michelle my belle

Pretty Acorn Cupcakes

I've been pondering what to do for my fall cupcakes this year.
These have been my creations for the past two years here and here.

Katy let me borrow her much treasured Hello, Cupcake book for some inspiration.
My girls and I decided to go with the acorns, they were so cute!

The book offered a great tutorial and as it turned out, not difficult at all.
Just heat 4-5 caramels in the microwave for 5 or so seconds.
While warm and pliable, form into the shape of an egg.

Dip the tops in melted chocolate and then into the jimmies.

SO CUTE! But I can't take credit. My kids made all of them.

Then we took turns adding dollops of
White Cake Mix with blue food coloring and Devils Food Cake Mix.
I'm sure there was a much cleaner way to do this!

Look how pretty they turned out!
Can tell by my daughters blue teeth that she's been licking the finished utensils?

White Frosting with more blue food coloring.
Spooned into a large Ziploc bag with the tip cut off.

Makes for easy clean up that way!

A last detail of Chocolate Frosting added to the acorn tops to act as stems.

Don't you think things taste better when they're colorful!

Wine Cork Board

I just had to share my friend Janne's Wine Cork Board she made. I absolutely love how she put the labels all around the outside. And, the best part...she has a TUTORIAL on exactly how she did it! 

Handmade Ornaments Galore!

I've been in an ornament making craze lately. I did 4 for the swap I was involved in and now I've decided to make them for my top 20 or so customers (stores), 2 ornament exchanges, a few friends and 5 to sell on Etsy. That's a total of 50 ornaments. They'll all be signed and numbered on the back.

I wanted to share my process with you to maybe inspire you to create your own ornaments. If you do I would love to see what you come up with!

First of all, I hand cut a stamp from a sketch. I use the soft eraser material for my stamps just because it's so easy to cut and it doesn't make my hands hurt. Genine has a wonderful tutorial just on stamp cutting, not to mention her work is fabulous! I prefer using the StazOn ink pads just because the ink is waterproof and I don't have to worry about it smearing. You can also use a brayer and printing ink but using the ink pad goes quick and there's less to clean up.

Then I began stamping and stamping and stamping. You could use any kind of wood but I used raw 3/8" MDF (medium density fiberboard) as my base.

Using a scroll saw I cut carefully around each stamped image. Afterwards I used fine sandpaper to smooth out the edges and back.

Here's Rachel, one of my employees, getting to play on the creative side of things. She's usually in the office but I'm sure she welcomed the change since she's quite artistic herself. I had her cut the thin copper into scarf shapes with a pair of scissors.

Before applying the glitter as shown here, a little watered down gold paint and some shading were added. An orange oil pastel was used for the nose area and Mod Podge to adhere chunky glitter to the areas to be covered.

The hangers are made out of those brass hooks that you can hang things from your ceiling with. Bent and oxidized with Nickel Oxidizer to blacken them. I pre drilled the holes to prevent the wood from splitting.

Wrapped the copper scarf around fastened it with a small nail and then added a copper patina to give it a weathered look. Repainted the small black dots for the mouth, used red/pinkish paint watered down for the cheeks so it kind of spread naturally under the glitter. And finished it off with a vintage bingo game piece.

This has been so much fun to make! I've already decided I'm going to give one to each of my girls with a bingo piece depicting their age this year.

If you've handmade something this holiday season I'd love to see, please leave me a comment with your blog address so I can come visit.

I've posted 5 of them on my Etsy. They're signed and numbered on the back and even better in person!