Friday, June 25, 2010

Crafty is Not My Middle Name

I'm not a natural crafter, but somehow I've found myself in charge of a few craft projects lately so I'm adapting. One thing I will say is that I'm very good at reading instructions. I can assemble a piece of furniture from the most poorly worded/translated directions and wield a keyboard and mouse with expertise.

Being the end of the school year, and having tapped the parents dry already for various school fundraisers and class projects, I needed to come up with a cheap but cool/meaningful end of year gift. I snuck into the school on a day the teacher was sick, snapped photos of the kids, and had each of them write a thank you note. (Some of the girls, inevitably more crafty than I, embellished their notes with rocks, feathers, beads, erasers, and other bits of flotsam they had in their desks. Presented a bit of a challenge in fitting them into an album, but we worked it out.) I planned to cover two pieces of cardboard with cute paper,  punch a few holes, and tie it all together with ribbon. At the last minute I decided to go for something cuter, so I bought some felt and embroidery floss, googled instructions for a back stitch and blanket stitch, and came up with this:



















I'm not going to admit how much time I spent on it, because that would probably ruin my bragging.

In other news, I signed up to donate three cakes for the school carnival's cake walk. Three didn't seem like a lot at the time I signed up, but on the actual day of the carnival I found myself wondering what I had done. Rather than mess with success, I decided to just make three of my same cake from last year. I even used a little math, calculating the circumference of my cake pans, multiplying by 3 pans, then dividing by the length of a kit kat bar to determine the number of kit kats I needed to buy. See how helpful 6th grade math can be? By the time I was done, my kitchen looked like this:

















and the cakes looked like this:



They sold quickly - I guess you can't really go wrong with chocolate frosted chocolate wrapped in chocolate with extra chocolate poured on top. My condolences to the parents of the winners.

Anyway, there's my super crafty week in a nutshell. Thank goodness for google, and thank goodness for summer vacation.

5 comments:

Carol said...

I would have to say that I think you are crafty...just in denial. Cute book. And cute, very chocolate-y cakes.

Kristin said...

Crafty might not be your middle name, but I think it's your secret identity! Those cakes looked amazing, I saw a girl walking with one, looking like she won the world, super impressive. The book is beautiful. What a lucky teacher!

Sarah said...

Thanks. I'm just not admitting how long these things take me since it would severely impact my impressiveness :)

Patty Cady said...

Just the fact you did them...and three cakes, is impressive. Hmmmm...I may steal your cake idea because it looks yummy! I can imagine the smeared chocolate face and hands I'd have after eating one of them.

Five Alive said...

Sarah where do you come up with these ideas. Love the cakes you are very creative!