Today's featured crafter is not an Etsian. I found her through the wonderful world of DeviantArt. I tend to go for a browse in the Artisan Crafts section and when I spotted her photos I just had to start stalking her on DA, and feature her here.

Helen1988 is a baker and cake decorator! And you won't find any cake wrecks here (small pimp of one of my favourite blogs thrown in for good measure) because everything she puts up is simply stunning!



Yes, that IS a wedding cake. And if it was my wedding cake I would be the happiest bride in the world. This is referred to as a "simple little cake", if that's simple I'd hate to see complicated. The flowers and blue ribbon are all made of fondant and the flowery decoration is made out of modelling chocolate, and yes that is a monogram "A" on the front, painted on (if it was chocolate it would probably fall to pieces).



I love this cake simply because of the blue colour XD The title is "Sweet Sixteen Cake" so I'm going to take a guess that this was a birthday cake. Iced with teal buttercream (I think my thighs just doubled in size at the thought of all those calories) and chocolate modeling stuff for the decoration. The bow on top is made from chocolate. Yes, that is a giant chocolate bow on top, if someone could buy me one for my birthday I would be very happy.



And last but certainly not least, an awesome laptop cake! This is another wedding cake, apparantly for the wedding of two people who met on the dating site Eharmony. The picture is fondant (yes, fondant, not paint, not felt tip pen, but actual fondant). The screen itself is foam (I'm assuming this means it couldn't be eaten?) but the laptop base and the keyboard are all proper cake, and look at the detail! Even the keys are labelled! (To see a large version check out the proper deviation and click on the picture to make it larger).

While helen1988 is not an Etsian she is on DA and she also has her own website, Cake Me I'm Yours!, which has even more photos of her amazing creations!

Go check her out and be prepared to end up hungry!

I have decided to do one of those "Featured Crafter" things that so many bloggers do. I hate following the crowd (which it why it took me 2 years to read the DaVinci Code and why I refuse to read the Twilight series) but I decided that I just HAD to after today's discovery!

So, with any luck (or if I'm not too lazy) this will become a regular, or semi-regular, Sunday event.

Right, on with the story! I was browsing the Artisan part of DeviantArt when I came across this amazing mask maker, Merimask. Her work is just mind blowing, the amount of time and detail that she puts in to each creation is astounding, she must have the patience of a saint!

When I saw her work it made me think of the lovely masks you see in Venice. I've got one that's blue and silver was bought from a touristy shop XD my Dad has a lovely one in cream with this pretty musical note pattern covering it that he bought from a darling shop down a little alley next to one of the canals (I hated the canal part of Venice, I had visions of my sisters falling in to them DX). But I have no idea what mine or my Dad's ones are made of (I assume some sort of paper mache thing for mine), Merimask's ones are made of leather!

On her DA page she has two links to her journal describing her process for making each mask (over 10 hours, ouch!) and the way it all comes together is pretty damn cool. Like I said, she must have the patience of a saint (I could never do it as I'd get bored after an hour XP). Here are two examples of her work, from her DA gallery (I had to trim and resize them a tiny bit)...



I love the simple elegance of this one, although she does say that carving the blossoms too "forever" which is why she only made this once, and who can blame her?



And this one I like because of all the detail she's done with the scales, and the fact that it's such a gorgeous shade of red. And apparantly it appeared on stage in Japan last year! How fabulous is that?

And now I suggest that you all go visit her Etsy shop!