Knife Fork Spoon anyone?

Check out the new items I am listing right now on Etsy! Let me know what you think! I will post some photos here on my blog and if you want you can check them out here at my store: http://www.itsjustshabby.etsy.com/.

 Knife Fork Spoon Tags - Lime Green

Knife Fork Spoon Tags - Orange

Knife Fork Spoon Tags - Black

Knife Fork Spoon Tags - Chocolate Brown

The Coffee Cup Tags - Orange

The Whole Set

Set of 4 Vintage Wooden Spools of Thread

Set of 3 Vintage Wooden Spools of Thread

Cake Decorator Part-Time (there isn't a word for less than part-time right?)

After watching close to a hundred youtube videos on decorating cakes and using fondant I decided one day - about three years ago - that I would drive my butt to the closest Joann's and Michael's and buy all necessary materials to make myself a fondant cake. (I warned you all in my first blog post that I do this on a regular basis)

After spending all of my money for the week on materials, I went home and possibly spent more than a few hours on this little beauty:

Simple, polka dot two layer vanilla butter cream cake. I am personally not a big fan on the taste of fondant, so I usually end up peeling it away before stuffing it into my mouth.

Warning: what you are about to see next was a sad sad attempt at a 3-tiered cake. At the time, and with my lack of expertise, I had no idea that you had to use supports in order for the cake to stand straight.

Up close, I'd think it was a winner...

Next up, I was asked by a family member to make a small anniversary cake for their 50th.

This next cake is preeeetty original. I was asked to make a Halloween cake for party and this is what I came up with. I'm sure you will be shakin' in your boots.

The next 10 cakes were all completely handmade, no mixes, no premade frostings - nothing. So you can imagine how time consuming they were. These cakes were for my mom's wedding reception.
Flavors consisted of:

• dark chocolate with chocolate ganache frosting
• cinnamon apple with apple butter frosting,
• vanilla vanilla
•  yellow cake with dark chocolate frosting
•  chocolate cake with vanilla butter cream frosting
•  toasted coconut
• banana cake - think banana bread, with homemade caramel drizzle
•  peanut butter cup cake with chocolate ganache on the inside layers and cream cheese frosting for the outside - it also had butterfinger and reeses crumbled on the top
• strawberry cake - made with an entire box of real strawberries
• finally - my favorite white cake with an entire package of oreos blended and stirred into the batter



This next photo is a close-up of the Banana Caramel cake

Last, but not least, is the mecca of all requests. A friend of mine asked me to make her wedding cake - now please keep in mind that the cakes shown above are the only cakes I had ever made. This was the end result:

Voila!
I can supply any/all recipes used for these cakes if anyone would like.

To make a light box or not, may be the question.

I stumbled across this idea. The items that I photograph for my store must be shot during the prime hours of the day - usually when I am cleaning, cooking and once again, being force-fed plastic play food by my daughter. So the question is: Do I make this $10 light box to save time during the day and do my photographing at night?

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/07/how-to-diy-10-macro-photo-studio.html

I am officially open for business!

If you haven't already read my odd and rather short "About Me" section on my blog - no worries! My name is Sarah, and I just opened up a new shop on Etsy called "it's just shabby."
You can find my shop here : http://www.itsjustshabby.etsy.com/. I am selling brightly colored, hand-dyed clothespins, vintage and antique goodies, hand stamped cards/tags and paper goods of every sort.

I have been creative and somewhat crafty since the womb and now that I have the time - I have decided to sell my creations online. I am a mother to a wonderfully unique and rather talkative 4-year-old, Zella. She and I share a craft room - which was once our dining room - where we spend the majority of our day being silly and doing what we do best...creating.

I started sewing in 2008. Initially, I only sewed aprons, and since then my passion has grown into purses, wallets, cosmetic bags, quilts, etc. When my daughter was a baby I was an avid scrapbooker - and that hobby has now adapted itself into hand stamped cards and gift tags. Any medium of art that sounds in the least bit interesting, I usually take on wholeheartedly. This means going to every art store in town and buying all available supplies - not so easy on the budget - but much more fun than balancing a checkbook.

I hope to inspire my followers with photographs of neat ideas I come across, interesting blogs and online stores, and possibly some extremely cheesy quotes here and there. I will be posting tutorials for gift ideas and photos from projects that I have been working on.

I really hope you all enjoy, and if you do - like this blog on facebook and share it with your friends. If you are not a member of etsy, or if you have never heard of etsy before, you can click this link to learn more: http://www.etsy.com/.