Birthday Cake Postcard

How do you say happy birthday to a far away friend or relative? Do you call?  Send an email?  Maybe mail them a card or gift?  How about sending them them their very own piece of birthday cake?  In.  The.  Mail!  A mailable slice of birthday cake!  And we all know I love mail.

There are some ideas that are just GENIUS. This is one of them. My friend, Renee,told me about this idea on Pinterest.  She got together with some friends and made them and I loved them so much, my daughter and I went on a birthday cake postcard frenzy.

What a great card idea too!  We sent one to my brother and one to my niece.  I would have loved to have seen their faces when they opened their mailbox.  The text messages I got from them were great!  They loved them.

Supplies you'll need:

* Utility Sponge (yellow works the best) found in any hardware store

* Serrated knife

* spray paint

* Acrylic Latex Caulk (you can get about 3 slices from a tube of caulking)

* card stock paper or card board

* Spray Adhesive (although I just used craft glue)

Cut the sponge into a wedge shape.  I used a bread knife and it worked pretty good.  And electric knife would work better (but I don't have one of those.)  Each sponge makes 2 slices of cake.

Cut a center groove into the sponge.  Again, I just used my bread knife.  An x-acto knife would work great too. It doesn't have to be perfect.  This is for the center line of "frosting".

Paint the sponge with your spray paint.  Make sure you get a good, even layer.  Brown was my favorite.  My daughter loved pink.  But a fun deep red would be fun for red velvet.

When the sponge wedge are completely dry, trace the sponge onto your card stock and cut it out.  Again, it doesn't have to be exact.  This is the piece that you will write the address and your note on.  You can color coordinate your card stock to match your cake slice, or add a new, fun color.

Attach the postcard to the back of the sponge.  Make sure it's not the side with the wedge cut out of it.  I used a tacky craft glue but you could use a spray adhesive.  (It didn't work for me, though, for some reason.)

Now the fun part - the "frosting".  You can squirt your caulking into a piping bag.  I bypassed this step and just used the caulking gum to squirt the frosting out onto the sponge.  Put a line of caulking down the center of the sponge (in the groove).  Use a toothpick or a paint brush and help spread the caulking out to make it look more like cake frosting.

NOTE: Caulking comes in lots of colors.  So you don't have to just have white.  I found different shades of brown at the hardware store by my house.  Next time I'll look to see if I can find pink =o)

Squirt caulking on the top and side of each cake slice.  Again, using the toothpick or paintbrush, spread it/swirl it around a little to help make it look like frosting.

Make sure you overlap a little of the caulking onto the postcard to help it stay in place.

We balanced each cake slice onto cans or glasses so they could dry.  They will take awhile to dry - like several days if it's warm where you are.

What do you think?

Aren't they awesome?

It was a riot when I went and mailed them.  The lady at the counter just stared at me for a minute and then asked "do you want to put that in a box?"

Here was our conversation:

Her: Do you want to put that in a box?

Me: No thank you

Her: Really?  You want to mail it just like that?

Me: Yes, please.

Her: I don't think I've ever mailed anything like this before.  Okay.  Can I touch it?

Me: Of course.

Her: Ah!  It feels so weird!  What if someone tries to eat it?

Me: That wouldn't be very good.

Ha!

Then the ladies in the line behind me asked if they could touch it too.  =o)

It was a hit!  And they were less than $3 to mail!

And they looked great when they arrived.  Everything stayed together.  So no worries about them falling apart.

Here are some other great ways to send some love in the mail.

How about sending an Easter Egg filled with goodies?

Or a bottle filled with candy or other treats?  This was a fun Christmas package but you can do it for any occasion.

We mailed some of the Oregon Coast to friends that live far away and don't get to see the beach.

If you love to send fun things in the mail, this is the project for you.  If I had been thinking, I would have made more pink ones and used them as invitations for my daughters birthday party.  How fun would that be?!

Thanks for reading!

 

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Greetings From the North Pole - via USPS

Who doesn't love getting mail? I know I do.  And I know my friends and family do.  And how about this fun idea to send in the mail?  Yes, in the mail!

We had so much fun sending our Easter Eggs through the mail.  Then we mailed off some Love From the Oregon Coast.  Well, we just couldn't stop at there.  And it is Christmas time, after all.  How about this idea?

And they were so simple to make. 
 

Supplies:

* empty 2 liter soda bottle (with lid)

* candy or anything to fill them

* scissors

* packing tape

Cut the top of the bottle off with a pair of scissors or a knife (parents do this part.)  I forgot to take a picture of this part (I was a little too excited to get these into the mail.)  Cut at the point where the bottle starts to curve.

Wash the bottle and dry thoroughly.

Fill with candy (or toys or any goodies.)

Tape the top part of the lid back on. 

Print out your label.  This one isn't fantastic but you are more than welcome to use it.  Just right click and save it and print it out.  Write in the address and cut to fit the soda bottle.

Use packing tape to tape the label onto the bottle.  If you position the label at the cut line and then tape the label there, the recipient won't be able to tell there's a cut line.  This is always fun when they get it and can't figure out how you got the candy inside the bottle.  

When you take these to the post office they may give you a funny look.  The woman that was helping me gave me this really weird look and said "really?  You're mailing them like that?"  I just smiled and said "you bet!"  She weighed them and then said "that's so cool."  Totally agreed!

What do you think?

They were around $7 to mail from Oregon to Chicago.  Not too bad.  The smiles will be well worth it!

 

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Sending Some Love From the Oregon Coast

 If you know me at all you know that I love the beach.  I'm not sure what it is about the beach - the calming noise of the ocean, the smell of the beach and clean air, the feel of the warm sand on my feet.  Maybe it's a combination of all of that.  I've been going to the Oregon Coast my whole life.  When I think of the beach, that's what I think of.  It's beautiful!

 This summer we had some friends come and visit us for awhile from South Dakota.  It was the first time some of them had ever seen the ocean.  It was so much fun watching their faces as they saw the waves crashing on the sand.  Instantly they turned into 6 year olds and ran around and splashed and played.  It was a blast!  It reminded me how fortunate I am to live so close to such an amazing place.

So when they left I wanted to send them a little reminder of their visit.

What do you think?

When I put the bottles on the counter at the post office, the women looked and me and started laughing.  Everyone behind me started asking questions and they all agreed that it would be so much fun to get something like this in the mail!

Super easy.  I cut a clear pop bottle.  I used a 2 liter bottle for the taffy but just a large water bottle for the sand and treasures.  (The sand was pretty heavy so I didn't want to have to mail 3 pounds of it.)

We filled it with our treasures and then taped it back up.

 Then we put an address label on it.

We filled one up with salt water taffy (delicious!)

And one up with beach treasures we found.

Wouldn't this be fun to find in your mailbox?

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