Think about it.  Those of us who are on Pinterest (find me here) are constantly pinning things we want to make.  Will we ever make them all?  Probably not.  Would we all like a little help in making something on our Pinterest list?  Absolutely.

Enter my DIY clothespin and cork memo board (pretend this is hung on the wall not resting on a shelf)…

…which was inspired by this photo that my mom pinned (originally from the one and only Martha)…

When I saw that my mom had pinned this project, I knew I could tackle it and even improve it.  I sound pretty confident, don’t I?

But if you want the honest version, I was too lazy to figure out how to spray paint (as Martha did in the inspiration piece) in the freezing cold weather, so I decided to “upholster” my memo board and then had the bright idea to slide some cork tiles in there.  Pretty much genius, if I do say so myself.

And my find of some wood-toned push pins further fueled my spray painting laziness.  I mean, with a find like those, I should probably just go with an au naturale wood look, right?

Here are my supplies:

• 1 2×4 ish board that I found in our basement (it is about 3 feet long)
• Cork tiles
• Fabric
• Clothespins (I chose regular size and mini clothespins that I found next to the pushpins)
• Push pins
• Hot glue gun
• Staple gun
• Hanging doohickeys (you know, the things that you can nail to the back of a frame to hang it.)

And here’s how I did it:

• First I cut my cork tiles down to size and hot glued them to the board

• Then I wrapped the fabric around the whole thing and stapled it tightly in the back.

• Learn from my mistake and apply your hanging doohickeys next.  Otherwise you’ll be trying to nail in the dohickeys on the back of the board with clothespins on it.  True story.
• Then glue your clothespins in place and you’ll be in business.

And you, too, can hang cute pictures of my nephew, Evan, over your desk…

I can’t wait to see what this project looks like when it’s in use at my mom’s house.  And now I am considering making my own…I have plenty of cork tile left over!

What do you think?  Does this look like something you would do?  Would you use bolder fabric or just let the pictures and pieces speak for themselves.  Or, is it warm enough to use spray paint at your house this time of year?

Oh, and for a “keep it real” moment.  I realized that I needed to photograph this already-wrapped project just moments before packing it in the car for our road trip to Vermont.  So, I sent my husband upstairs to change Ike so he wouldn’t see the madness, then swiftly unwrapped it, cleared off a shelf in my hallway, snapped some pictures, placed the items back on the shelf, and wrapped the memo board back up.  If that’s not your definition of weird and slightly obsessive, then I don’t know what is.

(By the way, if you’ve not yet joined the Pinterest revolution and would like to, leave a comment and I will send you an invite)

Blogging can really help keep you honest.  Even though I knew the exact purpose of this fabric when I bought it,  I can go back and look to see that it has been four months and four days since I purchased it.  If it takes me that long to make something with fabric for which I have plans, just think how long the fabric without a specific purpose will sit there!

Anyway, back to the pillows.  Or even further back to our living room.  Our living room has a theme: beige + red couches.  As I mentioned last week, this is the room in which we spend the most time, and the room that has received zero decorating attention.  As a result, the carpet is beige, the walls are beige and the curtains are beige.  Even the artwork is monotone beige.  We have two red couches—one that I bought for my first apartment and one that is slipcovered red to sorta-kinda match.  This space needs a serious dose of color and, let’s be real, this pair of throw pillows was not doing the trick:

How about that…I even took a semi-blurry photo to make them look even worse!  And so, I ripped these suckers apart to reveal the pillow insert inside and I took my fun fabric find (Nest Paisley Autumn by Valori Wells, if you’re interested) and made some pillow covers.

I know that everyone and their mother has a pillow cover tutorial out there in blogland, but here is a quick look at how I made mine.   If you can sew in a straight line, you can make this.

First, I measured the pillow.  It has only taken me a few past pillows to realize that you need to measure around the “puff” of the pillow.  For example, when I measured corner to corner, my insert was 14″.  But when I measured over the stuffed part, it was 17″.  Big difference.  I added a half-inch to each side for seam allowance and then cut my 18″x18″ square for the front.

I think the easiest way to make a pillow cover is to have an opening in the back that overlaps (like a sham cover).  Then there is no zipper and no closing up holes after stuffing.  Plus, you can quickly take them on and off for washing (very handy when you have a spit-up prince living in your house).

