Hello readers! :)
Today's D.I.Y takes its inspiration from Shoebakery.com (link here) - which I found one day while web-surfing slash shopping online for shoes (classic girl). They create shoes which look like baked goods and sweets. Cake, ice cream, lollies, everything! As a lover of quirky and unique accessories, I immediately craved a pair of these delicately crafted, beautiful shoes - but alas, my student budget would not allow me to spend the necessary $200+ I would need.
Which brings me here!
After examining the shoes and doing a bit of research into the method of their construction I decided to try 'sweetening up' a bag and some shoes of my own. Here's how I did it, and how you can do it too if this sweet look appeals to you!
YOU WILL NEED:
- The item you're going to sweeten up (this tutorial is for a biscuit bag).
- Acrylic paints (mixed with cornflour for thickness).
- Styrofoam / cardboard / whatever you want to use to make biscuits / other sweets.
- Stuffing / tissue paper / something soft for the inside 'cream' part of the biscuits.
- A knife / piping bag / other tools you might use for cake decoration.
- Scissors and glue.
Step one! Cut some shapes out to make your fake biscuits / lollies / whatever it is you'd like to make. For this tutorial we'll stick with biscuits, just because that's what I made.
I used a styrofoam takeaway container from The Coffee Club to cut out some biscuit shapes. You could probably use styrofoam cups too, now that I think of it!
First I made a wafer stick using two rectangles and stuck them together with glue.
Once you've finished cutting and gluing, grab your paints and get decorating! I googled an image of some wafer sticks to copy and painted my wafer shapes accordingly.
To make round biscuits with a cream filling, I first cut out two circles from my styrofoam (making sure they were the same size!).
Next, I grabbed a little bit of stuffing (you can get this at any craft store if you haven't got some at home) and trimmed and glued it to one of the circles.
I then glued the top circle on top of the stuffing and trimmed the sides of the stuffing to make it look more circular. Then I cut out and glued more biscuit shapes!
I decided to mix it up and see how many biscuit varieties I could make. I think I may have invented that yellow and black one, haha. Anyway, get creative with this part! :) It's effective to add textured elements to the biscuits so they look more realistic (for example, stippling with different colours, adding shaved paper, adding large dots / swirls / lines etc).
Once painted, leave them to dry for a few hours. I left mine overnight, but only because I got distracted with another art project. So they would probably have been dry after a few hours.
Here's the part where you pick what you want to embellish! If you're not confident in your skills and just want to practice, use something you were planning to throw out or give away.
I grabbed a plain bag and painted the flap with some white icing-like blobs and swirls. I was happy to use a brown bag - with white it reminds me of gingerbread!
Note: If you want your paint to look thick like icing, mix it with some cornflour (or regular flour) to get the consistency you're after.
I used enamel paint (as I had just been painting my dresser and it was nearby), so it only took about half an hour to dry enough for me to stick my biscuits on to the bag. Standard artists' acrylic paint will take a longer time to dry, so keep that in mind.
After my paint was dry I arranged my little biscuits how I wanted them, and stuck them down with some strong glue. I cut some of the smaller biscuits in half to make them look like they stuck out of the icing.
At this point you may decide to get even more creative and decorate with your piping bag. Just mix your paint to a consistency you like and treat it as if it were icing. Pipe away!
The final step is to seal your work (after it's completely dry) with a coat of glue or a spray.
Here's a peek at some old flats I decorated to look cake-like! I used a piping bag and acrylic paints mixed with flour. I had to leave them to dry for about a week because of the volume of paint that I put on them, haha. But now they are dry and super sturdy too! I have yet to debut them in public, but I'm sure they'll have their day.
I'll probably be making more pairs in future to refine my icing skills too (clearly not my forte!) :P
And that's that!
There you have it - you've made something quirky and unique without having to fork out much money at all! A classic reason to love DIY projects!
I hope you've enjoyed this post. Stay tuned for more exciting projects I have in the works :)
Until then,
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