About a month ago Miss E and I made school supply cakes for both her teacher and as a centerpiece for the Teacher Luncheon that I put together for the teacher's at Miss D's preschool. I've been hanging on to this post so that Miss E's teacher did not see her gift before the last day of school.
We used pintrest as our inspiration, but modified the "ingredients" to fit what preschool and kindergarten teachers may need. Making a school supply cake is just like making a diaper cake, although if you shop for supplies smartly, it is much more affordable.
I liked making this school supply cake for the same reason that I like making diaper cakes as gifts. They are very easy to put together, but they have a certain WOW factor that makes people think that they took you FOREVER to make!!!
We shopped for most of the supplies at Five Below. The rubber bands, pencils, Elmer's glue, glue sticks, crayons, and scissors were all $1 each. I'm sure I could have gotten an even better deal shopping the back to school sales at the end of the summer, but in May that was the best price I could find. We bought the paper towels for $0.88 each at Walmart, and found a great deal on a HUGE package of craft foam, sidewalk chalk, and watercolor paintbrushes at Michael's. I used my coupon and we shopped the clearance shelf. We were able to make both cakes and still have plenty of sidewalk chalk, a couple boxes of crayons and tons of rubber bands leftover for either our craft stash or to make future school supply cakes. The stickers were a clearance find from Marden's. I think I paid either $0.25 or $0.50 per package. When I did the math it came out to be just under $25.00 per cake.
For the bases we used 2 cardboard supports from the gluten free crust that we use to make our Movie Night pizza's every Friday. Mr. J has been making fun of me for wiping them clean and stashing them away each week for some time now, but I have found countless uses for them in my craft room! I also save the resealable bag that they come in. I mean, it's basically a FREE ziploc, right? Anyway, back to the cake...We used scotch tape to cover the cardboard pizza bases with scrapbook paper that I had on hand.
We used clean aluminum cans for the top tiers. I spray painted them with 3-4 coats of chalkboard paint and then used a cool chalkboard marker to write on them. I have been looking for the right justification to buy a set of chalkboard markers and this seemed like the perfect excuse reason! Using the same method as I use when making a diaper cake, I placed a rubber band around the can and then Miss E and I lined the outside with glue sticks. We filled the cans with pencils and paintbrushes to add more height to the cakes and themn moved on to the bottom layer.
Miss E lined the craft foam up in rainbow order and then I put a couple rubber bands around the roll of paper towels and worked on securing the craft foam "rainbow." This was the trickiest part, just like with a diaper cake. I always struggle a bit to evenly space and tightly "package" the tiers of diapers around whatever base I have chosen. I actually have found it is easier to just use more diapers and swirl them into a circle using a bowl to make what is called a "boutique style" diaper cake. Unfortunately, this method was not possible with our school supply cakes since I really wanted to include the paper towels and I did not have enough craft foam to make the cake big enough. So, I just played around with it for a bit, and borrowed an extra set of hands from Mr. J to get the foam sheets around the roll of paper towels tightly and evenly.
After securing the foam to the paper towels, the rest of the project was "a piece of cake!" I simply hot glued the paper towel roll to the base and hot glued the aluminum can to the top of the paper towel roll. Then, in doing as I had with the previous layers, I placed rubber bands around the bottom and middle of the cake and Miss E added the chalk, glue, crayons, stickers, and scissors. We made each cake a little different. Miss D's school had specifically asked for scissors and seasonal stickers on their wish list and according to Miss E her classroom needed more pencils. To give the cakes a finished touch I used ribbon and rick rack to cover the rubber bands and glued a fake flower from our stash to the front of the bows on the bottom layers. With some diaper cakes I have made in the past I have sewed the ribbons together quickly with my sewing machine, but this time I just used my hot glue gun since it was already on.
This turned out to be a fun activity to do with Miss E. She was very proud to go shopping with me for the supplies and put the cakes together all by herself. I think the cake made an excellent centerpiece for the teacher luncheon and yesterday when I helped Miss E deliver the other cake to her teacher, it was the talk of the school! Miss E just beamed with pride as she gave it to her teacher and all of her friends were oooing and ahhing. Seeing her pride put a big smile on my face and made my heart just swell with pride.
When I was teaching it meant so much to me to get a gift that I knew had taken thought and time to create. To this day I still treasure many homemade ornaments and keepsakes from my teaching years. Don't get me wrong, a gift card to Barne's and Noble or L.L.Bean is not bad either. There is also something about a practical, useful gift. In my "expert" opinion these School Supply Cakes are a little bit of both. They are thoughtful, practical, and homemade. We will definitely be making more school supply cakes in the years to come...
Mrs. J :)
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