Just in time for… spring. Well, crap.

I decided to go with a riff from “Killer Queen” by Queen from one of the first Guitar Hero games released. I could have gone with something trendier, or with more “indie music cred” but screw that. I love Queen and will until the day I die. I didn’t think until I was mostly done with this thing that I’ll be wearing a scarf referring to a song about a high class call girl. Heh. Don’t y’all be gettin’ any ideas or anything. I don’t even like caviar.

And for anyone that asks, I’m not selling this one. I’ve grown rather attached to it.

While I was trying to take more pictures, you may notice a little problem I was having with *stuff* getting in the shot:

As it turns out, he was just preforming a product durability test. He even goes so far as to bite the scarf. Check out the video. And at the end, he decides to see how durable his noggin is on the sliding door.

I love my little attention hogging klutz. I guess he just liked the feel of the yarn. He was just walking back and forth on the thing earlier, but I thought a 2 minute video of a kid walking back and forth may be a little boring.

And, yes, I dress my kid in Hawaiian shirts. It builds character.

First off, the Guitar Hero scarf is almost done. It’s taking longer than it should because I scraped the first half of the scarf that I posted earlier. It shrank down in the middle so I couldn’t actually fit all the buttons on there in the proper places, so it looked a little silly. But now the main part is finished, all the buttons are made, and now I’m just having to hand-sew them all onto it. It’s meticulous work that takes longer than I would like, but I will definitely have this done by Friday.

Another project I was working on was helping Alex make character designs for a game he and his friends are making. It’s going to be a Flash game on the computer originally, then hopefully it will take off from there. I can’t show you those, though, because nothing is copyrighted yet. Sowwie!

Last thing I’m working on is a little personal project based on Magic the Gathering. (Anyone that doesn’t play MTG, just tune the rest of this paragraph out) I have a Saproling deck that is super fun, so I am drawing my own depiction of a saproling to put on tokens. I am so addicted to this game, it’s not even funny. I even had a dream about it the other night, apparently. I don’t remember any of this, but according to Alex, we had the following conversation in the middle of the night:

Me: Hey, babe, look at this!
Alex: *sleepy mumble* Huh? What?
Me: Look! This is awesome. It’s a 2/2 with flying that pays for itself!
Alex: Renée, you’re not playing Magic.
Me: No, no, really! It’s awesome, it pays for itself!
Alex: (he decides to play along) *sigh* Well, that’s great. Are you gonna play it?
Me: Totally.

And then I rolled back over and was fast asleep again. I’m a notorious sleep-talker. This man could write a whole book on the crazy conversations I have while asleep. I would feel sorry for him, but I like to think that I’m paying him back slowly for a little incident that happened about 4 years ago. He had a dream that a mad scientist was trying to steal his brain, and they were fighting. He finally got the scientist in a headlock, and decided to punch him. Unluckily for me, this transferred over into real life, as I was sleeping peacefully on his shoulder, under his arm. You guessed it, he hit me right in the nose. Luckily, it was an uncoordinated, sleepy punch, so it just scared the bejesus outta me and just made my eyes water. But I still like to make him feel guilty about it. >:)

You can download the front of the valentine here.

Now as for the inside, I really couldn’t make up my mind because you all had such wonderful ideas! So I made three different cards with my favorite messages. Just click on the links to download.

First, this super cute one from Keri. She said,“Your love leaves me spacey!”

Next, this one from Ash is reminiscent of those awesome disco songs: “The mothership of love has landed!”

This last one made me choke on my beverage, and then fall out in the floor laughing. It also helps that I am a complete perv, so this really struck home for me. From Erica, the only person that managed to use the word “invade” in a positive way, here is “Invade Me, Valentine.” Note to Parents: Make sure you don’t get that one mixed in with the ones you send to school with the kids! That would be a fun parent-teacher conference.

Anyway, I hope everyone has an awesome weekend! Is it bad that I’m more looking forward to Sunday when all that Valentine’s candy goes on sale? Mmmmm, chocolate….

I should probably change the colors, too.

I originally used this design as Thank You notes for people that bought stuff from my Etsy shop. But those little hearts are just begging that this be turned into a Valentine. The only thing I can think of is “You’ve invaded my heart” but that seems a little, well, invasive…. Also, I made a heart reference in the d20 Valentine.

So, I come to you, denizens of the internet! Can anyone think of a better saying for the card before Valentine’s Day? I would love to make this a contest and the winner gets the card, but this was gonna be free anyway…. I’ll devote an entire post to the winner and his/her awesomeness! How’s that?

