Studio 27 - By Jennifer Adams: April 2022

Friday, April 29, 2022

Popsicle Decor From Pool Noodles and Sponges

It's almost time to start bringing out those summer decorations! Why not add a few faux popsicles to the mix? Here's how:

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After cutting down a pool noodle into 4ths, I inserted a wooden popsicle stick into the end.

All of my pool noodles, popsicle sticks and sponges for this project were bought at Dollar Tree. Keep your eyes open all year, as the stores sell different colored noodles at different times. For example, I've seen white at Christmas time and purple at Halloween 😎

Remember this post about recycling your spray foam pieces? Here is another example of where I used those scraps. A bit of foam (with hot glue) helped to secure the popsicle sticks in place. I also used two sticks per pool noodle to give them a bit more strength.

The sponge popsicles were as easy as gluing a popsicle stick onto the back of a colorful sponge, that's it!

Here is how my popsicle décor looked at first.

Ok, but not quite as cute as I wanted, so I jazzed them up a bit:

I decided to added a bit of faux icing and sprinkles at the corners. Just pipe on some lightweight spackle from an icing bag and then position the sprinkles of your choice. Mine were made of clay and this post talks more about them.

For my pool noodle popsicles, I ended up cutting them down and adding spackle to them as well. A drinking cup held them in place nicely.

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And here is how they turned out:

I love how they look added into my fake bake ice cream cabinet.

I'll share a post with photos from that cabinet soon 😍

And there you have it, easy and inexpensive popsicle décor from dollar store pool noodles!

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I hope you enjoyed this fake bake 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

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Wonderful Wednesday (Penny's Passion)

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This post was featured at:

You're The Star

Friday, April 22, 2022

Faux Food Decor From Dollar Tree Pet Toys

You might remember my recent post where I turned Dollar Tree checker toys into fake cookies? Well the fun continues again today, this time using....pet toys!

What?! Yep, check it out:

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Here is what I started with; pizza, doughnuts and ice cream sandwiches all from Dollar Tree's pet supply section.

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

I thought that the ice cream sandwiches were pretty cute as they were. I used a bit of lightweight spackle in an icing bag to cover up the text and that was that!

The pizza slices I used to create a slice of layer cake. Again using that lightweight spackle, I applied it to the top of each slice and then added another piece of pizza, using three slices total for this piece of cake.

Once stacked, I piped on more spackle to cove the top and back of the pizza slices, then topped clay sprinkles.

These clay sprinkles I made myself using this extruder and this polymer clay, both on Amazon.

After loading the extruder with clay, squeeze out long lines of clay strings. Bake until dry and then cut apart into sprinkles.

Here is a great tutorial from Alison at Dream A Little Bigger. She even does hers by hand so if you don't have an extruder, no worries!

I began my doughnut tower in the same way as the pizza slices, layering with more spackle. While with the pizza slices I covered up all the 'pizza', I made sure to leave a bit of the chocolate and sprinkle detailing showing at the sides.

For the top doughnut I cut a foam craft sphere in half and glued it on top. This covered up the hole and gave me a nice surface to apply my dollop of icing.

A cherry on top and then they were complete!

And there you have it, easy and inexpensive fake bake décor from dollar store pet toys!

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I hope you enjoyed this fake bake 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

Tuesdays With A Twist

All About Home

Making A Home Homemaking Link Up

Beautifully Made

Lou Lou Girls Fabulous Party

Wonderful Wednesday (Oh My Heartsie Girl)

Wonderful Wednesday (Penny's Passion)

Creative Muster

Thursday Favorite Things

Creative Crafts Linky Party

Crafty Creators

Create, Bake, Grow & Gather

Home Matters Linky Party

Friday, April 15, 2022

Recycling Your Spray Foam Leftovers

Whenever I'm working on a project I try to find the best priced materials as possible and recycle as much as I can. In this post I'm showing you how I reused leftover pieces of spray foam to create more crafty projects-

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So where are these pieces of leftover spray foam coming from? If I do up a set of faux cupcakes I want to leave the domed tops in place to create the cupcake shape. Other times I use spray foam to fill the interior of my crafting space and don't want the puffy top. An example of this is when I made my faux potted plants. After filling my pots with foam, I trimmed off the excess to create a flat top. The cut off pieces were in such a nice shape and condition that I figured I should save them to reuse. Read on to see how:

A couple of tops painted and glued into ice cream bowls to create a lemon treat.

When making this patriotic trifle bowl, a flipped over piece of spray foam filled the interior and gave me a stable surface.

Similar to the trifle bowl, another upside down foam scrap helped to fill the depression of this Jello mold.

I also did up a few faux sandwiches. After painting several smaller pieces of foam that were similar in size, I glued toy lettuce, tomato and lunch meat pieces inside. A bit of toothpick on the tops finished them off.

(Tiered tray makeover here)

And of course those ice cream towers! For these I selected three different sizes of spray foam tops, painted them in ice cream colors and then stacked them using light weight spackle. Don't forget the cherry on top 😍

And there you have it, an easy and creative way to put those foam leftovers to good use!

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I hope you enjoyed this fake bake recycling 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

Tuesdays With A Twist

All About Home

Making A Home - Homemaking Link Up

Beautifully Made

Lou Lou Girls Fabulous Party

Wonderful Wednesday (Oh My Heartsie Girl)

Wonderful Wednesday (Penny's Passion)

Creative Muster

Thursday Favorite Things

Creative Crafts Linky Party

Create, Bake, Grow & Gather

Home Matters Linky Party

Friday, April 8, 2022

Dollar Tree Checkers Turned Faux Cookie Decor

I was happily browsing through my local Dollar Tree when I spotted some checkers in the toy section. They were the perfect size and shape for faux cookies so I thought, why not experiment?

Here is how easy the project was:

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In this pic you can see the checker set that I used as well as my brand/ color of spray paint.

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

The black checkers I kept as they were, but the red ones I sprayed with the brown.

Once the 'cookies' were dry, I sandwiched them together with lightweight spackle.

After that all that was left was to stick them on top of some faux cakes and I was good to go. And there you have it, easy to make decorative 'Oreo' cookies for your fake bake decor!

Maybe you don't like the crown printing that is still visible on the checkers and would like a more authentic Oreo? Here is a post where I show you how to make your own silicone molds 😎

Note - In case you are unfamiliar with fake cake making, these are just a couple of pieces of Styrofoam that have been 'iced' with light weight joint compound. I then used more of the joint compound in an icing bag with a Wilton open star tip to add the details.

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