Garage Sale Success!!!!!!!!!

Oh my goodness.....we are literally beaming with excitement!!!! What a FABULOUS day we had (with sunshine too)!!!! Saying our garage sale was a success is almost an understatement - we exceeded our goal by leaps and bounds and raised.....wait for it.....a grand total of $674.11!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can you believe it??? We were definitely beyond shocked - and the best part about it all is that EVERY PENNY (even those 11 cents) are going towards funding a Reading Room/Library in Laos!!!!! We just can't stop thinking about how huge of a difference this will make in the lives of so many people, not only children, but their families as well.

But, ALL OF THIS could not have happened without the MASSIVE support we received from SO many people. We thank, thank, thank every one of you who kindly donated items to the sale, who came out to see us at the sale, and who donated to this amazing cause! Like we said, without you, none of this could have happened!! You all deserve a huge pat on the back and we thank you for being a part of our 'Drive to 25' journey!

Also - sorry to everyone who came after all the cupcakes had sold out! If we knew they were going to be a hot seller, we would have made more!! Next time....we definitely should start a business!!!!

One of the best parts of the day was explaining to people about our campaign and having them react so generously! It's so great to promote Room to Read and to get the community aware and involved in such a worthy cause!

This post wouldn't be complete without a THANK YOU to our parents (although a thank you isn't nearly enough). The amount of time, energy and committment they put into supporting us means everything! They definitely deserve a ton of credit! There's no way we could have done it without them!!

In all, even though we're all exhausted, we know that all the hard work leading up to the sale has been worth it. We still have a long way to go with our fundraising, but we're confident that we can reach our goal! Let's build this Reading Room!!!!!



Sporting our NEW handmade shirts. We're going to decorate it with all the 25 things we accomplish :)


Thanks again to EVERYONE for making this event such a success!!! Let's all celebrate!!!


Melissa and Laura

Fundraising Event!

Hey everyone!

Just a friendly reminder that we are having our huge fundraising garage sale this Saturday, May 5th, starting at 8AM. Mark your calendars! This is for such a great cause and we're really hoping to have a great turnout. We have a ton of stuff and a huge variety! A big thank you to those who have kindly donated items for the sale - we really appreciate it! This afternoon we're making our special 'Drive to 25' t-shirts which we will be sporting at the sale! So much fun!

Again, all of the proceeds, yes 100%, are going to our Reading Room fundraising campaign, so we hope to see you all there! We can't wait to update you after the sale with the final results!

If you can't make the sale but would still like to donate, you can visit our 'DONATE' page to find out how! Thanks so much!

Until then... let's hope for sunshine :)
  

A 'Cake-tastic' Time!

First of all, excuse the sheer amount of enthusiasm in this post - we are still running on what we like to call a 'cake decorating high'!!!! All day yesterday as we prepared for our last class, we were giddy, excited and could not wait to start on our final projects! Here's how it all went down...



Using our cake leveler to shave off the tops

We were tasked with bringing in our own cake already iced, set and ready to decorate. Now, this doesn't seem like a huge job, but icing a cake to Wilton standards is no walk in the park. After baking our cakes (chocolate and golden yellow - YUM) and preparing the buttercream icing, we set out to ice our layered 8 inch cakes. This is a very important part to cake decorating, as the icing should look as smooth and crumb free as possible. We had a bit of difficulty with our chocolate cake, as tiny dark crumbs oozed themselves into our clean and crisp white icing. We did our best to get these specks out, but weren't 100 percent successful. That's ok though...practice makes perfect. The hardest part is stepping away from the cake and admitting 'that's just how it's going to be!'. We have some issues with that last bit....and it's always that extra attempt with the spatula that seems to cause the biggest headaches!!! We managed though...here's our cake prep before class...

**SIDE NOTE: These cakes turned out PERFECTLY - no cake-tastrophe's this time, which was a relief - the right brand definitely makes the difference!



Icing all set and ready for decroating!!

Getting to class was so exciting as we got to see everyone's cakes! They were all in different colours and some people brought in flowers already made to use for decorating. FUN! Before we took to our cakes, we practiced some writing (which is EXTREMELY difficult and A LOT harder than it looks). We had originally planned on writing 'The Drive to 25' on one of ours, but quickly realized that this was not going to happen if we wanted our cake to look half-decent! So we scrapped that idea! Then, we learned how to make ribbon roses, which are also very hard! They take a lot of patience and delicate work - both of which we will need a lot of practice with. Our instructor told us that it takes at least 1000 roses to make a good one, so we have a LONG way to go!! They are fun though and do look very nice, if you get the hang of it.

Then, the moment came - we could decorate our cakes!! Yay!! Since we threw out our 'writing' idea, we decided to go with purple roses on one cake. We piped leaves, dots and a shelled border around the edges for added detail. It looked quite sophisticated and we were pleased!! In four short weeks, we were amazed at how we were able to create such a fancy cake!!! On our second cake, we decided to bring in an image of a sunflower to transpose onto our cake. We used piping gel to trace the image, then transferred the picture to our cake with parchment paper and piped in the lines with our yellow and green icing. Chocolate chips completed the centre of the sunflower and added a design around the edge of the cake. We weren't sure how this would turn out, but we were super happy with the end result!!! In the end, two cakes = success!!!! Working together on these cakes has showed us how much fun we have baking and being creative together. Who knows..maybe we can capitalize on this in the future...??