So, for the back piece, I added two inches to the top and bottom to have enough fabric for the overlap and seam allowances.  Since my front piece was 18″, I made my back piece 22″.  Then I cut it in half to create the two pieces that will overlap.

The next step is to finish off the edges of the overlapping pieces so that the back of your pillow looks nice and pretty.  So, fold and iron over one long edge of each back piece (about a half an inch) and then repeat.  Pin and sew.  And ignore the hideous ironing board cover below.  This is clearly the spare ironing board that Chris brought to our marriage.

Next lay your front piece with the pretty side facing up.  Then lay your two back pieces pretty side down, matching up the edges to the front piece.  You’ll see that your back pieces will have to overlap to make this possible.

Here is a close-up of the layering:

Pin this all together and sew around the four edges.  I used a half-inch seam allowance.  Turn the whole cover right side out and this is what your back will look like.

Then stuff your pillow and admire how nicely the back overlaps.  Just don’t admire the lighting in my kitchen on a rainy day.  Deal?

I’m excited to have these two pillows in place because they will be my starting point for bringing other colors into the room.  And you can see the possibilities are endless…blue, green, pink, gray, orange…

I might just feel a room re-design coming on…

What did you do this weekend?  Was it gray and rainy where you were?

Anyway, I’m dragging the hallway progress reports on longer than anyone would like.  After your stellar feedback on my shelves, I did what anyone would do…I got lost in indecision and distracted myself with another project.  But, I have good news.  That project was the faux paneling below the shelves.   It may not be painted, but it is up.  And this means I can show you how I did it.

Now, remember, I’m not great with math.  This means I went back to the graph paper to make sure I really had things planned out.  I recommend you do the same.  I measured twice and drew my plans.  Here they are:

Don’t bother trying to read it too closely, otherwise you’ll notice a blatant typo in my numbers.

(Can you use the word typo when referring to something that isn’t typed?).

The picture really just helps me point out a few things I thought about, which you should think about, too,  if you want to attempt a project like this:

• Figure out the length of space you have to work with, how many rectangles you want, and do some basic math to figure out where they will be placed horizontally on the wall (if I can do it, so can you).
• Make sure your plans won’t hit any outlets or light switches, taking into account the width of your molding. (I had to make sure my outlet was at least 2″ away from my line to account for the thickness.)
• Figure out the two points between which the rectangles will be centered vertically.  This got a little confusing for me because of the dreaded baseboard heater (the stupid thing is bound and determined to screw me up, I swear).  While it may have looked more pleasing to the eye to have the squares centered between the heater and the bottom of the chair rail, I knew that it wouldn’t look quite right when we get around to putting faux paneling on other walls in the area that don’t have baseboard heaters.  (Like the wall pictured below.)  So, I centered my rectangles between the height of my regular baseboard (4″) and the bottom of the chair rail (36″), leaving me 32″ to work with.

(I just noticed that you can see our baby bouncer AND swing in the above picture.  Plus a dog bone in the middle of the living room.  Such is life around here.)

My three rectangles worked out to be 22″ high and 24″ wide (when measuring from the outside edge of the molding).  They were four inches apart from each other.

Which leads me to how you get these rectangles.

First, use a level and measuring tape and mark off the rectangles on your wall.  Knowing I would be painting anyway, I just drew my lines on with pencil.

Then I picked up some MDF molding at Home Depot (it’s nice and lightweight, and already primed white).  I figured that one 8-foot piece for each rectangle would be enough.  But naturally I made one bad cut and needed to get another piece.  So, save yourself the gas money and pick up an extra piece just in case.  Each piece was only about $3.

I’m not fancy enough to have a compound mitre saw to make pretty angled cuts, but I do have an old-fashioned mitre box (which was less than $15, if I do recall).  This box with the back saw (it comes as a package) helps you make near-perfect angles.

To make a square, you will need four pieces that have edges angling inward on both sides.  Once you have one side of the piece cut, measure your desired length from the very top point of your angle to the very top point of the next angle.  Mark it and make your next cut.  See how this time my angle is going the opposite way so that it is angling inward?

Here is an example of one of my finished cuts.  Smooth like butter, no?  What you don’t see are the drips of sweat coming from me sawing like a madwoman next to the heater.  The.dreaded.baseboard.heater.

