Shan the Kitchen Faerie is Complete

Faeries love sweets...I mean really, REALLY, love sweets. So what's better than one being an assistant pastry chef. Shan loves to help in the kitchen and baking anything sweet is her expertise. She has been collecting recipes for well over one hundred years now. Her little recipe box is overflowing with delicious sweetness. Today she has assisted in baking some jumbo Peanut Butter Chocolate cupcakes and she herself can just taste how delicious it's going to be. She just needs to add a bit more shugar and it will be ready to be enjoyed.  Shugar is a faerie word...it means sugar and honey...ohhhh so sweet. Like I said...faeries love their sweets!!!

Shan is one of my fully sculpted ooaks with a very strong wire armature underneath. She stands at 5 1/2 inches if you don't include her hand sewn Chef hat. Her outfit is made from clay but her apron is cloth with a tiny pocket that holds her spatula, whisk and wooden spoon. (those three items were made from clay and then hand painted using acrylic paints.) Her eyes are some of my hand drawn and her hair is wool. She has been painted using acrylic paints as well. Her wings are made from vellum paper. Her Shugar shaker was made from clay with a paper label wrapped around it. She has one of my tiny hemp bracelets around her left wrist.

The base of this piece is a small glass votive holder. It holds one of my felted cupcakes along with a tiny recipe box made from cardstock. It actually holds tiny little recipe cards and spacers. It has a spiral wire holder to keep your recipe card on so you can see it as you are baking.

I have fallen in love with using vellum paper. It makes faerie wings look magical without doing anything to them.

Shan is ready to go to her new home (she was a commission piece....I did the eyes green and the hair dark to match her new keeper) I hope she behaves herself...LOL!! She has asked that I give all of you her recipe for her delicious Peanut Butter Chocolate cupcakes. Enjoy!!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Cupcakes

Filling:
1 package (3 oz.) cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon 2% milk

Batter:
2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup baking cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs
1 cup water
1 cup 2% milk
1/2 cup canola oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Frosting:
1/3 cup butter, softened
2 cups confectioner's sugar
6 tablespoons baking cocoa
3-4 tablespoons 2% milk

To Prepare:

In a small bowl, beat cream cheese, peanut butter, sugar and milk until smooth, Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, salt and baking soda. In another bowl whisk eggs, water, milk, oil and vanilla extract. Stir into dry ingredients. Batter will be thin.

Fill paper lined jumbo muffin cups half full with batter. Drop scant tablespoon of peanut butter mixture into center of each cup, cover with remaining batter.

Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes or until toothpick comes out of center clean. Cool 10 minutes. Remove from pan onto wire rack and let cool completely. While cupcakes are cooling mix frosting ingredients together and then frost cupcakes,        Yield 1 dozen.

Until next time.............Hugs,
Regi

Kitchen Faerie is coming along nicely

Wow...where in the world has this week gone to? I so can't believe that it is Friday already. Not complaining, mind you...not at all. I just don't know where Tuesday through Thursday disappeared to...hehe!! I have been working on the Kitchen Faerie and she is coming along so nicely. I normally do the heads first but for some reason my muse wanted me to do the body first. Actually, I have jumped all over the place doing this one.  I found these cute miniatures over at PrintMini and made an adorable recipe box with tiny recipe cards. If you need anything mini and I do mean ANYTHING go and check out this awesome site.

Here are some WIP photos of the "BODY" so far. Shame I can't re-sculpt mine...LOL!! OK....well....actually I am working on re-sculpting myself but it's going to take a good while BUT like my great grandmama use to say "We don't put it on overnight so we aren't going to take it off overnight". Wise woman!!!

After looking at these photos I need to shorten the fingers on the hand that is tapping the bottom of the sugar shaker. The other hand has it's fingers curled under the shaker handle so they are good. I have this really colorful string that I'm going to put around the open space in her middle to be part of her shirt. She will also have a chef's hat and an apron. I'm planning on using colorful dragonfly wings on her as well.

I'm hoping to work on her some tomorrow afternoon as I'm not cleaning this weekend. Perhaps I can even get her finished...that is if I can focus...hehe!!

Now it's time to head to Heritage Park where it's movie in the park night....YEA!!! The movie tonight is "The Zookeeper". The Chazman and I are stoked....the hubbikins will probably start snoring but that's alright. At least he will be with us...mostly!!

Until next time..........Hugs,
Regi

Kitchen Faerie WIP

My muse has FINALLY started singing about something other than mermaids. Don't get me wrong,  ya'll know that I LOVE mermaids but I love other creatures too....like faeries. A friend has commissioned me to make her a kitchen faerie. I'm so excited, for two reasons, (#1) that I get to design a kitchen faerie and (#2) that I'm going to be pulling in two types of my art that I love to do....felt creations and clay creations.

Now this friend is a fabulous baker....OMGOSH...her cupcakes are to die for...or at least so good that they might make ya want to slap your momma. (I so wouldn't advise that...and I so don't condone that type of behavior. It's just one of our quirky Southern sayings that means it's "OHHH SO GOOD") The Chazman loves when she has orders to fill and makes a few extras because she brings some to us. Well...I really shouldn't say US as the Chazman seems to be the only one who gets to enjoy them. Not that we wouldn't love one but it seems when we decide to eat one...there...aren't.....any....left. Imagine that!!

With her love of baking and cupcakes being her specialty, well, it didn't take to much whispering from my muse to tell me what I needed to do with this ooaks. My plan is to make one of my felted cupcake pin cushions...but this time it won't be a pin cushion. It will be the base to a recipe card holder. The Li'l faerie will be the assistant pastry chef. She will have her little apron and chef hat along with a few baking instruments. Hopefully, she will be holding a tiny can of sprinkles and shaking it over the cupcake.

Here is what I have so far and keep in mind that I just started working on this.....it's still in the early WIP stage.

I have her wire armature completed and she is all wrapped up. I like using the florist tape to bulk out my pieces so as not to use to much clay to weigh them down. I mean...she has to be able to fly ya know!! ~_^

Here are some of her cooking utensils....a tiny wooden spoon....the sprinkles shaker.....a whisk and a spatula. I'm thinking of putting some vines on the handles but then I might not as they are going to be in her apron pocket. Decisions....decisions!!

Time to get back to work.....until next time...............HUGS,
Regi