Miniature Sweet Shops!

 

With the miniature pastries I've been making, I decided to make a miniature sweet shop to store them in! The design of my sweet shops are based on miniature maker MyFroggyStuff's Youtube videos:
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzPOkYD1-lk
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuV4toz39nM

Here are my creations:

 I made the rooms themselves out of cardboard boxes covered with scrapbook paper, and made other furniture with cardboard, wide popsicle sticks, hot glue, shish-kebab skewers, beads, and nail art jars.
                               
                               
                               
                                  
                                
                                

I made the sweet shop into a creperie!

                                

                                
                                
                                
                                
                     
                             
        

Photo Gallery: Miniature Spring Pastries

                                       

 Happy Easter! I hope you enjoy this collection of spring-themed miniatures! If you would like me to do a tutorial of a specific miniature, please feel free to comment!


                                                
                                               
                                               
                                              
                                              
                                              
                                                                
                                              
                                              
                                              
                                             
                                             
                                                    
                                           
                                                                 
                                                 

American Coots

              These small aquatic birds might seem like a variety of duck, but they are actually American coots. Unlike ducks, coots lack webbed feet and instead have scaly legs and toes so they can walk on land. They are migratory birds that live in the Pacific and southwestern United States year-round and occupy northeastern regions during the summer breeding season. Coots generally travel in large flocks on the water, and dive under the surface for food. They eat mainly fish, aquatic insects, and mollusks, but can also eat algae.

 

A coot's mating season is typically in May and June. During these months they are found in Canada and the middle of the United States. They migrate to the southern United States for the winter. Coots build their nests in reeds, and will often build several before one is selected. Once a nest is selected, a female will lay one egg a day until the clutch reaches 6 to 9 eggs. However, it is not always the female who built the nest that lays the egg. Other coots without nests lay their eggs in a nest while its owner is out foraging. In a 4-year study, researchers found that  13% of all eggs were laid by females in nests that were not their own.

However, very few 'impostor' chicks survive. This is so because the female, with an instinctive impulse to spread her genetic material, rejects the chicks that are not hers. How does she know which chick is which?

 

She uses the first chick to hatch as a reference, since any eggs laid by a different female will have been laid later and hatch later. Although it is not fully known how they detect which chick is which, some scientists believe they compare other chicks' size with the size of the first chick. Any chicks disproportionately large or small will be abandoned, since size is genetically inherited.

Coots are one of the only known birds to recognize brood parasitism in their chicks. Cuckoos dwell on the fact that other birds will not recognize them in their broods. However, coots are able to distinguish which chick is theirs and ensure that the only chicks they raise contain the parent's genes.

Butterfly Behavior: Mud Puddling

      When most people picture a butterfly, they often envision a vividly colored insect flitting between flowers. However, nectar is not a butterfly's only source of food. These delicate and exquisite creatures congregate near mud puddles and sip the wet mud with their probosces. What could explain this unusual behavior?
                              
Butterflies seek salts from mud that are not present in nectar. It is mainly male butterflies that engage in this 'puddling' behavior because it aids them in reproduction. The nutrients the male absorbs are transferred to the female through the spermatophore, or a sac of nutrients combined with the sperm, and improves the viability of the female's eggs.  Increased viability of the eggs contributes to the development of the caterpillars, ensuring that the male's genes will be passed on. The female can gauge the health of the male by the spermatophore, and select him based on the nutrients it contains. The male has a natural impulse to spread his genes, so he gains nutrients from mud to guarantee that more females will choose to mate with him.
            
                                

The most common butterflies that congregate in mud puddles include tiger swallowtails and cabbage whites. If you want to observe this phenomena for yourself, you can create your own butterfly mud puddle in your yard. The ideal mud puddle conditions are at mid-day on a sunny day, where water has evaporated from the mud but the ground is still moist.
 1. First, fill a shallow dish with sand, soil, or gravel. This dish should be disposable.
2. Pour water in the pan.
3. Sprinkle salt on the pan and, if possible, add rotting fruit.

Butterflies clustering around a mud puddle is a rare phenomena, so this setup may not attract whole clusters. However, it will likely attract a butterfly or two. Whenever you walk by a river bank, keep your eye out for a mud puddling cluster, especially if it rained recently!
                               

Tutorial: Miniature Swedish Princess Cake

Do you like cake, miniatures, or crafts? If so, you will probably enjoy this tutorial on how to make a miniature Swedish princess cake! Here is what you will need:

1. Polymer clay (white, red, gold, brown, light pink, and teal or light green)
2. Card stock paper (for making a circle cutter)
3. A toothpick
4. A polymer clay razor
5. A polymer clay extruder (optional)

Here is how to make it:

1. Make your mold for the layers by cutting out a strip of card stock paper.
2. Bring both ends together and tape. Now it should be in the shape of a circle.
3. Roll out a circle of white polymer clay. It should be about as thin as one of the layers shown in the picture.
4. Cut it with your mold, and trim the excess with scissors or your nail.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for red, white, and gold polymer clay. Stack each one on top of the other.
6. Create a shallow dome out of white clay. This is the top layer, directly below the teal.
7. Place this dome on the stack of clay circles. It must reach the edges of the circles, otherwise there will be gaps when you slice it.
8. Flatten a sheet of white clay and wrap it around the sides of the cake. Trim off the excess with scissors or your nail.
9. Flatten a sheet of teal or pale green clay. Make this fairly large, because you want to cover your cake.
10. Cover your whole cake (except the bottom) with this green sheet. It is similar to covering a real cake in fondant, as shown below. Note that your cake is not flat as in the picture but domed.

 

11. You will probably have wrinkles or excess clay at the bottom. Trim excess with scissors, and smooth wrinkles with fingers.

12. Using a polymer clay razor, cut the cake. I suggest making faint lines in the cake for where you will cut to avoid uneven slices. Position the razor, holding it from the top. Then press it down in one stroke. You should see layers in your cake. If you do not have a razor, you can purchase one at your local craft store (found in the polymer clay section), or online. A sharp knife may work as an alternative, but scissors do not!

13. Now it's time to decorate! To make the chocolate swirls, I used a polymer clay extruder:

 

If you do not have one, you can simply roll a long, thin strand of clay with your hand.

14. Loop the brown clay strand in a design of your choice.                                                                    

15. Make the rose out of light pink polymer clay, red clay, or red and white clay mixed thoroughly together. Make the rose as shown below:

16. Make two roses, placing one on the cake and the other on the slice.                                               

17. Make the border by rolling two strands of white clay. Twist them around each other and wrap them around the cake.

You have made your princess cake!

Photo Gallery: Miniature Pastries

Here is a collection of miniature pastries I made. Most of my designs are inspired by ParisMiniatures, a French miniature shop. Their Etsy store can be found here:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/ParisMiniatures?ref=search_shop_redirect