oh My Heartsie Girl)

Wonderful Wednesday (Penny's Passion)

Party In Your PJs

Thursday Favorite Things

Creative Crafts Linky Party

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This post was featured at:

BFF Open House

Friday, September 10, 2021

How I Made My Faux Pumpkin Pies

Pumpkin everything season is officially here and what better way to add charm to our kitchen and dining displays than with these adorable mini faux pumpkin pies?

Read on to see how easy you can create some yourself using salt dough and spackle:

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Using salt dough and some mini cake tins, I pressed the dough into tiny shells and baked at 250 for about an hour until dry.

Salt Dough:

2 cups flour

1 cup salt

1 cup water

My goal was to create a cavity to hold the filling, and you can see that it worked, but since this project I have figured out a better way. Instead of creating a bowl shape that requires a lot more of the spackle pie filling, fill your container mostly with the salt dough instead. Once the salt dough is dry you will now need less of the pie filling (which is more expensive) and the pie filling itself will need less drying time.

When It came time to mix up my filling I combined acrylic paint with lightweight spackle (joint compound). Not having the exact shade of brown that I was going for on hand, I decided to create my own with one part yellow and one part orange. I also added in some ground cinnamon so that the finished pies would smell good.

*Note - Cinnamon is naturally pest repellant so using the spice won't draw bugs to your displays.

Here you can see the salt dough shells and their spackle pie filling. Because my shells were made to be deep I needed more of the pie filling to complete them. If you imagine that the shells were mostly comprised of salt dough with just a small indentation, then you can see how I would have been able to get away with a lot less of the pie filling.

*Side Note - Though the pies pictured here dried nicely there is always a chance that spackle can crack during the drying process. The more spackle you use the greater the chances are of this cracking happening. Therefore using less pie filling not only saves you more expensive materials, but helps to keep the finished product looking it's best. If your spackle does crack, wait until the item is completely dry and then add another small layer to cover any imperfections.

*Tip - While salt dough is a wonderful and inexpensive material to work with, it must be kept dry for preservation. Because the spackle contains moisture, you are essentially adding water to your previously dried dough. This rewets the dough and if not allowed to re-dry properly can ruin the piece. I like to place my items on cooling racks to ensure full air circulation and leave them to dry for days at a time. With larger pieces, such as thick pies, I'll let them sit for over a month to fully dry before putting them into storage containers. When completely dry it's best to keep your pieces in air tight storage containers to prevent any moisture buildup. If they aren't fully dry before you seal them up though....a whole lot of icky stuff starts to happen. I learned this lesson the hard way! 😌

Once my spackle filling was dry I added another dollop of plain white spackle to serve as a whipped cream topping. A generous sprinkling of some more cinnamon and the pies were good to go.

And there you have it - cute little decorative pies that smell good too!

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Want more fake bake fun?

Faux Cupcakes

Faux Cupcakes: Candy Series

Chocolate Bunnies & Eggs

Crib Sheets Turned Ice Cream Tray

Jello Mold Recycle : Strawberry Chocolate

Strawberry Shortcake Fake Bake

Hostess Cupcakes

Fake Bake Ice Cream

Fake Bakes - Jellies & Jams

Pumpkin Soup Decor

I hope you enjoyed this how-to 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

Craftastic Monday

Tuesdays With A Twist

All About Home

Wonderful Wednesday (Oh My Heartsie Girl)

Wonderful Wednesday (Penny's Passion)

Party In Your PJs

Thursday Favorite Things

Creative Crafts Linky Party

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This post was featured at:

Friday Favorites

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Funtastic Friday

Friday, September 3, 2021

Pumpkin Soup Decor

After seeing a photo of pumpkin soup served in a carved out pumpkin on a fall table, I thought wouldn't that make a great fake bake for fall decor? And I decided to figure out how to replicate the look!

Read on to see how you can create some for yourself:

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I started with these Dollar Tree foam pumpkins.

Small and lightweight, these pumpkins are easy to carve and decorate.

(You can click here to browse Dollar Tree's online selection)

After cutting a section out for the tops, they were ready to go.

No need to clean as these pumpkins are already hollow 😎

Because the pumpkins are a bit shiny as they come from the store,

I dabbed a bit of Harvest Orange acrylic paint on their surfaces. This brought down the shine and made them a bit more realistic looking.

Note - Don't forget to paint the inside of the rim about and inch or two down. That way you will avoid having any bright white Styrofoam showing between your 'soup' and the pumpkin.

Once the paint was dry I filled the interiors with wadded up plastic bags. The plastic bags are a cheap and easy way to fill the space and allow you to use less of your more expensive materials.

Then it was time to create the soup.

Using more of the Harvest Orange acrylic, I mixed it with lightweight joint compound until I had a color to my liking.

After that it was as easy as pouring the mixture into the pumpkins, making sure to cover all of the plastic. I also used my spatula to give the surfaces a bit of swirl detail.