Plonking down with Purple

PHEW! The weather's been pretty brutal lately, and what with all my unpacking/packing and trying to get into a new rhythm of things at home....warm and humid weather really makes it difficult to get much done. polymer clay gets mushy and difficult to work with, and even with the new LED magnifier light that my youngest brother gave to me (came free with his spanking new specially-purchased-just-to-play-DiabloIII desktop computer) i can't do much at night, stupid astigmatism.

but i -have- been keeping busy. i switched to air dry clay instead, seeing as how the humidity means i have a barely-noticeable longer time to work with the clay before it dries out.

i first noticed a beautiful blue cake via my Foodbuzz subscription. i'm not really a 'foodie' in real life, hardly try any new foods unless introduced by way of family and friends (by 'introduced' i mean usually 'challenged' by my middle bro to try out something new, or suffer mild humiliation and taunting XD). but i digress. Foodbuzz features all sorts of beautiful photographs of a wide variety of foods, which is more 'realistic' (or 'rustic'? huh?) than the photographs i've come across in cookbooks. it's also the only 'food-related' subscription i have :-/ maybe i need to surf more, no wonder i'm so uninspired!! huhuhuhu! agh! i've digressed again!

(photo from http://i-heart-baking.blogspot.com/)

ANYWAY! i usually don't take much notice of the daily emails i get from the subscription (free!) but this one caught my eye. SEE WHAT I MEAN?? so gawwwjusss!!! i re-visited the photo a few times, before deciding that i MUST try to make it in mini! i was elated to see that she had even thoughtfully provided a link to the tutorial for icing the cake! AND AND i learnt a new word, "ombré"! i love using these graduated tones and had no idea there was a term for it o.O learn something new everyday!

and then, cos i'm easily distracted and bored, i tried out different combinations and designs using the same method. it's quite labour intensive, and the four in front were my practice pieces before i finally got the hang of it and did the 2 on the cake displays (from http://true2scale.com/!! i love them so much!)

of course i had to make macarons ;) i'd actually toyed with the idea of making these sorts cylindrical towers, rather than the usual cone shaped ones. but macaron making is rather labour intensive too, for all its simplicity in terms of looks. there are 64 macarons just in this 'tower' alone.

i don't recall where i'd first seen photos of these sorts of towers, or who was the first to stack (or popularize) macaron towers like these, but it seemed a little lacking on top. i could have stuck in some 'macaron lollipops' like the photos i've seen online, but it just seemed a little..boring. so i decided to make some flowers to see if it'll break the monotony.

TA-DAH!~! ok so they are a little over the top. but i like how they turned out, and i'm sure i could use them in countless other displays! these were made out of air dry clay too :)

i've also been working on a number of other things, some requests and personal challenges....can't wait to get back to working on them! :P

(oh yes, and i'm aware these look more 'pink' than 'purple', but it's such a difficult colour to pin down *whine*)