A few silly keyrings

Finn's head as it appears in the opening titles to Adventure Time. For such a very quick and simple design it is a shame I didn't get the embroidery on his mouth quite right. Although it looks worse in this zoomed in picture.

 Gunther! He/she rocks.

I had a small amount of left over brown fluff.

Chili, chocolate bacon cupcakes

Having looked on the internet, turns out I am not *quite* as unique as I thought, and other people have done the bacon cupcake thing before. But this 'recipe' came from my own breadpan and was born of a niggling desire to run with the whole bacon dipped in chocolate fad.

Somehow making the cake mix the British way of creaming butter and sugar didn't really mesh in my mind with the idea of bacon, so I added the fat the American way of adding half a cup of oil along with the wet ingredients.

I need to get a petit fours cake tin as these all turned out funny shapes.

So, I've made a basic cake mix using cocoa for the chocolate taste and oil for the fat. To marry the sweet with the savoury I added a cup of cold strong coffee (my thinking being you add either coffee or chocolate to chili mole to make it a more complex flavour). To my mind it bridged the gap between the two flavours.

Here's the bacon being stirred in. The picture on the right is actually of a batch that didn't get used. On the first attempt I put the bacon in the food processor so that it was bacon crumbs. They tasted okay at the time (Saturday afternoon) but by Sunday morning, the flavours seemed to have leached so they tasted almost like normal cakes. Shame really, there were lots of them!

The milk of the ganache was infused with chilies before adding to the grated dark chocolate. I wanted to use the Lindt chili chocolate as that's good, but couldn't find any. 

And finally, cooked up some cayenne-dusted bacon, chopped pistachios and roasted them with a bit of lime and sugar and attached the nuts to the bacon with a dab of ganache to make a pretty little garnish

Wampa hats

*Two* wampa hats! One with ear flap/paws and one plain one. I did of course consider making one of the paws detachable but it would have been funny rather than practical.

Why do I always get that crazed look in my eyes when I point a camera at myself?

This is the first one I made.

And this one is for shop girl. I made the hat a little bit on the short side, so the flaps are to keep the ears warm. And for added daw-ness. Oh I also gave this chap a sparkle in his eye!

 There we go - much better on the dummy. He kind of looks wistful here.

 Here's what the paws and claws look like.

Fiery from Labyrinth

When the sun goes down (when the sun goes down)
And the bats are back to bed (and the bats are back)
The brothers come 'round (the brothers come 'round)
I get out of my dirty bed (my dirty bed)

I shake my pretty little head (I shake my pretty little head)
Tap my pretty little feet (tap my pretty little feet)
Feeling brighter than sunlight (oh)
Louder than thunder (oh)

Bouncing like a yo-yo, wooh (oh)

It is all fun and games until someone throws you in prison for head robbery. Then it is all hands to the wall and spread them.

My head isn't detachable.

Incidentally, neither is his. I did spend a lot of time contemplating it, but ultimately with that much fur around his head, I figured it would get messy. I did also toy with the idea of a magnet, but I figured it would have to be quite strong and I didn't want to weight him down too much.

A birthday cake for the guinea pigs

These are on facebook as well, but hey, I think more websites should have a picture of a guinea pig in a hat on them.

In the category of "things I make" this fits in only the loosest sense of the word, but look - a genuine Poppy-crafted hat. As modelled by Blossom.

I probably could have secured them with elastic under the chin, but as this was a birthday party for them, I thought doing something for my amusement would be a bit unfair. 

Here is their birthday cake. Blended broccoli and red pepper, alternated with a layer of blended cucumber and celery, wrapped in a carrot 'icing' and topped with coriander sprinkles. Cucumber candle with a sweet potato flame.

 

Happy piggies.

Luring Mustard...

A phone case for a metalhead

The good news is the intended recipient liked it, so yey! for me.

The not so awesome news is that I was ever so slightly out with my measurements, so I shall be making another slightly bigger one. Hey ho!

Here's the velcro flap at the back.

 

And, so as not to leave you on bad news, here, have a little bonus! A different thing for a different Richard. A holy hand grenade inspired keyring fob.