Cake Wreck 2013

I'm officially declaring Aden's cake this year a big failure.  (Emphasis on the word "big.")

This is okay for two reasons:  First, for all those people who somehow think I can do anything it's nice to show I can't, and second, disaster tales are way more fun to tell than success stories.  So come see how badly cake making can go!

Aden wanted a Minecraft themed cake, and she decided she wanted it to look like a crafting table from the game.  I didn't know what that was, but found this (unfolded) image online:

Essentially it's just a cube with pixelated images laid out in a 16 X 16 grid on each side.  As far as cake shapes go, a cube didn't sound bad.  But our first mistake was deciding how big to make each side.  Ten inches sounded like a simple number.  (Heh.  Lesson one: Smaller is better.  Smaller may have worked.  In retrospect, eight inches tops would have been the way to go.)

My plan was to make a cube of layer cake, frost it, and stick pages of sugar paper on that I'd paint appropriately with food coloring.  Sounded time-consuming, but doable.  But then the store did not have enough sugar paper.

An (Unsponsored) Plug for Home Depot

I don't do sponsored posts, but I don't have a problem with mentioning products or stores by name that I have experience with.  We've had some pretty good experiences lately with Home Depot, and I want other people to know about their kid project program, which is one of the smartest promotional ideas I've ever seen.

Quinn, Mona, and Aden making Thanksgiving napkin holders

On the first Saturday of every month Home Depot runs a free workshop for kids.  They get an apron to keep, a project kit and space to work, and a pin to go with each completed project.  The projects are simple, like a small pin-board or a birdhouse, but they involve wood and glue and a hammer and nails, sometimes a screwdriver, and usually paint.  My kids have been doing this for about a year now.

Home Depot Fun (Babble)

This post is primarily to give other parents a heads up about something fun to do with your kids that might be available near you.  This is not a sponsored post because aside from the kinds of normal purchases we make there from time to time, The Home Depot doesn’t know we exist.  In fact, we’ve had ups and downs with the one near our house.
But it turns out The Home Depot does something kind of cool!  Another mom who was in my violin store about a year ago told me about it, but today was the first time I was actually on the ball enough to take advantage of the program.


The first Saturday of every month The Home Depot runs a free workshop for kids.  It’s a new project every month, and they supply all the materials and tools and set up a work space with lots of people available to help.  My kids each got an apron to put their names on, and when you finish a project they give you a pin about that project to put on your apron.  When you collect ten you get a special star pin.  We ran into a little girl from Quinn’s class there, and she proudly showed us her collection of more than a dozen pins.

Today’s project was making little race cars.  Quinn was the only one of our kids who resisted going in the first place, but by the time he was done hammering the little nails and putting on all the wheels he was a happy guy.  Quinn hugged that small orange car all the way home.

Next month’s project is a small open box bird feeder with suction cups on it and the kids can’t wait.  The workshop was so much fun I wish I’d managed to get us out there for it a long time ago.  Mona and Quinn wore their aprons around the house all day, and I found myself making the absurd statement, “Take your aprons off before dinner because they might get dirty.”  But then what are aprons for?  I guess today the aprons looked so fresh and pretty it was hard for me not to be a little protective.  I should just let them wear those aprons all the time, though, now that I think about it.

Anyway, I’m always pleased to know about free and interesting activities I can take my kids to, so thought I’d share.  If the idea of watching your kid wield a hammer makes you as happy as it makes me, check it out!