Soccer Ball Cake

I've had my Cricut Expression for several years which I love for paper crafting so I picked up the Cricut cake on clearance thinking I could get more use from the cartridges I already have. This is my first try, although I didn't use cartridges - I found a free svg file here and was able to import it into my Sure Cuts A Lot 2 software and send it to the Cricut. The great thing was that I could do a trial run with paper on my Expression and make sure I like it before I cut the fondant or gum paste. Here's my first try with the Cake - Nick's cake for his soccer party.

Candy Bar Party Favors

Nick is having a soccer themed birthday party on Monday. I'm win the middle of the soccer cake right now, but I did make these party favors this morning. They're the big Hershey Symphony chocolate bars. I just covered them with some scrapbooking paper that I bought when I first started scrapbooking - the stuff I would never use now for my pages. I remember buying a bunch of those big cheap stacks because I had no idea what I wanted to use and that way I had lots of choices. It has really come in handy for school projects and now, party favors.

These were pretty easy to make. I downloaded a varsity font from dafont and created the labels in photoshop, printed them out and cut them into banners. I cut the patterned paper 6 3/4" x 8" and a strip 1 1/2" x 8" - both to wrap around the bar. Then I stamped the soccer ball with the soccer ball from the Goal set from Stampin' Up! in Not Quite Navy ink and adhered it with dimensionals. I also added some punched stars for a quick and easy embellishment.