Next, attach the molding to the wall.  If you are using wood, you should definitely use some small finish nails, but using some glue material first will help you get everything lined up very nicely.  I skipped nails altogether and opted to use a tube of Liquid Nails made for molding.

Don’t worry if there is a little bit of space in your corners where your cuts come together; we’ll fix that later.

Once your pieces are on and secure, you might need to sand the corners a little bit to get rid of any roughness.

Then use some paintable caulk to fill in any gaps.  Here is one of my corners before caulking:

Here I am filling it in (don’t worry, a wet rag wipes off the excess perfectly):

And the finished product:

And now it is ready for painting; aren’t you excited!?

Oh, and this mini tutorial skipped the part about how I cut a piece of chair rail to length and glued that to the wall, too.  But I did that, and it was easy.  Just dub me the MDF cutting and pasting queen.  I’ll take my tiara when I show you the finished product, okay?

I ‘baked’ my very first diaper cake for my own baby shower. I wanted them as centerpieces for the guests’ tables but I couldn’t fit it into my budget. So I did what any “domestic adventurer” (pun intended) would do… I made my own.

After that, I’ve made too many diaper cakes to count but they have ranged from small diaper cakes taken to the hospital when going to meet baby to jumbo sized shower gifts.

Diaper cakes are my gift of choice for new or expectant moms and today Erin has been kind enough to invite me to her blog to share with you how to make a diaper cake.

INGREDIENTS:

• Diapers – Size 1 (54)
• Diapers – Size Newborn (30)
• Small rubber bands (84)
• Extra large rubber bands (3)
• Decorative Ribbons (at least 1)
• 12 inch cake circle (1)
• Baby bottle or other item such to serve as structure for the cake (at least 1)
• Glue Gun
• Glue sticks

1. Lay out all of your materials on a clean surface.

2. Begin rolling up each individual diaper. I like to start rolling from the waist (where the cartoons are) because I feel that it sort of ‘seals’ the area that will actually be touching the baby’s bottom.

3. Roll them all up and place a small rubber band around each diaper. It’s going to take a while.

I’ll wait…

4. Place the baby bottle (I used a bottle of lotion) in the middle of the cake circle. Put an extra large rubber band around the bottle and place the individually rolled diapers (size 1) inside the rubber band to build the bottom tier of the cake. Fill it up until you have covered the entire surface of the cake circle. I used 48 in the cake you see here.

5. Use another extra large rubber band to build the second tier of the cake. Place all of the newborn sized diapers within the rubber band.

6. Stack the layers. Use the remaining diapers and an extra large rubber band to put together a small top tier. Add decorative ribbon to hide the rubber bands and personalize your cake.

Making a diaper cake can seem a little intimidating but I assure you, it’s lots of fun!

Thanks, Nicole!  How easy does that look?  As a new mom, I have to say that I was very appreciative of the two diaper cakes we received.  Even though we are planning on using cloth diapers, everyone needs some disposables to have on hand and for travel.  Plus, our little guy is too small for his cloth diapers still, so the disposables have been so helpful!

It’s not patchwork and it doesn’t scream Christmas, but it did use up all of the buttons that I’ve had in my closet for years (you know, the extra buttons that come with every cardigan, pair of pants and blazer you buy).

Here is my attempt at a tutorial on how to make this little project, which took me all of an hour and used only items I already had in my sewing stash.

I was going to draw my own Christmas tree pattern, but when digging out fabric I found a pattern I used to make a stocking and realized it had a 3-D stuffed Christmas tree pattern included.  Clearly this project was meant to be!  I was able to adapt the pattern for my need, but you could definitely make your own.  Using the pattern, I cut out two pieces of some green fabric, as well as a piece of quilt batting to match.

Then I made my tree stump.  First I free-handed the pattern and cut two pieces out of brown fabric and one of quilt batting.  Then I pinned them together in the following order: quilt batting, then the two pieces of fabric right sides together.  I stitched around, leaving the top of the trunk completely open.  Then I turned it right side out and, voila…a tree stump.

My next step was to make the loop that would be used to hang the tree.  I took a crooked rectangle of fabric.  Then, with wrong side facing up, I folded over each edge to meet in the middle.  Then I folded the piece in half and pinned it together.  The final step was to stitch up one side, then I folded the rectangle to create the loop and stitched across to tack it in place.

