2014 Round-Up

The start of a new year is just around the corner, can you believe it'll be 2015?!  It's crazy to think I started The Microbakery in June of this year; it all still feels so brand new and exciting.  As cliche as this sounds, this year really has flown by.

To reflect, here's a few of the miniatures I worked on in 2014 placed in an awesomely cute display case one of my friends bought me for Christmas.  Get ready to see lots of it in upcoming posts because it's too stinkin' cute!

I can't even begin to express my gratitude towards everyone who's followed me and helped The Microbakery grow.  Everybody has been incredibly kind, encouraging, awesome, and supportive. With deep gratitude and many thanks, I thank you!

Here's to the start of a great New Year and more miniatures!  Cheers!

Airbnb Miniature Commercial

I thought this commercial by Airbnb was adorable and wanted to share it with you.  Watching this seriously makes me love miniatures more and more.  I can't get enough!  Definitely make sure you watch the second video, which shows behind-the-scenes :D  So cool!

Santa Christmas Cookie Tray

Who's excited?! Christmas is only a couple more days away ❄☃ Although to be honest, I'm a bit sad it's arriving so quickly because I love all the holiday lights, decorations, and spirit of the holiday season.

This was an extremely fun little project to work on and I actually ended up making two other duplicates.  Two to give away as presents, and one for me to keep. :P  I hope you all have a great holiday celebration and a happy new year!

Don't forget to leave some cookies and hot chocolate out for Santa! Make sure to add in some carrots for the reindeer too :)

❄ Holiday Baking ☃

Over the past few weeks, the Microbakery has been baking up a storm of holiday treats.  I'll keep the text minimal as I have quite a few pictures in this post.  Let the countdown to Christmas begin!

Pumpkin Pie

Cranberry almond glazed bunt cake

Pumpkin cake roll

Peppermint drizzle Christmas tree surprise loaf

Christmas Cookie Earrings

Well, it's that time of year again! Let the holiday festivities officially commence with Thanksgiving being the first event of the season.  Thanksgiving will be here in a few short days and once we come out of our food coma's, it's time to string up the holiday lights and place holiday wreaths on the doors.  Um, to be perfectly honest though, I'm one of those guilty people who "accidentally" left their Christmas lights up since last year.  What?! Fairy lights are really pretty at night, no matter what season.  So...uh...woops...

While it may be a bit premature to be thinking about Christmas, it's never too early to start working on Christmas themed miniatures.  You always have to start a couple weeks/months ahead to prep for all the extra miniatures you'll be making.  This year I decided to make a bunch of holiday themed cookie earrings for my friends and family as their gifts.  It's not the price of the gift that matters, it's the thought.  I put a lot of love and care into making these, I really hope they like them.

I first sketched the shape of each cookie (approximately 1 cm tall) on a large flat piece of clay and then individually cut and textured each one.  Then took a first pass applying light brown pastel for an all over "baked" effect and followed up with darker brown pastel around the cookie edges.

The cookies with frosting on them were created by mixing polymer clay with TLS.  Lastly I applied tiny clay decorations to them and baked it.

About a week ago I ordered surgical steel earring posts and backings off of eBay.  Finally after much anticipation I received the package and superglued the cookies to the flat pad earring posts.  I couldn't be happier with the outcome!  Hopefully my friends and family like them.

P.S.  I'm thinking about possibly making another tutorial.  If so, what would you want to see?

New Kitchenware Supplies!

Woohoo!  All the kitchenware that I ordered last week finally came in.  :D  It was so hard deciding what to buy because I wanted to buy it all! But I only picked the stamped metal pieces that I can't make myself (at least for now :P).  All the metal pieces came from eBay and the multi-tiered stand I bought from the craft store and are in 1/12th scale.  I'm so excited to include them with my miniatures now!

