Hello Kitty Cake

Hello All! I have been so busy visiting with family that I have not had time to post pics from Alex's Sweet 16th Birthday Party.

Well I thought I would share her birthday cake with everyone. I was quite pleased with how it turned out, seeing as I have only made like three cakes so far, and this was the first time I tried to make a layered cake.

Alex and I made 4 layers; one each at 10", 8", 6", and 4" in diameter. Each layer, except the bottom one, was cut in half and filled with a strawberry preserves filling.

Then we spread a thin coat of buttercream frosting on each layer to give a nice smooth finish to the fondant.
We colored our white fondant with hot pink, light pink, and black gel colors. Then we covered alternating layers with the light pink and hot pink fondant. The layers are supported inside the cake using wooden dowels cut to size and cardboard inserts between each layer.

This is where my Good Friend Missie, from Created by Missie came and helped me to decorate the cake.

Then we whipped out the Cricut Cake Machine and cut out Hello Kitty at 2.5" from Hello Kitty Greetings page 29 in white and black and we cut her bow in light pink. We also cut 4 sets of "16" from Hello Kitty Font cartridge. I believe they were cut at 1.5 ". We also cut a variety of circles in white using the Hello Kitty Font cartridge, page, 72 Shadow feature. We used Wilton's Pearl Dust on all white and pink fondant to give the cake some sparkle. (Thank you Leslie..for that tip!)

I also used a fondant mold to make the borders and flower buttons on the cake. It is hard to see in the picture, but the bottom border had flowers on it, the borders on the two center layers have a stitching pattern, and the top layer is a wide scalloped border.
Here is our finished cake. I am so pleased with how well it turned out. The more I make cakes, the less stressful the decorating becomes. This one was actually very fun to make.


I hope you all have a Great and Crafty Day!

Jan

Hello Kitty Sweet 16 Invitation

Hello all! I am sorry to be a little behind in my projects lately. It has been a crazy couple of weeks, and unfortunately this month things are only going to keep up at a crazy pace. I hope to get some projects done this weekend, as I am going to an impromptu scrap weekend, however, we will probably chat/shop/and eat more than scrap! LOL (That is our usual MO)

Well here is my Hello Kitty Project from April's monthly challenge. It is the Invitation to my daughter's Sweet 16 birthday party. My daughter is really into Anime, Cosplaying, and Hello Kitty. We will be using the Hello Kitty Cartridges to make the decorations for her party as well.


Hello Kitty was cut from Hello Kitty Greetings at 2.76"
Sweet 16 was cut from Hello Kitty Font at 1"
The postage stamp mat was cut from Sentimentals at 4.75"

The solid Cardstock was Coredinations. The Zebra Patterned paper is The Paper Studio.

I finished off the card with some Zebra print ribbon from Michael's.

Thanks for visiting.

Have a Great and Crafty Day!

Jan

My new Yudu, and my first not-so perfect shirts.

Hello All!

Last August, I went to the Circle meet-up in Wisconsin. At the meet-up we used the YUDU machine and made shirts and tote bags there with the Circle Logo on it. I was immediately smitten and I had flashes of all the fantastic things I could make with the YUDU. This was the beginning of my obsession with getting a YUDU. It took a while to convince my hubby that I needed this machine. He wasn't really buying it, but when I found out that Michaels was having a special on the YUDU for 100 bucks...well he finally gave in. Yipee!

So I parked my booty outside Michael's a full 30 minutes before they opened on Thursday, just to be sure that I got one! I laughed all the way home from the store on the super high you only get when you know you scored a great deal on a toy you really wanted!

Well fast forward 36 hours after coming home with my new treasure and some of my euphoria has worn off. Sigh..

Well I watched the entire DVD that came with the machine as well as numerous videos on YouTube. I felt like I could attempt a project. I was scared of using the emulsion sheets because they are pretty pricey, so I tried to use vinyl.

WELL...that didn't go so well. My vinyl's adhesive wasn't strong enough to stand up to the ink.

OK..Second attempt with a different vinyl...NOPE...

Okay, for my third attempt I used one of the emulsion sheets....ummmm... NOPE, and let em tell you..THAT HURT! Wasting an entire $10.00 sheet of emulsion because I didn't have the screen wet enough. I figured out that I didn't have it adhered to the screen well enough, so it just washed right off. I have since learned that my screen needed to be much wetter than I had it the first time so....

Attempt #4...Second and last sheet of emulsion. It appears that I correctly adhered the emulsion and burned my image on it OK. At least mostly OK.

I attempted to pull a screen onto some scrap material I had and the ink bled all over. I think the material was not absorbent enough for the ink to stick to it to well. When I tried to pull another screen on the back of a old tshirt, the image came out better, but there was some haloing effect in certain areas that had bled in the first attempt. I think, now that the screen had extra ink on the material side from the first attempt, so I washed offthe screen and re-dried it in the machine.

Well over an hour later, and I again tried to make a shirt. The same thing happened, but to a lesser degree. I have come to the conclusion that my emulsion wasn't perfect and some of the edges are loose. I pulled a few shirts as a trial and I am only getting a small halo effect in the loose areas. Luckily these were meant to be sleep shirts anyway, so the girls don't really care, but I obviously need to practice some more.



My friend, Missie, over at Created By Missie, also just got a YUDU and she used an outdoor vinyl to make her screen, and it worked perfectly, so I have ordered some GT5 Vinyl and as soon as it arrives I will be trying that technique.

Also as I was washing the ink off of my screen for the second time, some of the Emulsion was starting to peel up, so it really cinfirmed that the emulsion wasn't on that great.

I will say, my first attempt was very much a let down, but I am certainly not giving up on screen-printing just yet.

I welcome any tips or techniques anyone has to offer, as I am beginner, but I really want to make the most of the YUDU.

Thanks

Have a Great and Crafty Day

April Cartridge Challenge Picks

Okay...Back again for my third post of today, and then I am all caught up!

I picked the CArtridges I am going to use for my Cartridge Challenge for the month of April:

Here are the lucky picks!

Birthday Cakes
Cupcake -Lite
Designer's Calendar
Hello Kitty Greetings
Locker Talk
My Community -Classmate
Paisley
Summer Vacation -Seasonal

I have also added that I want to use my Imagine more, so I am including using my Imagine at least once during the month as well.

I hope all of you are challengeing yourself as well. I have to admit, I am using cartridges that I don't always want to, and sometimes it is a struggle to find a use for some of them, but I am happy to be working on my goal of using all my cartridges at least once.

Good luck to all in meeting all your challenges.

Have a Great and Crafty Day!

Jan