Then the tricky part was inserting the loop into the tree so that it would end up in the right place on the finished piece!  Just like the stump, I had layered the quilt batting then the two pieces of tree fabric right sides together with the loop in the middle.

I sewed all the way around the tree leaving open enough room a the bottom of the tree to insert the stump.  Using the space I left un-sewed, I turned the whole tree right side out.  Then I inserted the stump, turned the green fabric in, and pinned it in place.

Then I sewed across the stump and continued on all the way around the tree.

Next came the buttons.

I sewed on the first ten or so, but then I got lazy!  Out came the hot glue gun; then I really was in business.

I’m liking how this coordinates with some other subtle Christmas decor that I’ve made, like the stocking that is currently adding a little Christmas spirit to our charging and electronics area!

So that is what I dared to make for this week’s Dare to DIY Challenge.  What have you been doing to decorate your home?  Need some ideas?  Head on over to NewlyWoodwards and see what other bloggers have come up with!

I haven’t cooked enough Thanksgiving dinners yet to call myself a pro by any means, but I do have a few tricks and tips that make preparing the big meal easier, and even fun and relaxing (Note: you actually have to like to cook in order for Thanksgiving meal preparation to ever be fun and relaxing for you; there’s no pretending otherwise!).

So, if you are planning to cook the big meal next week, here are my best suggestions for preparing for the big day:

Menu planning
Your first step in planning for Thanksgiving dinner should be planning your menu.  Consider who is coming, what they like, what they can bring, and then make a list of the dishes you will prepare on your own.  This is also a good time to think about the fact that your oven will be completely useless to you for several hours on Thursday while the turkey is cooking, so be sure to consider how you will prepare other side dishes (either making them ahead of time, using a crock pot or making them on the stovetop).  You can see my menu plan from last year for ideas.

Your shopping list
Once you have your menu planned, sit down with a notebook and all of the recipes you’ll be using.  Go through each recipe and make a note of any ingredients that you need to buy.  And when I say go through each recipe, I mean it.  It is truly the only way you will think to check whether or not you have enough cinnamon to make your grandmother’s apple pie, or that you have plenty of pounds of butter on hand.  I’ve found that this method completely eliminates the need for last minute or late-night trips to the over-crowded grocery stores.  Once you are done with your recipes, think through the whole day outside of the main meal.  Do you have enough coffee, creamer, tea, etc.?   What drinks do you need for dinner?

This is the point where my family members roll their eyes and tell me I should probably just relax a little bit.  But, keep reading because I promise that making all of these lists actually makes me more relaxed on Thanksgiving day and actually allows me to enjoy making the meal!

Non-meal task list
Take a moment to step away from the food and think about other things around your house that might need attention before the big meal.  Do you need to wash/iron linens?  Do you need to make up the guest room?  Will you be polishing your silver?  Make a list of all the tasks you need to complete.

The master timeline
Now that you know what you need to cook and what you need to do around the house, make your timeline for the next week.  What tasks will you complete each day?  What food can be made ahead of time and when will you make those items? Try to spread the tasks over several days so that you have nearly nothing left to do on the big day.  Don’t forget that something like your table setting can be done ahead of time.  Set your table days in advance and then just cover your table with a sheet (to keep out dust) until Thanksgiving morning.

The Turkey Day timeline
By Thursday morning you will have already crossed many things off the main timeline.  Now is the time to focus on how you will time all of your dishes so that your meal is done and warm all at the same time.  Working back from the time you want to eat, make a timeline of what needs to be prepped/cooked and when.  Here is an example using my timeline from last year:

9:00 a.m.
Prep turkey and heat oven

9:30 a.m.
Turkey goes in the oven

11:00 a.m.
Make mashed potatoes

12:00 p.m.
Make appetizers before guests arrive

2:30 p.m.
Turkey is done!

• Reheat the pre-made zucchini casserole, mashed potatoes, butternut squash souffle, rolls
• Make gravy using turkey drippings
• Have someone else carve the turkey

3:00 p.m.
Dinner time!

As you can see, the above timeline actually allows for down time and spending time with guests.  It also gives you time to keep the kitchen relatively clean so that you don’t have a huge mess at the end of the day.

What comes next?
Kick up your feet, have some pie, and let someone else do the dishes!

I’ve seen some other great Thanksgiving advice around blogland.  Jess at Frugal with a Flourish is also a list/notebook kind of gal, and my friend Jen at Home in the Country just prepared an early Thanksgiving with friends.

