Wednesday 6 July 2011

Orange tarts, post office stuff, etc

I thought I'd update the blog with what I've been doing lately. My original plan was to successfully complete my projects before updating (or nearly complete) but that just seems to have left the blog a bit dead. I should start taking more toy photos too...

I've been playing around with making orange canes lately. Very basic cane, and the first thing I ever tried to cane. I was following Angie Scarr's method but I didn't like the sharp edges that it would give. I used Zuleykha's tutorial to achieve that more rounded edge.

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The left was my first attempt, unfortunately it ended up looking like the slices came from an unripe orange. Too much rind. That'll teach me for thinking that a thicker rind would look better! My second attempt is on the right.

I decided to make some Valencian orange tarts with the slices. I needed to use them for something, and those tarts looked like they would use up lots of oranges! (Especially the cane I didn't like)

Valencian orange tarts

I am still having trouble with making tart bases that I am satisfied with. These don't really look all that realistic to me.

After putting it off for so long (because for some reason I am afraid of starting strange and new things), I've finally made a shelf and noticeboard for my Sylvanian post office. I made the shelf out of balsa wood. It's the first time I've ever worked with wood, and I'm quite pleased with the attempt! Balsa wood may be really soft and not really the best thing to be making furniture out off, but it was easy to cut. :P The noticeboard is made of matchsticks, some cork paper peeled off the back of a painted tile I found at a jumble sale and a bit of card stock. I am actually quite pleased with the results! Asides from the accidental glue stains caused by gluing shelf parts backwards and general carelessness that is.

Shelf and notice board

I've also finally come up with some resin molds that I am reasonable satisfied with. It doesn't look it but it took a long time to make this mold! I'll do a full update http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifpost once the jars have been cured.

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My circular Kemper cutters arrived yesterday!

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I'm so happy. I finally broke down and ordered them because my own crappy homemade cutters just didn't cut it (haw haw). I ordered some from Prairie Craft as all the sources I found for them in Australia have been quite expensive.

4 comments:

  1. you know, those tarts look darn good actually! i don't know about you, but i have seen oranges with really really thick piths...plus it looks darn cute! i don't see anything wrong with the tart bases either, then again, the photos aren't at an angle.

    thanks for the shop recommendation too!

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  2. Thanks! :D The tart base on the right is lopsided actually. And I've always wanted to do a base that looks more like this:

    http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_m46asF1AVHo/SuLkKlbXpcI/AAAAAAAABa8/si_kcQTfmqA/s400/sweetness21.jp

    but I haven't found anything that will make a mold like that yet.

    Are cutters in Singapore expensive?

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  3. hrmm that link doesn't work (too long, it got truncated)....

    have you tried looking closer at tubes of wasabi? i think they look pretty good for tart bases...or you can look at christel jensen's cheesecake tutorial

    http://christeljensen.blogspot.com/2010/04/cheesecake-tutorial.html

    the cutters are heckuva expensive here, they include the cost of shipping i suppose (e.g. the round rose cutter kemper set you got sells for almost SGD$50 at golden dragon), i don't bother buying anymore i make almost all my cutters using aluminum pie tins or sheets from the art store.....

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  4. Aw, darn, I think the last 'g' is missing in the address. Thanks for the wasabi tube tip. I immediately went and pulled out a tube I had in the fridge and it looks perfect! I'll try it out and see. I've seen the cheesecake tutorial but utterly failed at making the crust the last time I tried. I think I'll experiment with it again at some point.

    $50 a set?! O_O So painful! But when I think about it the same cutters here after shipping and conversion will be around SGD 40-ish.

    I tried to make circular cutters using that method but I haven't been happy with them. I think irregular shapes work better for me with that method.

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