Diaper Cake motorcycle

I had an order to make a diaper cake using the new Huggie Hawaiian diapers while trying to do a fireman theme. Mommy to be loves Hawaii and the Daddy to be is a fireman. It didn't work on a regular diaper cake and since this was being given as a gift by someone I love I decided to try the motorcycle. I also made a fireman diaper cake will post that later.

Side view

The bottle makes the headlight the onesie on the bear matches the bib on the front

Closeup  of Bear and his onesie

You can do a search on youtub for diaper cakes and you will see instructions for the motorcycle there. I can put them on here if anyone wants them. If your stuffed animal is a bit small I took three diapers and made a seat under him and they put him right where he needed to be.

I used Huggie diapers, one baby bottle with a burp cloth on it, a onesie on the bear, one bib and another burp cloth over the seat. It has two receiving blankets one holding the two wheels together and one for the handle bars on the ends of the handle bars is a pair of socks and one bear and one orange bow they said to put on one to hide the rubber band but mine didn't show up I just liked the way the bow looks.


I had a lot of fun making this hope you will too if you have any questions just leave a comment or message me. I am more than happy to help out in anyway I can. Thanks for reading my blog!!

The University OF Berkley, A Diploma Mill

The University of Berkley

A DIPLOMA MILL

(This is not to be confused with

The University of California, Berkeley)

A Diploma mill is a “so called” university or college with substandard or no academic study and without recognition by the education accreditation board. These degrees are often awarded based on construed life experience.

Admission criteria consist entirely of possession of a valid Visa or MasterCard. 

 

Universities do not commonly charge flat fees. They charge per credit or per course tuition and fees.





In 2005, Attorney General Tom Corbett filed a civil lawsuit against a former New Mexico State Trooper accused of operating an Erie-based online 'diploma mill' and phony accreditation institution that sold thousands of bogus Associate, Bachelor's, Masters, Doctorate and Honorary degrees to individuals nationally and internationally. The complaint and separate motion for special injunction seeking to shut down the online business was filed in Erie County Court. The legal action investigated by Corbett's Bureau of Consumer Protection additionally seeks to permanently prohibit the defendant from engaging in business in the state and require the payment of fines.


Dennis J. Globosky was court ordered to pay $75,000 and move his business out of the state to settle investigators' claims that he was running an illegal online diploma mill. When he did not pay the fines. In 2009, Senior Deputy Attorney General Carm Presogna went to Erie County Court to ask a judge to cite Globosky for contempt of court and order him to pay $130,035 in civil penalties and costs.
Charges are that Globosky, through entities called "The University of Berkley" and "The University of Berkley Online," sold bogus online degrees, which cost between $2,065 and $4,995. One of the results, this is now found at the bottom of the website:
The owners/operators of this site may not conduct business with residents of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, USA


Pennsylvania's attorney general has won a court order to immediately shut down the University of Berkley, an online operation based in Erie, Pa., that he accused of selling thousands of bogus degrees.... The order also freezes the personal and corporate assets of the owner, Dennis J. Globosky.... [The attorney general] believes that Mr. Globosky, 50, has sold more than 12,500 illegitimate degrees, including associate, bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees, and has taken in revenues exceeding $34-million.... written by DEVIN VARSALONA iWatch News

....AND YET IT IS STILL OPERATING TODAY...

This is on their website:

The University of Berkley website in 2012 Price list: An Associates degree for as little as 2,515. You can get a Bachelors degree for as little as 2,785.00. A Masters for 3,145.00 and a Doctorate for only 3,895.00 and Bach/Mas for 4,315.00.

"An alternative school offering individual, non-residential, specialized college degree online programs in the United States and internationally.”

“We encourage students to try to finish within 9 months, but you may finish in 2 weeks"




At the bottom of their website:"The owners/operators of this site may not conduct business with residents of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, USA" - red flag?


“You will earn 20 credits simply by examining your life in detail and completing the forms.”



What's not to love here? You can earn 20 college credit hours just by completing the forms??? Wow! How could they not be legitimate?



These are just a few things you will find on their website which by the way they have copyrighted wouldn't want anyone breaking the law would we? So I didn't copy and paste the long list of degrees you can NOT, earn by paying for them.