Do you have any tips and tricks?  Just share them in the comments!

Like many people setting up a nursery, I wanted a skirt for the crib to hide all that empty space underneath the crib (when the mattress is on its highest setting).  Plus, the skirt could hide anything that needs to be stowed underneath.  So, I designed a custom skirt for our crib that works now, and can be shortened later when we move the mattress down a few notches.

For those of you who might not be interested in the gazillion pictures and instructions I’m about to share, I’ll share the finished product here so you can all admire it.

As you can see, it coordinates perfectly with my DIY window treatments…

Although the colors match perfectly, I wanted to give a slight nod back to the window treatments by having an elephant panel peeking through on the front of the skirt.  It adds a little something and it was easy to create, I promise.

First up in making the crib skirt is measuring and calculating.  I wanted a skirt that wrapped around just a little in the back so that it created a finished look, but I didn’t need one that wrapped completely around since the crib will always be against a wall.  See how it wraps around the back corner by just a few inches?

I measured the total length I needed and cut corresponding pieces.  I didn’t worry about seam allowances on width because those edges that wrapped around the back didn’t need hemming.  I did add 1.5 inches to the total height of the fabric so that I could hem the top and bottom.

I cut three pieces total.  Two pieces were from my dominant spotted fabric.  Each piece was exactly half of the total length needed to wrap around the crib.  (My total length needed was 87 in, so each piece was about 44 inches wide.)  Then I cut the panel piece out of coordinating fabric.  The panel piece was the same height as the rest of the fabric and was about 8 inches wide.

I arranged my fabric so that the panel piece was exactly centered where the two side panels met, and carefully folded each side panel to reveal a perfect triangle of the panel.

And then I pinned it all in place.

To hold the panel together while hemming, I just sewed a simple line right at the very edge where the panel and side pieces met.  This kept everything straight while I folded and ironed the top edge for the hem.

Next I folded over the top edge about 3/4″ and ironed it flat.  Then I sewed across the top making a nice finished edge.

Then I attached the skirt to the crib so that I could see exactly how much would need to be folded for the bottom hem.  Starting dead center on both the skirt and the crib, I attached the skirt using sticky-backed velcro.  My tactic was to place one side of the velcro on the crib first, then attach the other side of the velcro on the fabric as I was lining it up so that it matched perfectly.

Once I had the whole thing up, I folded up the bottom in a few spots and pinned it to see where the bottom hem would be.  With everything marked, I took the skirt off, ironed the bottom hem into place and whipped through one last seam…well, actually three seams.  I ended up hemming the bottom of the panel separately from the bottom of the two sides.  So, the only place that the panel is attached to the sides is at the very top.  But, as long as everything overlaps enough, you really don’t need to attach the panel to the sides at the bottom or anywhere else.

And that is how I made my crib skirt.

I couldn’t help but include Frankie in this last shot.  He seems to think that everything that is happening in the nursery is meant for him.  He is incredibly interested in the room in and goes in it all the time!

We have so much left to do in this room and only 9 weeks to do it.  So, I hope you’re not bored with nursery projects yet!

Linked up to:

• Weekend Wrap-Up Party at Tatertots and Jello
• Made it For Monday at Cottage Instincts
• Project Parade at The DIY Showoff
  

Note to self: If you are painting the trim white, always, always go with the pre-primed trim.

It’s not that we have anything against priming the trim ourselves.  It just takes a lot of patience, careful work…and time.

After trying a few tactics, muttering a few expletives and wiping our share of white paint off the walls, we came up with a plan.  Chris and I both set out with a large spackle knife and used the sharp thin edges to protect our walls and carpet.  It worked particularly well on the floor where we could push the carpet all the way down and get right to the bottom of the trim…

And it worked on the wall side, too.  For the floor boards we were able to wedge the blade in between the wall and board (without harming anything) and protect the wall from paint.  It was a bit more difficult on the window trim and crown molding, but keeping the knife at an angle really helps keep the paint in.

We were awfully whiny as we recalled how quick the pre-primed trim was when we used it in other rooms.  One coat of slick satin paint was all we needed compared to the two plus coats that we did this time.  But, it does look good!

I know I should have asked before we took this project on, but do you have any trim painting advice?

