One Special Wedding

Hello World!

I'm back with another wedding cake topper!

This one I made this past summer for my best friend's wedding. Out of all the cake toppers I made, this one was, and is, probably my favorite. Unlike my previous cake toppers, I made the body of the people much smaller and shorter than compared to all the other ones. 

Star Wars theme!

Making the body so much smaller and the head so much bigger proved to be difficult to balance (since it was top-heavy), but I think I liked the way it turned out better. When I was first commissioned to make this cake topper, I was asked to make it Star Wars themed, soo... that meant Han Solo and Princess Leia. Haha. XD Hence the reason why the bride's hair is in two buns, rather than what her actual hairstyle was on her wedding day. And hence the reason why the groom is dressed in another outfit rather than a suit.

My main inspiration came from here and here. Of course, I still tried to add elements into the facial features of the people to make them resemble the bride and the groom more. After this project, I came to the solid conclusion that... regardless of the color of the clay that I'm working with... I should always use gloves. Even though other people can't tell... dust gets mixed easily into the clay, and it becomes noticeable... close up... to me. Haha. XD

Unfortunately I don't have many pictures of this wedding cake topper. Because... for the first time... I was part of the bridal party! Haha. I didn't get a chance to actually see the cake topper on top of the cake (Or I didn't have time to pay attention to it), since I was running around for most of the day. Totally exhausting, but totally worth it!

There were many elements of this cake topper that were fun to make. I literally braided three strands of clay to make the buns on the side of the bride's head; the elements for the groom's outfit were detailed, but not too hard to make; I gave the bride a lightsaber to keep her man in check, but gave the groom a gun because, well... you don't see Han Solo using a lightsaber in Star Wars.

My absolute favorite part of this cake topper was the groom's gun. You can't tell in the picture... but actually the gun on the side of the groom is removable! It took me a while to figure it out, but I fashioned a tiny gun and managed to make a holster for his gun. Unfortunately, I didn't really publicize that aspect of the cake topper, so I honestly don't know if people were careful about that part of it. For all I know... that gun could be lost somewhere in the church. Haha.

Well... that's all for this post! Like I said, I was pretty pre-occupied before the wedding and during the wedding... so I wasn't able to take a lot of pictures. I'm pretty sure I finished the cake topper pretty late that night, so I didn't bother to take pictures of individual elements (something that I regret now... Haha).

But here's a picture of the cake topper on top of the cake (Full disclosure - I took it from my friend's album on Facebook. Haha):

Final product on cake! Credits: SC

As always, thanks for reading!

:)

Wedding Topper: Attempt #2

         

Hello world!

It's been a while... but it's been a busy while for me! Lots of changes have happened within the last half year that I've been MIA from the blogging world.

I no longer live in San Diego; I've moved home.

I no longer have a full-time, permanent job; I have a contract job that ends in November.

I'm only going to be in America for a few more months... then it's off to grad school!

With so many changes, I've neglected my blogging and my love of arts and crafts. :( But enough about the changes in my life... let's talk about the changes in other people's lives!

*cue smooth transition*

Weddings!

I've had the honor and pleasure of making art pieces for a few weddings before (check out my first wedding cake topper and my DIY bowl)... and I've made a few others during this past year, but I have yet to post about them.

This wedding cake topper was for another church couple that I truly admire and respect. I've had so many good conversations with them, and I was so excited and happy to be able to make a wedding cake topper for them! Each wedding item that I've made thus far have had it's different challenges, making each piece unique, as well as fun to make.

No faces yet, just the bodies!

One particular bit, which was probably the most difficult part of the cake topper, was the emblem that I made for the groom. Because I was unfamiliar with the image I was trying to make (and also because it was so darn small) I had to remake this part quite a few times. Haha. XD The bride had asked me to make a small star trek emblem for the groom. Although you can't really see the detail in these pictures below... trust me when I say that... it was actually quite difficult to make... especially because the emblem was probably around 5 cm....

                         

Making the dress for the bride was actually a lot of fun for me. Probably because that was one of the easier aspects of the cake topper, and the effect was stunning! I took small, circular pieces of clay and made a single imprint on one end of the circle to make the inner portion of each flower pedal. The more pedals I added, the more I was pleased with the overall effect.

Sigh. So much dust on her pearl white dress. :(

The hair was fun to make too! Just add tiny curls!

One of my favorite parts is always making the tiny additions, such as flowers and leaves. Then, when all the little pieces are assembled everything... that's when I feel like I'm actually producing something of worth.

The colors for the wedding were orange and blue

Finished product!

                  

Up close details

And, of course, nothing can compare to seeing my product being used at the actual wedding! This cake was made by a self-taught pastry chef! I was so impressed that he baked a wedding cake all by himself!

Orange roses to match my clay roses!

As always... thanks for reading! One more wedding topper post to come!

:)

Wedding Fun!

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege and honor to witness the marriage of two friends from my church here in SD. It was a fairly simple wedding, but very cute and sweet. :)

I also had the honor of making their wedding cake topper!

Now, I've never really made anything bigger than an inch tall. So, this wedding cake topper was a bit of a challenge for me. Not only was I trying something new, thus feeling anxious and nervous about the challenge, I was feeling particularly lazy about making the thing. :P

I think, when it came down to it, I just had to set a time limit for myself, and pressure myself into sitting down and finishing the wedding cake topper.

One of the more difficult aspects of the cake topper was doing research for how I wanted to make the cake topper. At first, I considered using animal figures to replace the bride and groom, but I didn't want to have to go through a ton of details on the animals. Also, I thought doing the bride and groom themselves would be more personal. However, as this was my first time making human figures... I got rather frustrated. Haha. Not only that, I wanted to make it look similar to the actual bride and groom, which proved to be another challenge. I had to get information about the bride, the colors they were using, the dress she was wearing, the type of flowers she had, etc. etc. Usually I make things straight from my imagination, so there's no need to look at a picture and copy anything. But, this time, I had to pay attention to what I was forming.

All in all, wedding cake toppers are quite time consuming and tiring. But fun. Definitely fun.

I stuck pieces of wire through the middle of the figurines because the groom was starting to bend to the side a little bit as I was forming him.

I also added a cork bottom to the base of the topper so that... I dunno, it would seem more professional?  Haha. I wasn't sure if people just simply place clay on top of cake. I suppose that would have been okay as well, right?

The two little birdies I kinda threw in there because I had some extra clay and I thought it would add a nice touch. Haha.

People said that I should try to go into the wedding cake topper business. Maybe go and learn cake making and start decorating cakes. Haha. I'll have to think about that. It would definitely be more lucrative than making little keychains that sell for less than $10 a piece. Haha. But, then again... I think I have to actually get business in order for anything to  happen. Haha.