Alisha - Teacher Appreciation Cake

This week was teacher teacher appreciation week and parent conferences. Blake has grown leaps and bounds in his kindergarten class and I think part of that is due to his teacher. We found out yesterday that Blake is ready for 1st grade and already reading at the 1st grade level! I couldn't be more proud of my son and hope he continues this progress as he progresses through school.

Anyway, enough gloating and on with the post :) I wanted to get his teacher something unique but also useful. I figured at this point in the school year the class might be running low on school supplies but how could I give supplies in fun and unique way? After I surfed around Pinterest I decided it must be in the form of a teacher supply cake! This is how mine turned out:

I was able to squeeze facial tissue, glue sticks, liquid glue, crayons, a storage box, wall border and other wall decorations, pencils, post it note pads, hand sanitizer, and pipe cleaners on it! All for around $40, if I make one for Blake's 1st grade teacher next year I'll be sure to buy extra when school supplies go on sale in the summer - it would be even cheaper then! Want to make one for your teacher?

Here is the supply list:

1 - storage tub (I got mine from The Dollar Store)
4 - boxes facial tissue (I used the rectangle boxes so I could stack on top of them)
120 pencils - I bought 8 boxes of 16ct pencils from The Dollar Store
4 - boxes of crayons
6 - glue sticks (You could probably do more like 10 but I only had 6)
4 - bottles of liquid glue
4 - bottles of hand sanitizer
1 - package pipe cleaners
2 - post it note pads
1 - roll poster board tape (sturdy double sided tape) - this is assembling the cake
1 - wall border
2 - packages lettering for bulletin boards
4 - packages of wall decorations
1 - package stickers

As for directions I kind of flew by the seat of my pants and didn't take many pictures. I can tell you that I used the boxes of facial tissue as my base. I needed the sturdiness of the boxes to hold the weight of everything above it. I was able to use the double sided tape to attach two boxes together on the sides and create 2 units and then attach the units together. I applied tape to top of one unit and pressed the other unit on top firmly to hold the pieces together (I would suggest you use a little more than you think you'll need). I attached the pencils by laying a piece of the poster board tape on the facial tissue box and sticking them on - to double secure them I ran a line of tape along the bottom of the row of pencils. Don't worry about seeing it because you can cover the tape up with the wall border. I think you can figure out the rest of the construction - just remember to be liberal with the poster board tape! :)

Alisha