I finally have a day to relax. I have been so busy this week. My sister and I and with some help from the other women in the family planned a 75th birthday party for our Mom. It was quite a task. There was food to bake and cook. There was the setting up of the amenities room at my sister’s condo complex. There was the invitations that were made by my sister and her daughter. There was the gift. Which took us a couple weeks to all agree on. Then there was the fact that we didn’t want Mom to find out any of the details. We did have to let her know that we were planning a family dinner.

So, Last week I took on a project that I thought would be easy. Well, it was easy but very time consuming. I was going through my google reader and checking on some of the craft bloggers I read daily, and I saw something that I thought would make a great party favor for all the women that came to the birthday lunch we had planned.

I was on the Coterie Blog and saw this post and loved the idea. So I made a list of all I would need and headed out to get the supplies. Instead of Banana bread I did cake mixes. My list was simple.

• 35 4 inch pots
• 8 cake mixes
• ribbons
• sparkly things

Sounds easy right? Not so! I had to find the pots. Gregg came with me and we went to Wal-Mart and found 16 there. Then it was over to Home Depot, they had none. Then we drove to Rona and got all we needed. After that it was off to the Dollar store for ribbons and decorations. And finally to Save-on Foods to get the cake mixes and eggs and oil and powdered sugar.

I started with washing all the pots. I ran them through the dishwasher. The next morning I decided that I would white-wash them all. I found some white paint and watered it down and gave them all one coat. They dried and got another coat. That took up most of the day. At about 3pm I started with the decorations. I finished 27 pots by 7pm.

The next day I started with the baking. I did a test run to see how many pots I would need per cake mix. 4 pots worked well. The baking went pretty good. I only messed up on one pot. Each set of 4 pots baked at 350 c for 35 minutes. Then I pulled them out and put in the next 4pots. While those were baking I removed the cakes out of the pots and let them cool. I washed the 4 pots and started over.

I then took the cooled cakes and put them into the decorated pots and labels them on the bottom so I knew what flavor it was. I kept rotating between the 2 batches of 4 pots I was using to bake with. All together it took me 6 hours to finish all the baking.

I took a break, had some dinner and a shower. I then started on the icing. That took another 2 hours to do. Then I realized I still needed to get a layered salad ready for the party. I thought my night would never end!

I finally finished them all. 32 pots decorated and ready to go. In the end it was all worth it. Everyone loved their potted cakes.

There was a ton of yummy foods to eat. My sister made 2 different fruit punches. We ordered a birthday cake from my Niece’s friend that makes special cakes. We got her to put a big ring on top with all of us 5 kid’s birth stones. Mom didn’t really see the cake until we pointed it out after she has opened the box with the gold family ring we got her as her present. She was so happy I thought she might even cry.

At about 3pm almost all the ladies had left. Then the family started to show up for the BBQ. We all relaxed and a good time as a family. We all laughed and enjoyed the rest of Mom’s day.

Today is her actual birthday. So I called her to wish her a happy day. She is having some friends over for coffee and to eat some more of that yummy cake.