Kitchen Utensil Cake

Every once in a while I try to be crafty/creative and it actually turns out.  My soon to be sister in law was having a bridal shower so I thought I would try and make a utensil cake. On a side note, my soon to be sister-in-law will be the second Jenna Noland in the same family! Weird I know! I had seen a few pictures, on where else but Pinterest, and thought I was up for the challenge.  I read how a couple other people created their cakes and eventually came up with a way that worked out great for me. So here's what I did and what you'll need.

Ingredients:
Kitchen towels (the towels I bought came in a pack of 4)
Utensils of your choice
Ribbon
Pins
An empty coffee/hot chocolate tin

I washed out a tin of hot chocolate and used this to wrap the first towel around. I kept it folded the way that it was folded when I bought it. I stuck a couple pins in it to hold it around the container (the grey towel in the picture). Then I took another towel and without unfolding it the way that it came folded it in half the long way one more time. I wrapped this around the first towel (grey towel) and pinned it. The pin wasn't holding all the material great, so I quickly tied ribbon around it to hold it all in place.

For the top tiers of the "cake," I rolled up one towel like a sleeping bag as tight as I could (all white towel). Then I wrapped another towel around that (black towel) and tied it with ribbon.

I did have to take the tags off a few of the utensils and the towels to make this so I just threw them inside the hot chocolate tin in case the bride-to-be needed to return them. I then shoved one end of the top tier I just made into the canister part of the hot chocolate tin. From there I finished it off with the utensils I bought. I also cut out a piece of cardboard to use as a base and wrapped it in black and white striped wrapping paper I had. I hot glued this part to the bottom of the hot chocolate tin for the finished product.

I didn't realize how hard it is to give directions...hope it makes sense and that the pictures help if you decide to give this a try yourself.

Mess Maker...

I finally have some time for a quick post! I've been busy with football play-offs, hunting season, cleaning house, etc!

I know and understand that this is a developmental thing that probably most, if not all, infants go through, but would seriously like to know what the fascination of pulling things off tables, emptying book cases, completely cleaning out drawers, etc. is. I leave a room for what seems like just seconds and return to find that Jade has completely emptied a drawer of clothes, cleaned out our food cabinet in the kitchen, and/or pulled every book off the shelves. I ask her what she's doing and she just looks at me and smiles as if she knows she's making a mess for me to clean up! This new found skill she has does however come in handy while unloading the dishwasher and folding laundry. Yes, I do make sure things like knives and pizza cutters are out of reach or taken out of the dishwasher immediately before I let Jade help me with the dishes. She stands at the dishwasher and hands me the clean dishes one by one so I can put them away. If I don't put them away fast enough for her, she drops whatever is in her hand and grabs the next closest dish. When we do laundry, she is really good at taking things out of the dryer and putting them in. It's fun to watch her concentrate on a task that is so mindless and simple to us.

I think my Mom has the same or similar pictures of me doing the exact same things...

She looks so sweet and innocent...

Hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving! I hope to get another post in over the long weekend so stay tuned.

Happy Spooky and Scary Halloween!

Happy belated Halloween! It was Jade's 1st Halloween, and I have to say she was the cutest kid I saw last night! I saw a lot of cute kids out trick or treating and many pictures posted on facebook, but I still think my little elephant was the cutest ;). The best part of her costume was her little tail that "wiggled when she walked and wiggled when she talked"...ok, so not when she talked, but that's how the song goes. Anyway, it wiggled when she would walk/crawl around it was funny to say the least. I'm going to try to insert a video...let's see if it works....

I was able to leave work early to pick Jade up from the baby sitter and take her "trick or treating." I took her to come co-workers/friends houses in Moorhead before bringing her home. When Jade and I got home, we put her in her little Harley wagon and took her to some of the neighbors houses. Then we came back to the house to trick or treat via skype with Grandma Noland and Grandma and Grandpa Elgin! Technology is awesome! I'm glad the Grandparents were able to get to see her in her costume! Here are a few more pics of our little elephant. 

The whole costume...

 Up close and personal...

 The backside...