Our first activity is jewelry making.  I had purchased 1″ square glass tiles, round glass drops, and unused (craft) bottle caps.  I also ordered some bails and ball-chain necklaces online.

I printed out two contact sheets of cute little pictures I thought the girls would like: dolphins, unicorns, kittens, flowers, rock’n’roll chic (that’s pronounced sheek not chick), and in honor of Civil War I picked up some Ducks and Beavers “O” papers.  I used the Creative Memories mini-circle and mini-square punches to cut out all the shapes.

Here’s how the process went:

Each girl chose a jewelry box, wrote their name in it, then chose 4 items- anything they wanted.  They brought their box up to the assembly table where my sister and I did all the gluing and sealing.  I didn’t dare let the girls mess with toxic and permanent adhesives- I could only imagine!!

It was a multi step process- first adhering the picture to the item, then sealing it, then attaching either a magnet or a bail.

And here’s what the girls created!  They were so excited to be able to wear their necklaces the next morning and I hope they enjoyed “making” them…

Next up…… CUPCAKES!

Here’s the table display:

Each girl could choose two cupcaktes- one to decorate and take home (and give to someone or eat themselves, or whatever….) and one to eat.   I baked two boxes of cake mix (using my Demarle Straight Muffin pan which makes cupcakes bigger than standard size) and I made a double-batch of buttercream frosting (using the recipe in the Wilton Cake Decorating handbook).  My sister stopped at the store on here way over and bought a box of clear frosting bags- I was completely out (oops)!  I had just enough “star” tips and couplers to fill 2 bags of each color: white, pink, purple and green.  Well, only one bag of green.

Here’s the first group of girls hard at work:

And then group 2 got to decorate theirs:

And here are their creations…I was impressed!

The girls all took their cupcakes home in mini-cake boxes:

I made inserts to keep the cupcakes from sliding around or tipping over in the box.  I tried using my Cricut to make an insert but it didn’t work out right, so I resorted to drawing out a template and using a large paper cutter to cut the oversized square, my Creative Memories Square Punch to cut the corners out,  a scoring blade on my paper trimmer to score the edges, making folding the sides down much easier, and finally I used my Creative Memories Custom Cutting Circles to make the ‘hole’.  Perfect!

Yes, the girls decorating cupcakes was a very messy project.  The girls went through almost all the sprinkles (most on the floor or table), the double-batch of buttercream frosting (2 pounds of powdered sugar!), and of course I ended up having to sweep half-way through (sprinkles were everywhere) and I had to mop the floors afterwards!

I will definitely do this again though- the girls enjoyed it- it was easy and fun and I hope their parents are proud of the cupcake they each got to bring home.