Somehow this came up during a conversation at work and my witty and talented co-worker Joyce came right to my rescue.  She sent along a full blog post on how to cut a pineapple.  Always up for a challenge, I decided to put her directions into action and see if I could manage to master the art of pineapple carving.  I took photos along the way to prove I did it, and to show how easy it actually is.  As you can see below, I was successful!

So, here is Joyce with the how-to and the photos I took while on my pineapple cutting adventure:

I’m often surprised by how many people are intimidated about buying and cutting up a supermarket pineapple. Sure, it looks thorny and unwieldy, and most of us have been disappointed by contents that aren’t sweet or juicy. So it seems easier to drop six bucks on the cored, pared version in the baggie, or even succumb to the canned version.

The right approach, like so much in cooking, is simple but takes time. Your best bet with a pineapple, as with an avocado, is to buy it when it’s hard and green (and on sale) and to let it ripen in your own kitchen until it’s perfectly ripe.

So how do you know when it’s ripe? Well, that business about pulling a leaf from the top center from the top has never struck me as very useful—even when it slides out easily, the fruit may need more time. I go by look (uniform golden color) and smell (heavenly and fruity—check the bottom). I’d rather have it go a little too far, with a bit of mold on the bottom, than cut it up too early, since you can always chop off any brown bits, but there’s no remedy for hard, dry fruit.

(Note from Erin: My pineapple was super ripe and I did have to cut off the bottom.  I suppose I could have cut it a week ago and it would have been fine!)

Now the fun part: hacking it up. Have a bowl ready for the cut-up fruit and a compost bag for the trimmings; sharpen your big heavy knife, and get a cutting board. And have a paper towel ready for any runaway juice.

Grasp the leaf crown in one hand and the pineapple in the other, and twist it off.

Now you’re going to quarter the pineapple lengthwise.

Next, you’re going to slice the core off each of the four quarters. Then slice off the crusty exterior. Cut off less rather than more, because you can always go back with a small knife or the tip of a vegetable peeler to scoop out those hard little nuggets.

For bite-size pieces, slice the quarters in thirds lengthwise, then cut across in 1-inch pieces. That’s it!

Following Joyce’s step-by-step instructions, I had success in cutting my very first pineapple and the freshly cut fruit is so delicious!

So tell me, are you a pineapple newbie like me or did you master this skill a long time ago?

Here is my tray of tools, which kind of reminds me of a doctor’s tray, all lined up.  Cake making is kind of like life saving, after all.

• Baking pan – This half sheet (18×12″) pan was the definite key to my overall success.  I purchased it just for this project and bought only one despite making two layers.  I figured I won’t be making that many sheet cakes and I could just bake one layer at a time.
• Parchment paper - When you are making a cake this big, you do not want to risk your layers sticking to the pan.  So, I lined mine with parchment paper and greased the sides of the pan.  It worked like a charm!
• Offset spatula – This tool came in handy several times.  First it helped me level out the cake batter and then it helped me smooth on the frosting!

• Serrated bread knife – normally I use this blade for slicing bread, but it was just what I needed to level the layers after they came out of the oven, and trim the flared edges of each layer.  To trim the tops, I kept the blade level with the edge of the pan and sawed across.  The sawing motion is key in not mushing your cake.  This process helped me get a nice flat cake with squared edges.

• Wilton Icing Color – This color paste was highly recommended to me by a co-worker for its ability to create vibrant colors.  It almost worked too well because my yellow frosting was blinding!  Definitely start with a small amount and add more until you reach the color you desire.  I found this product at Wal-Mart near the scrapbooking and wedding decor section.

• Icing bag and tips – I was luck enough to pick up a nice set of bags and tips with a gift certificate to a local kitchen shop, and I highly recommend investing the $15 – $20 for a good set.  It will make your life much easier.  (Just a few of the many tips are pictured here.  There are more tips than I know what to do with!)

• Ziploc bag - The same co-worker who recommended the icing coloring suggested I use a plain old Ziploc bag for the text.  The bag allows you to have much more control over the letters vs. using a metal tip.
• Toothpick – I was super nervous when it came to writing on the cake.  I decided not to chance it and I traced out the words with a toothpick first so that all I had to do was follow the lines.

And that, my friends is how this baby shower cake and my first ever sheet cake came to be.

I decided that I may not be able to make super classy cakes, but my future kids will probably love my bright, elementary style!