Pink zebra stripe cake

I made this cake for a ten year old's birthday party.  She wanted a red velvet cake with hot pink zebra stripes but wasn't having a large number of guests.  So we settled on a double layer six inch cake to get the look she was going for (these are still pretty big...they end up being about four inches tall so they will feed 11 or 12 people) and a dozen cupcakes for ease.

 

Red velvet under white fondant can be tricky - I like to wrap the cake up really well in plastic wrap to keep the air out, freeze it for at least an hour, then do a crumb coat and chill again.  Once that initial coat is on, it's easier to smooth the cake and add the fondant without a bunch of red crumbs showing through. 

 

Fold formed copper with a heat patina

I have spent several hours fold forming copper over the past couple of weekends.  Generally I toss the copper pieces in the pickle solution like I would with sterling when I'm done working on them with the torch, but this time I skipped that step to try to keep some of the flame coloring in the metal. I love the outcome; there are hints of orange that look more red in certain lighting.

I ended up with a giant fold formed cuff bracelet and four pairs of earrings (two of those sets look very similar...maybe I need to keep one?).

I'm a big fan of fold forming, especially in copper.  Each piece turns out a little bit different and it adds interest and texture.  And the addition of sterling rivets?  Amazing.

Not a spinner ring.

I've been making a lot of spinner rings lately, but I just had a custom order request for a ring that looks like a spinner ring without all of the, well, spinning.  The woman was ordering it for her husband and she liked the look of the additional band but didn't think he would really be "into" the movement.  So I made two of them with a smooth sterling band on the bottom and a textured copper band on top - one to send out and one to put in my Etsy shop.