Oh the Places They’ll Go!

My twins’ preschool graduation isn’t until Thursday, but I am having a minor surgery tomorrow and know that I won’t feel like baking and decorating a cake after coming out of anesthesia, so I made their cake tonight. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Dr. Seuss’ book, “Oh the Places You’ll Go!” and since it is often associated with graduations, I decided to use it for my inspiration.

I hand painted all the lettering, balloons, and the stripes on the bottom tier with food coloring. I wanted a whimsical cake and wasn’t aiming for perfection on this one and I am so happy with the way it turned out. 

Each of the kids in their class has their name on one of the balloons to show that they are “off to great places.” I am excited for my girls to be starting a new chapter in their young lives, but sad that we are closing one as well.

Congratulations Payton and Taylor! I love you and know you will do awesome in Kindergarten.

Sneak Peak

I’ve been busy getting all the prep work done for the twins’ preschool graduation cake. I just hope it turns out half as cute as I’ve been imagining.

Can you guess where I am getting my inspiration?

Teacher Thank You Candy Pail

My twins are graduating from preschool this week. They have spent the past 3 years with Miss Lyn and they love her so much. This is what I made as a thank you gift for her.

We included all the candy mentioned in the note plus a gift card to show Miss Lyn how wonderful we think she is.

Bumble Bee Cupcakes

Kennady had her last day of playschool yesterday and all of the moms and kids met at the park afterwards to celebrate.  Kennady kept calling it her graduation party because the twins are getting ready for their preschool graduation next week and she didn’t want to feel left out. You can’t have a graduation party without cake, so I made some cupcakes to help  her and her friends celebrate.

Desk Redo

I’ve been wanting to try to redo some old furniture so when my great aunt offered me my great grandma’s desk, I snatched it up. I’m not sure how old it is, but my mom knows it is older than she is. So at a minimum, the desk is 50-something years old. When I first got it, I was worried if it would even survive the sanding process. It was pretty worn and the wood was cracking and brittle, but I went for it.

I forgot to take a picture before I started sanding the top, but you can get a pretty good idea of what it looked like before. Just ignore my messy garage in the background.

It took a lot of sanding, nails, wood putty, and glue to get in back in relatively decent shape. Then it was time to put the primer on.

This is a picture of the inside of the center drawer. It had horrible ink stains and it took about 5-6 coats of primer just to cover it.

Here it is after several coats of primer and ready to be painted.

And here is the final product after adding a couple of coats of antique linen paint. I wanted to buy new hardware, but because the desk is so old, the size of the holes were off by about 3/8” from the standard sized handles these days. I didn’t want to risk drilling new holes out of fear that the brittle wood would split so I just spray painted the old handles black and saved myself some cash.

Even the inside of the ink stained drawer looks pretty.
Grandma’s desk just got a new life. Now I just need to find a fun chair to keep it company.

Fire Truck Baby Gift

I’m trying to get all the gifts for my pregnant friends done before I move and I’m hoping to use up some of my stash so I have less fabric to pack.  I made this blanket/onesie/burp cloth combo for a friend who just found out that she is having a boy. I didn’t have a Cricut cartridge that would cut a fire truck for the onesie so I used a template and cut it all by hand. It made me realize how much I love my Cricut.

Teacher Appreciation Week

If you didn’t already know, this week is teacher appreciation week. We have lots of different teachers in our life and we appreciate them all a ton. Here are a few things I have made for some of my girls’ teachers this week:

Goody bags- I wrapped some Ghiradelli chocolates in fabric, tied it with some ribbon and  added the printable tag I downloaded from eighteen25, who has lots of fun teacher appreciation ideas, including the office supply caddy below.

Personalized office supply caddy:

Zippered pouch I made from the fabric I had leftover from the skirt I made a couple of weeks ago:

Handmade notebook with a fabric and lace bookmark:

Grandma’s Birthday gift

It was my grandma’s birthday on Monday and I wanted to make her something useful, but pretty. Many years ago, I had given her a hot/cold rice pack that I made at a Relief Society Super Saturday and she is still using it nearly a decade later. I decided she could use a newer, fresher, prettier one. I also have seen so many ideas for fancying up ordinary dish towels and I decided I would make some for her as well.

Here is her matching set hot/cold rice pack, dish towel, and dish cloth.

I don’t like the smell of uncooked rice so I added a few drops of eucalyptus essential oil to the rice and let in soak in a Ziploc bag overnight before adding it to the pack.

Tinkerbell Cake

This cake was for a friend of my twins who turned 6. She loves Tinkerbell and pink so I did light pink buttercream with a dark pink gum paste flower that Tinkerbell is sitting in. The small purple flowers and light teal leaves are all gum paste as well. I am happy with the way her name turned out because my handwriting on cakes is not always the prettiest.