And now for my studio update...

Last year my intentions were to finish sculptures that had been started but put aside for some reason or other. I want to complete those unfinished sculptures as well as work on some new pieces.

The last six months, waiting for surgery and then recuperating, is all in the past, HOORAY! Working in my studio is so much fun!

Last Spring I mentioned my GRAND INTENTIONS in this blog post. This sculpture was put aside until early September, to be completed by late October or early November. That was the plan, but we all know what happened in early September. I want to finish this sculpture!

These great metal frames...

have been turned into shadow boxes.

One frame, mentioned in this post, will have the fireworks, pictured below, attached to the outside. A bust portrait of the founder of the "Oh My Stars Fireworks Manufacturing Company" will be in the interior.

This blog post showed the making of the massive amount of fireworks for the shadow box. I'm looking forward to finishing this piece.

This metal lamp base was going to be turned into...

 a tufted bench somewhat like this settee, it didn't come to pass as you can read here. I want to revisit that bench and create the prop that is still sitting in my mind.

These amazingly detailed small carpets are waiting to be used; one will be turned into a flying carpet. Have a look at the original blog post here to get a better look at the size of the carpets.

In this blog post I mention the carpets and also that I was collecting items for the flying carpet. I have been collecting "treasures" to go on the flying carpet over the last few years and finally I have enough to choose from. I am very particular about size and detail in the items that I purchase which means the treasures take a while to come together.

I have kept these small cakes to use in a sculpture and that is all that I want to say about them as it is still percolating in the brain. They were originally used in a Christmas display along with some very over the top Christmas presents that have since been dismantled, I can't keep all of the props or I would need a warehouse! Check out the post about those presents and cakes here.

So, there we have it, good intentions that will finally be finished.

Some small accessories for a new sculpture that I am working on.

Last year, May 24, 2013 to be precise, I mentioned the clock case pictured below in this blog post. I started work on this sculpture and then it was put aside while I redid my blog, cleaned my studio and then various other jobs came up that pushed this sculpture aside. There was also a vacation in Switzerland to see our oldest son, his delightful wife and their new baby. You can check my posts about our trip here, here, here, and here.

I am working on the sculpture again. Ideas have jelled and I am off to the races.

I have been making bare branches from wire, vintage flower stamens and tissue paper; they will be painted next. Icicles have been made to be attached to the wooden base. The bottle brush trees will be heavily painted and not resemble their present state.

A robin's egg blue ceramic teapot and a pink ceramic creamer will/might be used; we will see if they work or not. There will be paper party hats for certain; what is a party without paper hats!

Food...there will be food and lots of it. There are cupcakes and sugared cookies and French macarons and so much more. The cakes, cookies, and macarons will be wired and glued in place. Those cookies and macarons are about half an across.

Among the dainties to be consumed are sugared grapes. Candle rings seem to be a thing of the past or at least in Victoria they are. I bought a stack of these years ago; I don't find these very often any more. The candle rings were taken apart and the frosted grapes were turned into bunches of sugared grapes. That took a while.

Here is the cake stand made from vintage cocktail coasters mentioned in last years blog post filled some of the goodies for the party to give you an idea of what it will look like.

Did I mention snowmen, come to think of it I didn't, the snowmen will look similar to the snowmen below.

This large sculpture called "The view from the rim of the 20th century snowbowl was spectacular" is available in my Etsy shop.

I didn't mention paper lanterns or a snow scene did I, I guess I just did.

From my reference library - "How to Decorate a Cake"

Food is definitely a part of holidays and cakes are a part of the celebrations, whether they are a simple iced cake or an elaborate work of art.

This book "How to Decorate a Cake - Let Anne Anson Show You" was published by Tala a British company that produced the equipment for cake decorating.

The back of the book shows what the hostess and housewife can accomplish with help from Anne Anson and Tala.

The following four colour illustrations from the book show finished decorated cakes and the Tala decorating utensils used to create them.

These five small cakes were made from cardboard tubing, thick acrylic paint, coarse crushed glass glitter, and vintage milliner's fruit for a Christmas window display that I did for Hillside Shopping Centre. I will be creating a sculpture around these five cakes and other colourful desserts.

Three large cakes, a sample from about twelve cakes in all, used in the same window display were created using metal jelly and cake moulds painted and glued together. Faux fruit, fake candies, and coloured pebbles were added during the window installation to make them appear even more elaborate than shown here.

Here is a close-up of the installation showing the cakes, pastries, and candy on the table. There are more pictures of the window display here.

This sculpture that I created, a working party horn, is a "Portrait Party Horn" of Byron the pastry chef. Byron is the pastry chef at Lovey’s Tea Room in the heart of Jollity Village. Whenever he is invited to a party he always arrives with a very tasty treat. Go to my Etsy listing to purchase my "Portrait Party Horn – Byron the Pastry Chef".

Confiserie Roggwiller, St.Gallen, Switzerland.

My wife and I had gone into St. Gallen one day on our own to just explore the town. We were wandering up one street and I happened across these very tempting window displays for  Confiserie Roggwiller St.Gallen.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words so no more talking just enjoy the images.

A tray of marzipan delights. After looking at this post, check out this post that I did about homemade almond paste. I love marzipan and almond paste.

I love elaborate pastry creations, as well as humble homemade pies and desserts, and have been inspired to use them in my sculptures, here and here, as well as props for my window display jobs here, and here.

Other cake and pasrty posts that you may enjoy are here, here, here, and here.

Display props - it's all smoke and mirrors.

