Teacher Appreciation Cake...of School Supplies!

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So, did you know that May 7-11 is National Teacher Appreciation Week this year?  I didn't either, until I had a girls' night with one of my best-est friends, Amanda, and we went shopping for supplies and put together a Teacher's Cake for her daughter's pre-school teacher.

She got the idea from something she pinned on Pinterest from The Butler's blog, but we modified it a bit, since this was for a pre-school teacher.  We got the supplies from Hobby Lobby and Wal-Mart, and used a couple of things she had already.

So on to how we put our Teacher Appreciation cake together:

Supplies:

12" round piece of sturdy corrugated cardboard

12" x 12" piece of scrapbook paper

YES! Paste (you can find this at any craft store, and it's a great general adhesive to have in your stash)

Clorox wipes (in the round container)

1 paper towel tubing to cut up for extra height

6 thin-ish coloring books

8 16-count Crayon boxes

20 glue sticks

10 bottles total of white and clear school glue (5 of each)

24 pack of colored pencils

a straight-sided container (pencil cup, ribbon spool, etc.) that's about 2.5"-3" in diameter for the colored pencils

4-5 different colored grosgrain ribbons, in varying widths

6 silk Gerber daisies

hot glue gun

rubber bands or string to tie the supplies in your layers together

Step 1: Cover a STURDY piece of 12" round corrugated cardboard with pretty scrapbook paper  (You can see from the pictures that we started with a 10" circle in pink, but it wasn't wide enough).  It really has to be sturdy, because ours ended up weighing about 10 pounds!  This was my job, and Amanda recommended YES! Paste.  Seriously good adhesive that doesn't leave ripples and bumps like regular white glue does.  After the paper is dried to the cardboard, cut it out.

Step 2: Start assembling the 'tower'.  We used a container of Clorox wipes (what pre-school teacher wouldn't want/need extra Clorox wipes?!) and added some height to it by putting 3 cut-down pieces (about 2.5") of paper towel tubing underneath.

Step 3: Fan 6 coloring books around the Clorox wipes (you could use fewer than 6, if they're kind of thick, but try to use thin ones).  This is where it helps to have an extra set of hands.  Someone needs to hold the coloring books while someone else either rubber bands-them or ties them tight with a piece of string.

Step 4: Line up your crayon boxes and glue sticks around the base, alternating them (crayon box, glue stick, crayon box, glue stick...).  We used 10 glue sticks around the base and 8 16-count crayon boxes.  Then tie this layer up like you did the coloring books.

Step 5: Folding down the flaps on the crayon boxes, add your glue bottles on top.  We alternated between white and clear school glue, (mainly because Wal-Mart didn't have the 10 bottles we needed in white) but I think it looked pretty cool.  Then tie the glue bottles together (another time it's good to have 2 sets of hands!).

Step 6: We decorated a spool from some ribbon with scrapbook paper, but you could use a straight-sided pencil cup if you wanted, and add that to the top of the Clorox container.  We didn't adhere it to the container, but you could if you think it needs it.  Amanda had the ribbon spool already (I won't detail how long we spent un-spooling the ribbon so we could use the spool...but I will say that the ribbon hadn't been used yet, and there had to be 60 feet on there...maybe that's an exaggeration-maybe not).  Then line the rest of your glue sticks around the cup.  She had bought 3 6-packs of glue sticks for the whole project, but we could have used 2 or 3 more, after using 10 on the bottom layer.  We decided the flowers we added later would fill that gap.  Again, tie the layer together.  We added a 24 pack of colored pencils to the covered ribbon spool.

Last step: Add your ribbon!  On the bottom layer, we used a wide solid grosgrain ribbon with a striped ric-rac ribbon on top; middle layer, wide polka-dotted grosgrain ribbon; top layer, medium satin ribbon with a small ribbon that said 'school days' on it.  We pulled the ribbons tight, and then added a line of hot glue to join them together.  Make sure to line up where each layer joins, so that they will be covered when you add the flowers.  We used 6 silk Gerber daisy blooms (1 on the top, 2 in the middle and 3 at the bottom) in colors that coordinated with the school supplies and ribbon.

And that was it!  We had a finished Teacher Appreciation cake!  How exciting would it be to get something so packed with crafty cool-ness?!  I can't wait to hear how the teacher reacts when she gets the cake!  Also, now that I know it's Teacher Appreciation Week, I need to get in gear and figure out something for 4 daycare teacher gifts...I'll keep you posted...

Thanks for visiting!