Birthday Cake Boxes

I turned another year older a few weeks ago, and to celebrate, I delivered slices of birthday cake to a few of my friends. Last year, my friend Marcelle took slices of her favorite cake, flourless chocolate cake, in chinese take-out boxes to some of her friends. Such a fun idea to give friends a little bit of celebration on your big day (especially when you are a grown-up and no one is throwing you a huge birthday bash every year)! And last Fall, I spotted adorable DIY slice-of-pie boxes on Stephmodo that I knew I had to do something with. At some point it occurred to me to combine both ideas, and voila! Birthday Cake boxes!

I came up with a quick template (well, it should have been quick, but I'm a dunce when it comes to Illustrator, so it took a while!), printed a bunch out on my kraft cardstock, cut, and taped. I made a really good, vanilla buttermilk cake with vanilla frosting and rainbow sprinkles, boxed up the slices, and delivered them! It was so much fun! Happy Birthday to me!

Click HERE to download the template. The assembled boxes will fit cake slices from a 1- or 2-layer 8" round cake that has been cut into at least 12 pieces. And click HERE if you'd like the recipe for the Vanilla Buttermilk Cake!

Print out as many boxes as you'll need on cardstock.

Cut on the solid lines.

Fold on the dotted lines. A bone folder would work nicely here, but I can never find mine when I need it, so I just used my fingernails.

Use double-sided tape to attach the overlapping flaps to the sides of the box.

Do this one first, then wait until you've slid the piece of cake into position to do the other two. Just trust me on that one. ;)

All done!

Organic vs. Conventional (and how is anyone supposed to remember?)

I don't consider us a very "organic" family. Sure, we eat Annie's Mac and Cheese made with mostly organic pasta, and I used to buy to little boxes of Horizon Organic Chocolate Milk when they had it at Costco (cuz that stuff was goooooood), but other than that, we don't do much. The thing is, I want to do more, I really do. Part of the problem is that I just can't buy all organic all the time. It can get really expensive, and our closest grocery store has the world's tiniest organic section. But I can start small. According to the Environmental Working Group (or EWG), you can reduce your exposure to nasty pesticides a lot (we're talking 80%!) by going organic on just a few fruits and vegetables. The rest of your produce can still be conventional.

I am happy to do this. My problem is that I don't have the world's greatest memory anymore, and I can't remember which fruits and veggies are on the naughty list and which are on the nice list. For those of you lucky-ducks with an iPhone, EWG offers an iPhone app with a list of the Dirty Dozen and the Clean 15. They also offer a little card that you can download and print out in case you don't have an iPhone. I didn't think it was that cute (sorry EWG), so I made up my own. It is about the size of a credit card and fits in my wallet, and it is kind of cute!

If you'd like a card too, just click on the picture below. Print it, crop it along the crop marks, and fold. You can even laminate it for extra durability! Happy Wednesday, or as I like to call it, Happy Organic Produce Shopping Day!

Preschool Ocean Lesson

Last fall, when we started our co-op preschool, one of my first lessons was on the ocean. Unfortunately, it is the only lesson I didn't type up a lesson plan for, so I can't tell you every detail of our day like I can with other lessons. However, here's some of what we did:

Books
Over in the Ocean: In a Coral Reef by Marianne Berkes (the artwork is seriously amazing!)


One Nighttime Sea by Deborah Lee Rose (more incredible artwork)


The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister


Octopus Oyster Hermit Crab Snail by Sara Anderson



Coloring Page
I couldn't find a coloring page I liked that was ocean-themed, so I drew one myself. That's why all the sea creatures have smiley faces! To view as a pdf, just click on the image or the label below and it will open in Adobe Acrobat Reader.


Ocean Coloring Page


Crafts
Balloon Octopi from Kids Craft Weekly: involves stringing beads, cereal, or little bits of straws on long pieces of yarn, which a preschooler will do for hours!

Stuffed Construction Paper Fish: Fold a piece of construction paper in half. I let the kids choose what color they wanted. With the paper folded, cut out a basic fish shape; you should end up with two matching fish. Let the kids decorate their fish (both pieces) with glitter glue, crayons, paint, markers, stickers, etc. When they are done decorating, staple both pieces of paper together, staying close to the edge, and going all the way around the fish except for a gap large enough for a little hand to fit through. Let the children stuff their fish with fiber-fill or cotton balls, then staple the fish shut. Be sure to attach a google eye to each side of the fish.

Fishing Poles: Make fishing poles out of bamboo garden stakes (or sticks or dowels or whatever you have that will work for a pole) and string. Attach a magnet to the loose end of the string. I did this by cutting two pieces of adhesive magnetic strip to the same size and sandwiching the string between the sticky backs. Make small fish out of construction paper. Attach a paperclip to each fish. Let the kids fish! I made our fish different colors, and everybody had to try to get whatever color I called out, but there are a million different things you could do. Think of the fish as flash cards; you can do shapes, colors, ocean animals, etc.



Songs
One, two, three, four, five,
Once I caught a fish alive.
Six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
Then I let it go again.
Why did you let it go?
Because it bit my finger so.
Which finger did it bite?
This little finger on the right.

The Fishy Pokey from Everything Preschool
You put your right fin in, you put your right fin out,
You put your right fin in, and you shake it all about.
You do the fishy pokey and you turn yourself around.
That's what it's all about!
You get the idea. We just made things up, like "fishy lips" and "fishy eyes".

Father's Day Candy Bars

On Tuesday morning, I got an email from someone at church asking me what we were giving to the menfolk on Sunday. And that's when it hit me (for the 100th time, but I keep forgetting) that this Sunday is Father's Day! Since I have a fairly busy week going on, I decided to do the ole' "candy bar with a funny message" idea. We will be handing out Milk Duds with a label on the back that reads, "You're no Dud, Dad! Happy Father's Day!"

I already have a few presents for my husband from me and the kids, but once I got started with the candy bar theme, I just couldn't stop! So he'll also be getting a basket full of funny candy bars.

If you'd like to make them too, just click here and print! These labels were originally formatted to fit Avery Address Labels 8160. If you don't have or don't want to use address labels, just print them on regular paper or card stock, cut them out, and glue or tape them on.

Moon Memory

In an effort to cut down on the candy in our Easter baskets this year, I decided to get everyone nonedibles like books, movies, dolls, etc. We still got way more candy than we needed, but the sweetest thing in our Easter basket was I Took The Moon For A Walk by Carolyn Curtis. I was first drawn to it because of the enchanting illustrations by Alison Jay, but then fell in love with the beautiful poem the first time we read it. It is now our most-requested bedtime book, and I'm happy to read it every time!

At the end of the book, there is a diagram showing the phases of the moon. My oldest is so taken with it that I decided to make her a Moon Memory game. We printed ours on heavy card stock, cut them out, and took them to Kinko's and had them laminated. She plays with it by herself, but I made 4 different-colored sets so that 4 kids can play, either by themselves, or by combining all of the sets together into one giant memory game.

Directions: Click on the thumbnails below to get the full-size image in pdf format. Once the image opens, print it! If you don't have Acrobat, you can download it for free here. If you don't want to download it but would still like copies, please contact us at maxandellie@gmail.com and we will email them to you. Then all you have to do is open the attachments and print!

blue moon memory set

grey moon memory set


harvest moon memory set


pink moon memory set