“The University of Berkley” happens to have people sign a contract (yes, THEY want this to be legal) stating that they know exactly what they are paying for and will not sue them later. So yes, if you are alright with lying to your boss, family and friends this just might be the phony degree or rather piece of paper of no real value, for you. If however, you are an honest hardworking person you might want to pass on this one.

I read today that people caught holding and using these so called, “degrees” are being charged with fraud. Maybe not such a great idea after all. 

Just think how you would feel if your doctor of anything had one from life experience and got 20 of those credit hours simply by filling out the form wonder how many you get for paying. I also wonder where that life experience came from? How many babies did he deliver or how many surgeries has non-medical person done.. Pretty scary when you think about it. I read about a women who claims, she really thought she was getting a medical degree and was a real doctor. I wouldn't want to be her patient that's for sure. Not trying to belittle or put someone down but if you think you can pay money and become a real doctor no thanks think, I will pass.

I have two daughters, nieces and a nephew along with my husband who are working full time jobs and getting their degrees on line, all in colleges which are legitimate so for someone to PAY for what my family members and countless others are working so hard for does offend me but one day they will be able to hang up, with pride, their degrees on their office walls and show off the hard work they have accomplished.

The good news for adult education is that there are two regionally accredited, distance learning colleges, Thomas Edison State College and Excelsior College, they operate primarily as assessment colleges.

These two colleges were founded in the 1970s to help adult and on-line students earn undergraduate degrees through credit-for-experience options. It is possible at these two colleges to earn an entire college degree without taking a single formal course. Most students do however take college courses these two are legal! You can learn more at this site http://www.geteducated.com/diploma-mills-police/life-experience-college-degree/162-is-a-life-experience-online-degree-a-scam


Some helpful resources if you are wanting to earn a degree on line:

Accreditation and Licensing

U.S. Department of Education - A list of all postsecondary institutions that are accredited by agencies recognized by the Secretary of Education.
http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation
U.S. Department of Education - Overview of accreditation in the United States and List of Nationally Recognized Accrediting Agencies.
www.ed.gov/admins/finaid/accred/index.html
National Association of State Administrators and Supervisors of Private Schools - Provides contact information for state licensing agencies as well as links to many of them.
www.nasasps.com
Degree.net - Simple questions to ask about accreditation about earning unaccredited degrees.
www.degree.net/guides/accreditation_faqs.html
 
sources: 
http://diplomamillnews.blogspot.com
teachers.net
wikipedia.org
ed.gov
geteducated.com
http://www.geteducated.com/diploma-mill-police/degree-mills-list/university-of-berkley-accreditation

Princess diaper cake for a baby shower centerpeice or decoration

A princess diaper cake, my newest creation! I had a lot of fun making this one loved being able to do something girlie!

Finished cake has 85 Pampers diapers

This is a round cake plate you can get them anywhere they sell Wilton. I hot glued the ruffle puffy thing around the edge of it.

These are my diapers rolled with the rubber bands holding them together I like to do do rubber bands to keep the cake in balance.

Top of the rolled diapers

Bottom layer with rubber bands and getting the ribbon put on.

Two bottom layers

Add caption

This is the top layer. I took the dress the doll had on and made her the dress, hand band She also has some of the ruffle at the bottom layer on her as a boa.

Top layer with doll in place her princess wand a Tiara on the from of the middle layer. I also added just some netting glued the end to a tooth pick and twisted them on it. I cleared each diaper so that they didn't get scratched up and  be unusable.

This is the top my little princess diaper cake

Diaper baby shower bassinet

This is another cute baby shower decoration or could be a gift, a bassinet made of diapers. Another pretty easy to make once you know how, just have fun decorating it. 
Once again these are my first ones I will do a tutorial later on both the cake and bassinet as soon as I get some more ribbon and diapers. Gonna try size 2 next time. Also I am going to use Pampers since they don't have the design on them which I found for the diaper across the top that showed up more..

Side view of the bassinet I didn't put any wheels on mine some people do thinking theirs are  strollers maybe?

This is the very front of it just a little bow since it is a small space and I used two ribbons because I used two rubber bands around the diapers it was trying to flare out around the bottom. I also need more rubber bands need to make a list..

