Centerpieces - Craps!

Since our friends love the Craps table so much, I decided to dedicate a centerpiece to that.

While waiting for Ben to finish painting, I decided to start a new project at If an Elephant Can Paint. I found this flat plate and decided that I will make that my Craps table surface.

Unfired piece

Fired piece

I painted it green and then outlined everything in white. Since I'm not a pro at Craps, I had to google an image. Hopefully it's pretty close to the tables we see in the casinos.

To finish up this centerpiece, I made some mini dice from red oven clay. After baking it and letting it cool, I painted the white dots with some white paint. To add to the effect, I bought some poker cards shaped like chips and spread it out on the table.

Centerpieces - Den Den Mushi Ben & Doe

Today we went to go paint some snails!

That sounds weird so I'll explain. I recently got an email from If An Elephant Can Paint showcasing some new items that came in. One of them was this snail and I thought it would be perfect for a Den Den Mushi centerpiece for our wedding.

For those of you who don't know (and I imagine that's a lot)... den den mushi are snails used for communication in the anime One Piece. Each snail looks like the person that is speaking through the den den. (see below for examples)

They ended up being a decently large size which was perfect since I wanted two of them to make a centerpiece. Ben and I picked up two and we started painting. Ben chose to paint the snail shell red since that's his favorite color. I chose to use an overcoat that would kind of make it looks like cherry blossoms, which is my favorite.












The nice part is that you can place a votive candle inside the snail. That'll light them up nicely once it gets dark at the reception.

This is what they look like unfired. Lol. Before they are fired up, the glaze gets really light so it's hard to tell that my snail is even painted. It would have been nice to have them smiling but the shape of this snail makes them look like they're frowning anyway so we decided to just go with it.






To complete Ben's snail, I bought a doll-sized cowboy hat and cut it into a baseball cap. Unfortunately it came in a set of 4 but I figured I can either use them for other centerpieces or I will get 4 attempts at a passable hat.








I attempted to paint the Adidas logo on it since that is Ben's signature look. The first attempt (right) was with a regular white out stick. The slightly furry surface soaked up the paint more than I wanted to and I had very little control.

The second attempt (left) had some more experimenting to it. First I tried to scrape the surface with an x-acto knife to get some of that furry stuff off. Then I taped it and tried to pull off any loose fibers. Then I just dabbed on a little white-out liquid, then spreading it out with a x-acto knife. That gave me more control and got more defined lines in there. This particular white-out liquid is made of fibers though so sometimes I had trouble spreading it.

To complete my snail, I bought some small black yarn for hair. It was 0.40 each but I didn't want a big ball of yarn for $5-6 when I was only going to use a little. I also got some frilly white fabric that I will make into a "veil" for my snail. Tip: Look around the Clearance Fabric section. Sometimes when they have excess/leftover fabric, they will package it up in a bundle and put it for sale. I got my veil fabric for just $0.60!

My snail next to a plate showing the special glaze crystals

I just picked up our snails and this is what it looks like, all fired up to go! I'm a little sad that I don't have enough crystals on my snail... it was supposed to look like sakura petals. Oh well... Everything else came out well.








 
I also photoshopped some screenshots of denden and printed them.


















 
And here is the finished pieces!

From our awesome photographer: Chris Kim Photo

From our awesome photographer: Chris Kim Photo

Tiramisu

So I decided to make Tiramisu for Christmas dinner and used this recipe that I thought was pretty easy.
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/classic-tiramisu/

UNFORTUNATELY, the recipe called for 2 (12 ounce) packages of lady fingers which is about 4 times more ladyfingers than you need so I got a LOT of practice in.

This is the final recipe that I used based off this link and the reviews.

Ingredients:
6 egg yolks
1 cup white sugar
1 1/4 cup mascarpone cheese
2 cups heavy whipping cream
2 (3 ounce) packages ladyfingers
1/2 cup water
instant coffee
1/3 cup coffee flavored liqueur (optional)
unsweetened cocoa powder
semi-sweet chocolate (optional)

Recipe:

1. Heat the water and make "strong" coffee. I added about 3 heaping teaspoons. Set aside to cool.
2. Place the sugar in a double boiler and add a little bit of water (like 2 Tbsp) and mix over medium heat until sugar melts and it doesn't feel grainy.
   
3. Add egg yolk and mix until thick and lemon colored.
4. Add mascarpone cheese to mixture and beat until combined. Put in fridge for now.
   It doesn't look like it'll mix well but just keep mixing.

   

5. Use a hand blender to beat whipped cream to stiff peaks.
   

6. Gently fold yolk mixture into whipped cream. Keep folding until the color is uniform with no streaks of white or yellow.

   

7. Add coffee liqueur to strong coffee mixture (optional)
8. Line bottom of pan with lady fingers. I used a cheesecake spring pan so that I can easily open it later. You can also use a glass pan or bowl.
   

9. Brush coffee mixture on top of ladyfingers. This is less messy than dipping the ladyfingers.
   

10. Add half of the cream on top of the ladyfingers.
11. Repeat by lining ladyfingers again, brush coffee and top with remaining cream.
    

    

12. Using a sifter, cover with cocoa powder
    

13. (Optional) Top with chocolate curls/shavings. Here's a good video of a simple method. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93L6KuMHhPk
14. Let it rest in the fridge for a couple of hours or overnight. Enjoy!