I made the following cake toppers for a friend's wedding..I wanted to give her several options!

1. Champagne corks, with painted bodies and fabric acccessories.


2. Wine corks: sculpey heads pierced onto a needle and then baked (the groom was painted after baking). The needle is then inserted to the cork to join.


3. Handsculpted likeness of the couple (they ended up being too big and heavy to put on a cake, though!) Sculpey formed around a bamboo skewer for stabilization. Painted after baking.

My background: I'm a forensic scientist by day, so this artwork combines my creativitity and geekery.
If you're not familiar with the image, it's a technique used for DNA analysis. (Trivia- it's not what most labs use anymore. It's prettier than the computerized printouts, though)




It's acrylic paint on canvas, then I created the white bands with spray paint. The bands should have some variation (some fuzzy, some fat, some crisp, some faint).
Hold the spray can far away or close to create differences, but use tape (or a piece of paper) to keep the borders within vertical columns.

This was one of the first cross-stitch patterns I ever made...it was a while ago, but I think I simply sketched the image right onto the Aida. Kinda sloppy of me, I suppose, but  it worked out better than many of my "well-planned" projects.
I cut around it and eventually found a home for it on a throw pillow.

Necklace of random metallic beads with polymer teapot pendant.
I noticed afterward that the teapot was coming unhinged from the metal post...so I shoved it back in. High-quality goods, that's me.