Front side sorry about the crooked pictures.. I have a onesie for the blanket and a matching bib rolled up for the pillow these were thicker since they came from Penny's so they took a little more room but in person it looks really cute.

Side view this is where you can see the print on the Huggie diaper it is ok but Micky and Minnie are upside down. lol

Top view of the bassinet you can see the shirt or onesie a bit better here this is what I had in the house have a friend who is having a baby, she will be getting these.

Here are the two together kind of went with a Noah's ark/jungle theme I hope she likes them. I will do step by steps of each on the next ones.

Diaper Cake for a Baby Shower

I have been wanting to try making a diaper cake for awhile now I looked for directions on line found several different ones you can Google them or I  searched for diaper cakes on Pinterest and found the directions.  I then did it my own way in the end but aren't directions there to get us started? Plus they really are pretty simple to make. Rubber bands or not which seems to be the biggest debate about these.. I didn't use rubber bands mainly because I didn't have any but I didn't need them either.
 
These are not real complected  to make and don't take a lot of time however the ribbon gets kind of expensive and the little baby things can also. If anyone knows a good place to buy ribbon please let me know.

The first thing I learned while making my first diaper cake is to buy pampers as they do NOT have a design on them. The design on my Huggies ended up not showing up anyway but I had to make sure to use enough ribbon to cover it. To make a fuller cake you can use size 2 diapers but then the new Mom can't use them right away. I would probably want the cake to sit in the nursery for awhile myself. I used the size 1 so she could use them right away..

I bought some white foam board at Dollar tree and traced around a tray which was about an inch larger than my largest cake pan I would be using. It didn't take much time with a craft knife also bought at the Dollar tree to cut the circle out and I could get at least three maybe more out of it.

I then cut some Noahs ark fabric I happen to have in a circle and hot glued that to the board Just turn it under and glue. Cut off excess fabric if you cut it too large I didn't and had to stretch mine a bit which worked out well. You don't need to do this as it hardly shows up but I did glue that small blue ribbon around the board after I covered it.

There are several different ways to do this and I will be posting my how too soon. Some people roll the diapers and put rubber bands on them to hold them in place, I didn't. I folded the diapers in half and used three Wilton cake pans to lay then in. Put something in the middle I used for the largest pan a large can of Spaghetti sauce it just keeps the diapers for moving all around once you get the diapers in place, you remove the can and roll diapers to fill the middle where the can was at. I also saw one lady had used a paper towel cardboard roll I think this is an awesome idea but I saw that after I was almost finished with mine so next time going to do that in the middle would hold the cake together also.

Once you get all of your diapers in your pan rather you have rolled or folded them tie a thin ribbon around them. Just to hold them in place and then you move on and do the next two layers in my case. The pans worked great for holding the diapers and if this hadn't been my first one I am sure it would have gone pretty fast.

Once you have all the cake layers done and on the top one because it was so small I did roll the diapers. I kind of combined a couple of ways cause well that's what I do.

When you have all your layers finished in my case it was three. Figure out how you want your ribbons. I just guessed when I was shopping at what I would need. You definitely need wide ribbon  to help hold the diapers securely. They don't need to be super tight but snug if you are going to be adding things inside like I ended up doing. I used my hot glue gun to glue the ends of the ribbon together.

I wanted my stuff animal to stay on my top layer so I tied a ribbon on him and ran it down the center of that layer and then tied it to an empty ribbon spool I removed a couple of diapers in the middle layer and place the ribbon spool inside that connects those two layers which you don't have to do and can still be easily taken apart again.

I picked up some small baby shampoo, lotion and baby wash next time I will get 2 of each so that they go all the way around. You can place those inside your larger ribbon. I also got those really cute stuff rattles from Walmart Love those and they fit in so perfectly. I also got some soft Velcro sports balls I use to hang things like these on the shopping cart to keep my youngest entertained while I shopped. I got two nuk pacifiers they are tied on the top layer the ribbon is tied to the giraffe.  I make a bow with the left over ribbon and tied that to his neck. I also bought a brush and comb which and placed into the middle layers ribbon. Just make sure you secure the ribbons.

So here it is my first diaper cake now which one of the three expecting mothers is going to get this one? Two are having boys which is why I went with the boy theme. I am really wanting to do a girlie one next. I think I am hooked!!


