Cake decorating with a coloring page!

As I frantically searched online for an EASY way to decorate Em's cake with a lalaloopsy doll, I was getting frustrated with how complicated it all was. I'm not very handy when it comes to artistic things. I can do music and that's all the art I can do! I was very excited to find an answer to prayers in one of the e-mails I received a few days before the cake had to be made. Cake decorating with a coloring page!

What you do is print off your coloring page and tape it to the back of a piece of glass. I just took one out of an unused frame. Then you tape wax paper to the front of the glass and then color your picture in with frosting. Then you stick it in the freezer until it is frozen (about 20 minutes or so). When you are ready to put it on the cake you untape the wax paper and flip it over onto the cake and then peel back the wax paper. So easy even I can do it!

I didn't take pictures step by step because there are already tutorials out in blogosphere for that. But I did take a picture of the cake I made for Emma.

Isn't she so cute? This one was really easy to do because there wasn't a whole lot of detail and only a few colors to do. I wanted to do pink hair but Emma wanted her to look just like the picture so that's what I did. The frosting for the face was a little runny but it still froze well. A thicker frosting is best though. You can see the cupcakes and other details on the cake on our family blog childsfam.blogspot.com.

Here are the links to the tutorials that I saw:

http://sunshineandasummerbreeze.blogspot.com/2012/08/avengers-birthday-cake.html#

http://www.brasstacksandbasics.com/2011/08/super-fancy-cake-decorating-tutorial.html

Mother's Day for Grandma

Every year for mother's day my mom wants a picture of the grandkids. With everybody's schedule it's hard to coordinate a time to get them all together. So this year I decided to assign everyone a letter and have the mom's take pictures and send them to me. Then I created this page and had it printed at Walgreen's in an 8x10. And since I had a free 8x10 code this gift was free! I did purchase a frame for it so there was that little expense. I took a picture of a heart around my stomach for the grandchild that will be arriving in November. The kids loved it and I love how diverse and different everyone's letters are. Just like the kids are!

CHEESE Party

Back in January I did a cheese party. I found the original idea from the website thedatingdivas.com and loved it. My sis. in-law wanted to do an ugly sweater contest for Christmas but we could just never get it together. So when I saw the Cheese Party I thought..we could wear cheesy sweaters! I thought that was such a great idea...then I read further in the post and saw that they did that too. Ok, so not original but still a good idea. So I sent out a cheesy invitation, had everybody bring a cheese to eat and wear their cheesy sweaters. We had cheese pizza, cheese cubes, mozarella sticks, cheese sticks, brie, swiss cheese wheel and nacho cheese dip. And don't forget all the stuff you need to eat cheese with, crackers, fruit, chips and bread! I printed out the Jeopardeese game from the website and we played that. I had a cheese grater as the prize for the "Gratest Sweater" and it is a trophy that will be passed every year to the next champion. I tried to find some of those yummy cheese balls from my childhood for the winner of the Jeopardeese game as the "Cheese Ball" award, but since I couldn't find them I had to just settle for regular Cheetos. I had the kids play the "Cheese Touch" game from Diary of a Wimpy Kid. All I did {well my sis. in-law made the cheese for me} but we just made a piece of cheese out of paper that looked like it was mold and had hair on it and then we slapped it on the back of one of the kids. They had to be very secretive and not say who had it on their back. If you discovered that it was on you then you had to secretly put it on someone else's back and so on and so forth. If you told someone that they had it on their back then you had to "eat" the cheese and forever have the curse of the "Cheese Touch!" The kids loved it! I also had some photo-props to take silly pictures with. I had mustaches, lips, feather boas, funny hats and all sorts of things. I think everybody had a great time. As soon as I clean up my hard drive and make some room for the thousands of pics I have on my camera I will post some fun pics!

Hands of Service

I thought I'd share a fun little idea if you need to thank someone for doing service. I have a program that I call the FISH program that I felt inspired to do. But more on that later...I asked a friend who is an instructor at Mandalynn Academy, which is an Aesthetics school, to come and do some pedicures for my "FISH Girls." She brought some of her students to help and we had free pedicures and some fun and much needed girl time. I was really grateful to my friend and her students for offering their time because pedicures are soooo expensive. I made soup and had rolls and cookies for lunch when the girls were done. I also sent them home with a gift bag. I bought some inexpensive, but nice, gloves at Walmart and some Werther's caramels and put a tag on it that said "You're so sweet for offering your hands in service." Cute right? Well, I thought it was. I sent my FISH girls home with a pedicure set that I bought at the dollar store and a small vial of oil courtesy of the students along with a card that explained how the Savior helps us "exfoliate all the hardness of our souls" through the atonement and how His love helps us "to be smooth"...much like our feet during a pedicure. Anyway, it made better sense when you read the whole thing (which I spared you and did not include it here) and a few of the girls told me that it really helped them put the atonement into perspective for them. This would make a fun YW Activity or RS Activity...or just a fun girls night like we did!

here is the gift bag with the tag

here is the gift bag that shows you the "sweet" candy.