Here are some general dimensions:

Square tin: 3/4"

Tiered stand: Bottom plate ~ 1" diamter

Round tin: 3/4" diameter

Baking sheet: 1-9/16"L x 1"W

Pie pan: 7/8" diameter

Small baking sheet: 1-3/16"L x 3/4"W

Flat baking sheet: 1-5/16"L x 1"W 

If you are looking for a cheaper alternative (or even in addition) to the bakeware trays and pans I would recommend searching for common items that can repurposed as mini bakeware.  I'm sure there are a million other great ideas out there, but here are some ideas you could use that come to mind:

• Use empty makeup pans, both square and round, as cookie sheets
• Regular size and miniature sized bottle caps can be used as pie pans  
• Lastly you could buy a thin sheet of aluminum  (please be very careful!) and cut out a flat cookie sheet shape
• Wrap a piece of cardboard (or something thin) with aluminum foil. Make sure the surface is smoothed out to replicate a baking sheet

Happy (miniature) baking!

Donut Talk To Me

Last week one of my friends asked if I could make her a pair of donut earrings to match her "Donut talk to me" shirt.  Naturally, of course I said yes!  I was a bit nervous because I never really made earrings before so I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out.  I had to watch a few tutorials on how to make an eye pin from a loop pin, I kind of got it? It definitely looks like novice work, yikes. You can be the judge of that one... There is definitely room to improve haha.

I used a head pin, but you can also use an eye pin that has a pre-made loop.  Just be sure to bend the end of the pin that goes into the clay.  This will allow the clay to grip onto something and ensure the charm won't fall off if you twist it.

Haunt Your Disney Side

Lately, I've been dying to go to Disneyland.  See what I did there? No? Damn...  I like to think I'm clever and witty, not so much.  Running far away from that awful joke, I hope you all had a spook-filled Halloween!  Personally, I believe this "holiday" should be banished.  Permanently. Nada. Nope. Never again.  This may or may not have to do something with Universal Studio's Halloween Horror Nights, security guards, and crying.  I'm sure you can use your imagination to fill in the blanks, I'll just leave it at that.

While watching Nerdy Nummies make Maleficent candy apples, Ro mentioned there was a contest going on called Haunt Your Disney Side hosted by Disney.  You can create anything within four given categories (costumes, pumpkins, food, decor) that is inspired or related to Disney Parks.  Your photo could then be entered via their website, Instagram, or Twitter using the #DisneySideContest hashtag. 

Despite highly disliking Halloween, I knew I had to participate because the contest was being hosted by Disney.  DISNEY! DISNEY! DISNEY! Maybe I didn't make it clear enough how much I love anything Disney.  Does this technically fall under the category of "food," considering this is all made out of polymer clay? Meh.

Recognize this pumpkin head? His giant brother appears on Main Street every October.

Mickey ghost & pumpkin head cookies.

Mickey O'lantern, Maleficent, poisoned apple, and halloween Minnie Mouse Candy Apples

Mickey head shaped spider cake.

Mickey candy corn & Jack Skellington cupcakes with mummy hot dogs!

Graveyard "fondant" cake

Playing Catch-Up

Oh boy, guilty as charged!  Where do I even start...  It's no secret this blog has been a bit neglected the last few months, but it is what it is.  So let's play a little game of catch up!

First stop, Voodoo Doughnuts! I took my miniature doughnuts that I made a few posts ago (see it here) to the original Voodoo Doughnut location.  Despite the embarrassment of many people staring at me whilst I raised my arms up in the air to take a photo, I got some decent shots.  A few people even asked if they could buy it!

Fun fact:  The the rotating stand inside the glass case was spinning so fast, it was incredibly hard to get a photo of the specific doughnut w/ the mini box in my hand.  Thus, a semi-blurred background...

Good things come in pink boxes!

Next up are fruit tarts.  I made the tart shell using NuNu's House's technique, pre-baked it, and then filled it with the filling and fruit.  Take note to be delicate with the pre-baked tart shell, because I accidentally applied to much pressure when putting in the filling, and the shell sides split. Yikes.

Pear tart without the "baked" effect.  You can see the sides of the tart shell split.

Pistachio mousse pear tart

Another pear tart :)

Plum tart.  Excuse the dust all over the cutting board...

Yes, it's true, the tarts are the only things I made during my 1.5 month hiatus.  Slacking off much? Meh.  But fear not! I did do a really cool project for Halloween, which you will see in my next post.