• Chit Chat

    From Failure, You Learn

    I have made some progress, though not entirely successful progress.

    • I completed another set of four peanut butter blossoms. The new set has the colored adhering clay, which means any oozing appears as melted chocolate now. Wonderful! They’re a bit lighter in color and over-sized. I’m unsure how I feel about those two aspects, but I’m extremely critical when it comes to anything I create.
    • I also made two chunks of cornbread with “honey,” though the honey turned out to look more like melted butter than honey, and since butter doesn’t melt from the top down on a piece of hot bread, it looks a bit odd with a drizzle of melted butter on the pats of softened butter. I may have to venture into resins to get the clear look I’ve attempted with cordial cherries and now honey.
    • I’ve also finished one “hot chocolate marshmallow cookie,” which is a cookie with a marshmallow on top, accessorized with a candy cane and miniature marshmallows, to mimic the look of a cup of hot chocolate. I intended to create a set of two but realized after starting that I only had enough product for one.

    Next up!

    I recently purchased a set of cookie cutters, so I hope to get some wintery cookies out before the end of the year. I’ve contemplated making a few ornaments instead of weighing them for pattern weights, since they’d be a little difficult to pick up as flat pattern weights.

    Pictures of everything will be uploaded in the near-ish future. The winds of Montana have been wild recently, making sealing products outdoors an unfortunate experiment in How to Stiffen Jeans Using Spray Varnish, and until things are sealed they can’t be photographed, as that would be a dishonest representation of the finished item.

  • Sale

    2019 Black Friday Sale!

    With Black Friday just around the corner, sales will be popping up like pumpkin spice at the start of autumn. Tack & Feed will also be having a sale! My inventory is limited at the moment, as I’m just one li’l person, but the semi-glazed doughnut and cinnamon roll prototypes, which are already greatly reduced due to their prototype status, will be a further 15% off! In addition to the Black Friday sale, running from November 25 through December 02, the set of four cinnamon rolls has also been reduced by 25% due to a cracking issue with the icing.

    If you’ve been considering purchasing something from the store, now’s definitely the time to buy!

  • Business,  Personal

    Faux Bakery Meets Real Recipes

    I am a healthy eater. I avoid oil, salt, dairy, sugar, and wheat. I don’t have an issue with any of those things, in fact, they helped to create some of my favorite foods before I changed my diet, but they don’t fit my lifestyle now. This is quite unfortunate as I think it would be fun to include a recipe with any of the faux foods I sell. I know I’d appreciate opening my box of cinnamon roll pattern weights, which look good enough to eat (don’t do that), and finding a cinnamon roll recipe so I could go make my own. In order to send along a yummy recipe, I’d have to bake and bake a lot. I wouldn’t be able to taste test every recipe tweak and still fit into my pajamas, so it’s not something that’s feasible right now.

    However!

    I have been considering the possibility of collaborating with a small bakery or an individual who would like to simply share their homemade creations with others. We shall see, I suppose. First, sales must be made to afford such an idea.

    In the meantime, if anyone stumbles in here with a fantastic recipe they’d like to share, feel free to post it in the comments!

  • Business

    The Little Extras

    My faux baked goods are shipped in proper bakery boxes, or cellophane bags, depending on the item. There are accent liners, tissue papers, and the thing I’m most excited about, scented inserts. That means when you open the box of cinnamon rolls, you’ll smell cinnamon rolls. When you open the bag of peanut butter cookies, the scent of peanut butter cookies will greet you.

    I’ve been a member of Etsy since 2008, and one of the things I’ve noticed over the years is how detailed most of the packaging has been. I once ordered a set of hand-turned wooden snowmen that came in a custom fitted felt envelope with a sleeve for each snowman. On the other side of the coin, I ordered something not long ago that arrived wrapped in paper towels and stuffed into a plastic baggy. It really is the little things that set people apart, and I want to make sure my packaging says, “This is not just a way to make a few extra dollars to support my polymer clay habit, but rather a way to share with you the things I’m proud of creating.”

    I’ve recently ordered another bundle of fragrance oils to go with all the new baked goods I plan to make. Here’s what on the upcoming menu: cupcakes, mini bunt cakes, mini chocolate cake bites, cornbread with honey, toasted marshmallows (which may possibly lead to s’mores), apple pie, Christmas cookies, and chocolate covered strawberries!