Here is the front of the card:

Here is the inside:

You can download the front here: Card Outside
and the inside here: Card Inside

Just like the last Valentine I posted, there are two Valentines per printout.

Now I have to give a lot of credit to my Dungeon Master, who also happens to be my significant other. As you all saw Friday, I was having immense trouble getting the design I had in mind to do what I wanted, so he came along and gave me a crash tutorial on Illustrator. But while I was working on it, he gave gentle hints like “Hey, what if you made it pink?” and “Ooh, what about rounding off the corners?” and “Is that all you’re gonna do?” At this point, I could tell he was WAY more excited about the Valentine than any one person should be, so I offered him the chair and let him let his inner nerd fly free. He refined the outside just a smidge before staring on the inside, in which I just had “You crit my heart” by itself. As you can see in the above design, that changed quite dramatically. That sword may look familiar to only a couple people on the planet, because he’s used it before. Let’s see if a certain few people over in Houston recognize it.

….

I suppose I could bring you in on our little inside joke. Years ago, we played a Ravenloft game in which Alex made animated shorts summarizing our adventures and giving us new info for the campaign ahead. If you wish to see the one that the not so infamous sword was in, head on over here. Our best bud, Arthur, drew all the illustrations and Alex fancied everything up. That sword was Alex’s first foray into 3D animation. From that day forth, he became known as the best DM EVAR! Is it bad that I was more excited about the Wallaby, Buskerton, and Crust animation? The mustache wiggle gets me every time.

So in short, to Alex: Thanks, babe, for all your help! You’re the Dungeon Master of my heart! DUHRRRP!

So a long story short, I’ll have more Valentines posted tonight and over the weekend. Depending on when Alex gets home, or I figure this insanity out. Whichever comes first.

You can download the front of the card here and the inside of the card here. In case you can’t tell, there are 2 Valentines per page, and they’re made to fold on the horizontal center.

Next week, I’ll have a Dungeons and Dragons themed one for ya! In the meantime, I’ll be working on that guitar hero scarf. It’s almost done!!!!

First off, here is a list of things you will need:

1. Cupcakes! Flavor of your choice. One box of fondant is enough to do over 2 dozen.
2. A medium size biscuit cutter
3. A large size biscuit cutter. This one needs to be the largest size, which is one size up from the previous cutter, because it is conveniently the same size as the top of most cupcakes.
4. A small round cutter of some type. I improvised and used a piping tip. It needs to be about 1/2 inch wide.
5. Fondant! I bought white and then colored it myself. For a Fondant tutorial, go here.
6. Rolling pin

Optional: Spiffy non-stick mat. It will make your life easier, but not it is not essential.

Now that you have everything together, let’s get down to business.

Step One!

Roll out the main color of the cupcake topping to about 1/8″ thick and cut out a circle with the largest biscuit cutter. Roll up your scraps and repeat until you have the amount you need. You may want to cover them with a barely damp towel so they don’t dry out.

Step 2:

Do the same with the white fondant.

Step 3:

Now take your white circles and use the smaller cutter to cut out the centers.

Step 4:

You can use the scraps to make the smaller circles with the piping tip.

Step 5:

Roll out the black fondant and use the piping tip for making the black circles as well.

Step 6:

Here are all the fondant pieces you will need.

You will need to flatten the black circle so it is a little larger than the white one. In the above picture, you can see I smooshed the wrong one. I forgot to go back and take a picture of the correct one. Sorry! But I’m pretty sure you can figure it out. It will make itself apparent in the following pictures.

Step 7:

Put a very thin layer of frosting on top of the cupcake. We just want to help the fondant adhere to the cake. If you put too much, the fondant will look lumpy and probably slide off.

Step 8:

Drop the main color on top of the cupcake and smooth out with your fingers.

Step 9:

This is the only step that could be considered complicated in this tutorial. (Please don’t mind my stained fingers. I tried to get all the frosting coloring off before taking the pictures, but that stuff just wouldn’t go away!)

Take the white ring of fondant and place it on top of the orange ring. Gently move your finger around the inside circumference of the ring, gently moving it out towards the edge of the cupcake. You need to stretch it slowly, or it will break. Once it catches on to a side of the colored ring, keep prodding and stretching until it falls into place. Three pictures to help explain:

See? Easy as cake.

Step 10:

Place a dollop of frosting in the middle. This will help adhere the fondant to itself. Place the black circle on top.

Step 11:

Do another dollop of frosting and put the white circle on top of the black circle.

Step 12:

Stand back and admire your work.

And for the rest of the cupcakes:

Ta da!! Super easy, just like I told ya. If anyone has any question, y’all know how to get in touch with me.