Catie and her centerpiece

Catie and I went to set up her centerpiece Tuesday evening...she was so excited and nervous.  I am very excited and nervous to see how it does.  It's her first project.   She bought half of the materials herself.  I guess I should go back to the beginning.
I really wanted to do something for The Baby Fold Festival of Trees and wasn't getting any response from the groups I normally work with.   So I went to my daughter and asked her if she would be interested in doing a project with me for the Festival.   We could call it a scout project and I would let her take the lead...I just wanted to get something into the Festival again as I had been involved for several years and then was not.  So we went on-line and registered as Girl-scout Catherine and Mom.  We were in...now what?

so much sugar!

Next we had to come up with a design...we looked all over Pinterest. Catie loves Pinterest as much as I do so that was no trouble at all we spent hours combing the site and finally decided on a design that we kind of liked but we were going to change it a lot to make it her's.  It was going to be lovely.  It needed a name.  I thought about it...but before I could say anything Catie spit out a title..."All Tied Up for Christmas"   Perfect!  It was her project so she should title it.
We got a letter a few days later in the mail wanting us to submit a detailed description of her design.  Ok...we can do this...so we sat down and wrote it all out and mailed it back.  It's all official now.   So we waited...we knew that it was going to be a few weeks before some of the supplies would be available in the stores.   It was getting a little scary though.  The week before Halloween I told her that I was concerned that I wasn't able to find Candy Canes...we needed 8 boxes of Candy Canes for her design.   They don't go on sale till after Halloween and the Festival is just one week after Halloween...that gives us just 3-4 for days to make this centerpiece.    Catie was a little panicked too...every day I went and looked for Candy Canes....I did start to find them... unfortunately it was all wrong...it was in the dollar stores and they were old and cheap and faded and not pretty at all.
We wanted bright white and red ones...pretty sparkly ones...not ones that looked like they had been left over from last Christmas...I was so sad...I couldn't believe that I was going to let my girl down.
So we decided to wait...On November 1 I drove over to Walmart and looked all over the store...still no Candy Canes...asked a manage standing in an isle..."if the're not out we don't have them yet"
So we went back to the car...Catie was almost in tears..."now what mom?"  of course it's all my fault...we called Meijer...I talked to two managers...YEAH They have them!
We drove over to Meijer and to check them out...they were beautiful!  We had to look though carefully!   Make sure that we didn't buy any smashed candies.
We went home and began the process of assembling the Candy Cane Centerpiece.  It was fun...Catie has a red dye allergy though so I was a little concerned with her handling that much red candy...no problems.  She just made sure she washed up very well after she handled all of the candies.   It was an adventure we well repeat next year...we may well try to avoid the Candy Canes though.



UPDATE: While we were at the Festival this evening Catie was standing behind her centerpiece and someone walked up and asked her if it was her centerpiece.  She said yes.  She asked Catie a few questions.  Catie was very polite and answered them.  Catie was a little distressed...when we got to the centerpiece it looked a little worse for ware.  It seems children had been pulling candy canes out of it all evening.  I'm really disappointed in that.  The Baby Fold organizers had refilled it over and over again.  They were going to buy more to refill it again tomorrow.  As we stood there the lady that asked how she could place a bid.  So we told her how to place a bid...she stood there for a minute...then she asked how she could just buy it.  Catie nearly did a cartwheel.  I offered the lady my phone number...to help with repairs if the candy canes are too badly damaged by the people pulling them out and other putting them back.   Catie and I can repair the centerpiece for her.   So on the second night of bidding Catie's centerpiece sold for the Angel price!

Sold!   For the Angel Price!