Next time I will take pictures of the process so you get a better understanding of how these are done. I don't know who came up with this idea but I love it. There is also a stroller will be trying that one soon as well!!

How to get shoes clean

I was sorting through clothes and toys today, trying to get something ready for a garage sale.
I came across a pair of white Reebok shoes I have bought for my middle son they had been sitting in a closet and were looking pretty worn out but just the right size for his younger brother. My Mother in law had told me years ago to use soft scrub to clean shoes.. Well it worked back then and it worked today.
I did have to use an old toothbrush as my boys really like playing in the mud and dirt it tends to follow them where ever they go..

one pair of dirty shoes and some soft scrub

liberally squeeze some on the shoe and since these were so bad I used an old toothbrush and swirled it around. This has bleach in it but it didn't bother the red and blue trim on the shoes.

Wipe off with a wet cloth and looking good!

They look almost new again and at least will give us an extra pair of shoes for the summer.

Easy bridal shower cake decorating

Finished cake at my daughter's bridal shower

The Cake is an essential element for any celebration! You don't have to pay a lot of money or put in a lot of time, however adding some creative details and decorations to even the simplest of cakes can really make it special and unique as the bride herself.

When my daughter got engaged she wanted the two of us to make her cake. I did a cake for her sisters wedding a said I would never do another one but never say never.. We did the wedding cake together which was a lot of fun!

She and her husband had an outdoor wedding in the what is called the Calendar Garden which is full of flowers so we wanted to put flowers on the cake itself.

My daughter came up with most of this design for the flowers on top and how to keep them out of the frosting we did both play around with it until we got what we both liked. 

You will need the circle of cardboard cake plates one smaller size than what your cake will be sitting on, for the topper. Wire cutters, glue gun, wax paper and lots of flowers!

Using the hot glue gun, glue the leaves around the outer edge sticking out just a bit to cover the white cardboard. The leaves are pretty easy to cut off the stems of the flowers you will be using later.

Just keep going in a circular pattern pretty easy and doesn't really take that long I did this whole cake in a day.

 Next glue on another row of leaves and then the the middle leaves just like you did the first row.

 Start gluing down your flowers I left part of the stem on and glued that part down sometimes you have to glue the flower itself too.

Just keep layering the flowers around your circle just like you did the leaves.

 

Once it is full it should look like a bouquet.

Use another one of the same size circle and trace out on wax or parchment paper and cut out the circle you need to glue this to the cardboard so it wont stick in the icing..

When you put the two layers of cake on the card board you want to also put a circle the same size of wax paper on that also.

I used a damp washcloth and gently wiped off all of the leaves and flowers before I decorated with them.

Set your leaves in first all the way around I did two sticking out from each flower

Push the flower stem under the wax paper that way when they are taken out and the cake is cut there aren't any stems in the cake itself.

This is the cake without the topper All you have to do is center it up on the top of the cake and lay it easily right on top. This one came up very easily with the wax paper but I think parchment would do even better. The wedding cake stuck just a little bit in the frosting.

Cake all put together with Topping took me a couple of hours not counting baking the cake to do this. It is really very simple and looks beautiful.

This is the bridal shower cake very simple and easy once you get the idea. I will blog the wedding cake a bit later. Have some baking tips also I learned after doing a few of these now. :)
Thanks for reading and if you have any questions feel free to ask!!
Happy baking and cake decorating!!

Easter dress for Emma our little princess/Diva

I wanted to make my grand-daughters Easter dresses this year, this is the one I made for Emma. She loves pretty things and is our little princess ~ Diva. 

Emma hunting eggs, I got her this little denim jacket and I thought it was kind of cute with the dress wasn't the plan but it worked.

The top and waist. I just took the sheer fabric in Purple and gathered it into two spots and sewed the two bows on the waist. The over skirt is done with the same sheer fabric only in pink. I also made two small bows and put them on the shoulder I was thrilled with my seams..

Emma hunting Easter eggs, she loved her dress and hunting eggs at Nana's house!

I bought a simply patter and then just added my own things like the bows, the over skirt and the belt out of sheer fabric. If anyone would like the pattern number I would be happy to share it.