Welcoming Spring with a Cake

Last night I finished the first Wilton Cake Decorating course. Overall I was pretty disappointed in the class. Most of what I learned was from the other students or from looking at the book, the teacher was pretty useless. Thankfully there is another teacher available at the store! This is my "graduation" cake:



Unfortunately I had some baking issues and wasn't able to get a secondary layer for my cake. I still went ahead and decorated it in order to get the practice. As much as I didn't like the class, I really appreciated the time away doing something that I enjoyed.



And best of all, the cake was delicious!



Here's hoping Course 2 goes better!

Edited to add: Cute Easter cupcakes I made, unfortunately I only have pictures from "during" the decorating:

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Cuddly Square Bears

The minute I saw the cover of Sew Darn Cute by Jenny Ryan, I knew I would make Square Bear for my kids. And what better occasion than Easter? I'm always looking for non-candy items to put in their Easter baskets and this was perfect!



The pattern was very easy to follow and I am very happy with the results. I love that I was able to customize each bear to fit my kid's taste. For example, my son loves ducks and my daughter loves flowers, thus the cutesy buttons.

This was my first embroidery attempt, and as you can see it's far from perfect.

I love the little noses and the ric-rac waist!

And even the backs are cute! While making this pattern I added to my list of things I want to learn during my sewing class that starts on Wednesday. And while these bears look very homemade, I'm proud that I got them done in time and that my kids like them. Well, my daughter really liked hers. I think my son is scared of his... I'm all about being honest here.

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Using Leftover Eggs

Our house is inundated with plastic eggs after attending FIVE egg hunts in the last two weeks. We have been coming up with lots of ideas of things to do with them, here are just a few that we loved. This is what we started off after yesterday's hunt:

First we sorted by color:

Then we decided to make shapes. My four year old daughter decided she wanted a rainbow, so we worked on that first:

My 2 year old son wanted a space shuttle:



We then came up with some more permanent ones, for example using them as seed starters for our garden:

And as little containers for small items on my daughter's vanity:



These are all in addition to the usual counting of the eggs which they could do all day long! All in all this was a great activity that entertained the kids (and me!) for a long time using things we had at home!

I don't have to tell you what to do with REAL leftover eggs, right? I think this one is not only obvious but also very yummy!



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Felt Clippies

My newest obsession is felt clips- I can't stop making them! Here are just a few examples of some that I made this weekend. Forgive the horrible lighting, it was about to start raining so I had to run.

This is my favorite one! It looks super cute in person and was very easy to make following this tutorial. I love that the bottom is lined because it gives it a more finished look.

The five point flower and the orange/red ones were made using this tutorial. They were also very easy to make. I love that the small one can be used for bangs while the bigger one can go over the ponytail.

My daughter got a lot of compliments today and was loving her rose. I should have waited to post when I could get better pictures but I couldn't wait to show you!

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Easter Egg Suncatchers

This is a perfect project for a rainy day!

Gather up your supplies: broken-up crayons, wax paper, pencil sharpener or cheese grater, kid scissors, cookie cuter and a pencil. Draw whatever shape you want the sun catchers to be on some wax paper.

We opted to use the cheese grater but you could also use a pencil sharpener... my kids loved the way the shavings looked like a rainbow.



Place the shavings on top of the pictures you drew earlier. Then place another piece of wax paper on top of the shavings and iron them using low heat. There are no pictures of this because I did it during nap time due to safety concerns.

When the kids woke up they cut out the Easter egg shapes and we used some paper clips and yarn to hang them. My daughter didn't like the way the colors blended so we decided to make some with just a single color which we liked much better. You can see those taped to the windows, we decided to make them bigger. Next time we will stick to one color per shape.

We can't wait to see how these look hanging by the window on a sunny day!

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