Sumikko Gurashi: Whipple

In which I try to do crafts, and we all know how that goes, but somehow things turn out pretty nifty nonetheless.

Hopefully I haven’t fooled any readers into thinking I’m some sort of crafts wizard, what with my skilful application of stickers and such, but I am in fact pretty consistently bad — and yet my ability to resist Sumikko in any form is weak enough that here we are. Plus, I’d seen Whipple before with other Japanese toys (I didn’t even realize it’s available in the USA until I looked it up), and the idea of using what’s essentially a plastic frosting to decorate things is just so something I’d like there was basically no way I wasn’t going to give it a try. So let’s Whipple!

Upon getting it from amiami (perfect transaction, as always), I opened the box and got all the various components laid out:

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Did a quick scan of the instructions and empty promises on the box:

And got the pieces together for my first project.

I thought I’d start off with the spoon, because it seemed like the easiest of the projects. I got my Whipple ready and plopped on a good dollop, and then I looked over my work and thought most intelligently: pretty cool, but it would have really helped if they’d have included different tips.

….and of course shortly after that I was looking at something else on the instruction sheet and realized of course there were tips, and it had a reminder on literally every project about which tip to use, and probably the less said about all of that, the better.

Armed with this knowledge, I affixed the proper tip and looked forward to my next project. As I did the unthinkable and read the directions, I came up with:

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I’ve got to give old Whipple credit. Once I got the tip thing figured out, everything for the most part went pretty smoothly. There were things I wasn’t quite so proud of:

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And some that look pretty okay from certain angles (even if not from others):

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Even some that I kind of legitimately like:

On the other hand, some sort of Whipple panic set in at one point when I was trying to photograph some mostly finished pieces, resulting in me trying to apply additional Whipple while taking a picture. Long story short, there is some Whipple on the pants I wore yesterday, on my bedspread, and all over the velvet drape that isn’t even mine I have been using in the background of things. So if you’re wondering what random white splotches are when I take photos, it’s probably frigging Whipple.

I felt like I was learning a bit with each project as I went through the kit, and I was looking forward to the last project, a big cake — until I realized I was in seriously short Whipple supply.

By this point, I was tired and weary of the smell of Whipple, so I just desperately smeared whatever I could possibly extract, enlisting the small amount of pink left, and finally giving up.

At Danganronpa levels of despair, I didn’t get the border in shape or anything. I just set it aside to dry and, returning to it now a couple of days later, I’m choosing to call it my Failure Cake.

In the end, though, there are a lot of nice things to say about picking up a Whipple craft set if you like this sort of thing. Despite my lack of attention and skill, I was able to make some pretty cute stuff. I’d definitely like a little more Whipple itself included — I really didn’t waste much beyond what you see used here, so it’s really not particularly generous. There are probably some people who would prefer more room for creativity without the accessories and paper goods being allocated so specifically, but I liked the guidance and thought all the projects were pretty cute.

So it’s a recommend from me — and now I need to figure out a better way to clean Whipple off clothes and furniture…