Yet another late blog post! This post was supposed to go up before Christmas in answer to two comments that I received about props that were made for the display. My apologies go out to Caroline and Wendy. Click on each picture for a better look.

I received this comment when I first published photos of the Hillside Shopping Centre Christmas window display -

"I too love images of cakes and pastries and jellies from the Edwardian era. When I saw the first image on another blog I thought it was from a book of that era! Did you use plaster to make the cakes? I do a gingerbread/candy display in my kitchen for Christmas and would love to make a faux cake.  Thanks, Carolyn."

Carolyn, I hope that you are reading this blog post. I do apologize for not posting this earlier, sickness and the busy season delayed everything. Better late than never I suppose. Can you tell what blog that you saw this image on? I would love to see what they said.

I used paper pulp to create the summer window display cakes and pastries. It was labour intensive to create the moulded cakes and it also took a while for them to dry. It is very wet on the West Coast in the Autumn, Winter, and Spring so that was not an option. I would have taken far too long to produce them as well.

I decided to buy as many cake and jelly moulds I could find at the second hand stores to create the cakes. I washed the moulds in order to get rid of any grease that may be on them and then spray painted them with flat white spray paint. I mixed about seven different colours of artist acrylic paints and then began painting the tin moulds. Some colours, yellow and green in particular, needed several coats of paint in order to get an even rich colour.

Once the basic iced cakes were painted and dry I drizzled white or chocolate brown paint from a plastic squeeze bottle to hide paint edges as well as make them more interesting to look at.

This photo was taken for a blog post to show what the cakes would possibly look like when finished.

All of the cake stands were created using wooden pillar candle holders and wooden plates of various sizes and shapes. I didn't want to use glass cake stands in case anything fell over and broke. I also wanted specific colours to tie in with everything else.

The finished cakes in the window display. All of the flat surfaces on the cakes were covered with coloured gravel. I did this for several reasons, the first and most important was to hide the joins where I hot glued the metal moulds together. I also wanted to have a different texture on the cakes, it also gave quick added detail to the prop cakes.

I have a large group of candies that I made a couple of years ago for some items that I never did make but hope to in the future. I placed these around the cakes so that they appeared much more elaborate than they actually were.

These small cakes were made from 4" wide cardboard cylinders cut about 3" to 4" high. Cardboard was glued to the top of the cylinders. I collect cardboard tubes of all diameters and lengths for projects like this.

I mixed a  modelling compound with the white acrylic paint and used a palette knife to apply the paint. Once the paint was dry I glued coloured glass glitter at the base of the cakes. Each cake is decorated with vintage milliners fruit on a base of green grass chenille.

Wendy Kolar Mullen sent me a message on Facebook -

I LOVE the Giant Peppermint Sticks!! What did you use to make those? Very clever...the display is Gorgeous...fantastic job...sure to delight many Holiday shoppers :0)

Here is how I created the giant candy sticks, cardboard cylinders and fused edge acetate florist ribbon. This method is quick and easy, no paint involved and the results are far superior as the edges are crisp and clean.

The base colour, your choice, is a 3" wide fused edge acetate florist ribbon wrapped around the cylinder. Most cylinders are spiral wrapped so follow the direction of the spiral and you won't have any bumps showing in the ribbon. Put a piece of tape on the end of the ribbon stuff the ribbon end inside the tube and firmly tape the it in place.

The second ribbon is a 1 1/2" ribbon that wraps around the cylinder overlapping the base ribbon edges, hiding them. Tape the ends and push them in the ends firmly taping them down.

From this point you can add one or two more ribbons. These ribbons can be 1/4" to 3/4" wide, wrapped around the cylinder. The ends are attached exactly the same as before.

Cap the ends with a piece of white card glued in place. Wrap the candy sticks with cellophane, tying each end with a narrow wired ribbon, leaving a tuft of cellophane at each end. That's all there is to making the candy sticks.

That beautiful fur covered chair in the window was the chair from the Spring window display. It was stripped of it's flowers and looks like this inside!

I have installed Hillside Shopping Centre's Christmas display.

I am totally fascinated with cakes, pastries, and food presentation from the Edwardian era and earlier. I also love contemporary French pastries. Check out these past blog posts about cakes and pastries here, here, here, and here.

The summer window that I created for Hillside had a few cakes and pastries in it; I wanted to expand on this theme for this year's Christmas window. All of the images are fairly large so click on them and browse to your heart's content!

I took this photo inside the window so that you can get a better look at a selection of the delectable treats. The colour scheme was completely influenced by the cakes and pastries. I love bright colours and wanted to get away from the traditional red and green but still make the setting a Christmas fantasy.

The gifts at the base of the table are wrapped in very bright plastic tablecloths from the dollar store. The tops are decorated with a variety of items that you don't readily connect with Christmas but the addition of silver or gold tinsel, ice encrusted evergreens, and whimsically bent bottle brush trees magically turns them into fantasy Christmas presents. The floor has a bold black and white check pattern to counter balance the bright busy colours.

A look at the left side of the window with all of the desserts and gifts that would delight any child... or adult for that matter! The banquet table is covered with a beautiful tie dyed, embroidered, and bespangled sari.

The right side of the window has a polar fleece covered chair/throne. Halfway through the installation of the window I had one woman mention to me that she would be back later for tea.

Here is the finished window display. I had so much fun assembling this window. At one point I felt delighted and excited; I hope that the same feeling comes across to everyone that sees it.

This small window display is for advertising the Hillside Shopping Centre's gift cards. I like the addition of the tinsel, bottle brush tree, and grapes; it helps to get rid of any stuffiness but still be elegant.

I am off to my studio, it desperately needs a cleaning.