So there you have it! We are sad that the class is over - we had a blast and learned so much. We are soooo happy that we decided to make this part of our 'Drive to 25' - it's definitely something we had always wanted to do, and we're so glad we didn't wait any longer! Definitely a great lesson - don't wait to do things you've always wanted to do. For some reason things get in the way and there are always excuses, but why postpone? You'll never know what you'd be missing! For us, we just might sign up for the next course....who knows?! Baking is something we absolutely love, we feel so at home in the kitchen, and this class has only reinforced this and showed us some new and exciting tools. We cannot wait to keep practicing and experimenting - if you ever need/want a cake, let us know and we will be more than happy to show you our stuff!!

Here we are with our final cakes....Happy Baking :)

Cupcakes Galore!

Cupcakes, cupcakes, cupcakes - that was this week's theme for our Cake Decorating course! We were very excited to try our hand at crafting these fancy delicacies! Cupcakes are so popular these days, with so many new bakeries focused entirely on these mini treats, so it made sense to see the in's and out's of perfecting the 'cupcake'!

We made a batch of vanilla cupcakes at home and buttercream icing (which we dyed blue, green, yellow and orange) to bring in. We used a tip to fill the cupcakes with seedless raspberry jam. After eating them, we realized that we could have put a bit more jam in, but seeing as the jam was squirting out while we were filling the cupcake, we were sure that there was enough! Oh well, live and learn! The jam was definitely a delicious added touch and nicely complimented the taste of the vanilla cupcakes! Now that we know how easy it is to add filling to a cupcake, our creative minds are bursting with the possibilities of future cupcakes... :) Peanut butter....chocolate...mmmm

During class, we learned a TON of different flowers as well as how to make leaves! Star flowers, swirl flowers, rosettes, pom-pom flowers, and shaggy mums (which we aren't big fans of) were all a little challenging at first, but with practice we got them down. They definitely take a lot of patience, time, and steady hands, all of which we are improving at week after week! Being the perfectionists that we are, it takes a lot of strength to step away from the flower and let it be - sometimes trying to change it will only make it worse (yes, speaking from experience...haha).

Overall, we were decently pleased with our results, but given that we were rather rushed at the end of class and were surrounded by an enormous pile of messy piping bags, tips, spatulas and icing bowls, we probably focused more on finishing faster than we should have. However, all that means is that we should practice more - and we're definitely ok with that!! The cupcakes did taste great though, so that's a good sign!



Our cupcakes



We can't believe that next week is our last class!! We get to bring in our own cake and decorate it however we want - a free for all! We're learning roses too, so that should be fun! We'll have to put our thinking caps on for cake ideas - any suggestions??

As of right now, we're not ready to open our bakery, as no one would want to buy our rather odd 'rookie' looking cupcakes...but we're getting there! Who knows - maybe one day?!

Baby Blanket Bliss

Today was a very special day - all of our 25 hand-made blankets were donated to Julliette's Place! Ever since we finished making the blankets this past weekend, we've been on a high, waiting to deliver them! Julliette's Place is a very deserving shelter that offers support services for abused women. The staff were so friendly and appreciative and we were so happy to support them. We know that the blankets will be well used in this location and ultimately that was our main goal. Just thinking about being able to help 25 little babies and their mothers brings a huge smile to our faces. We absolutely love the blankets, and we're sure they will too.

In the end, 25 blankets were made (yes, of course, sticking to our '25' theme although we would gladly make more!). They took on a mixture of colour combinations, ranging from white and green to pink and purple. We used extra fabric to tie them neatly with a bow - thanks Mom for your expert bow-making skills! We found an extra large box in our basement to put them in. We covered it with baby wrapping paper and extra fabric for that added touch! It was a tight squeeze fitting the box into our car, but we managed!!

It's a little strange to think that this project is now over....it was so fun and so fulfulling! If we've learned anything from this 'Drive' so far its that giving back doesn't have to take much time or cost a lot of money, what's important is the thought and the motivation. And, most of all, the rewards are long-lasting.

We owe a big thank you to Sue at Fabricland in Whitby for her support and generous donation of fabric. You helped to start us off on this project and we're so appreciative! Also, our friends Angela and Rebecca deserve a lot of credit for initially showing us how to make these blankets. Lastly, thanks to our parents for not caring that our basement was covered in fabric, scissors, blankets and lots and lots of FUZZ for several weeks. We will clean up....

So there you have it. 25 blankets = complete! But, for some reason we know that there will be more blankets in our future :)

A Fundraising Event!

Hi everyone!

Our 'drive' has been keeping us super busy, which is great. However, our fundraising has unfortunately suffered a bit. In order to raise $5000 by the end of November, we need to kick it up a notch! For this, we need your help!

We're planning on having a huge garage sale on May 5th, with all the proceeds going towards our Reading Room. Having moved last year, we have a garage full of things to contribute. We would also love to have a big 'book sale' along with it, to go hand in hand with our 'Reading Room' theme. In order to raise as much money as possible, we would love your support. If you have any items and/or books that you would be willing to donate to our garage sale please let us know! Maybe you've thought of having your own sale or have stuff that's been piling up for months that you're looking to get off your plate - if so, we would be happy to take that stress away!

Monetary donations will also be accepted at the sale, however, you can always donate by following the steps on our blog's 'Donate' page.

To contact us, feel free to email us at thedriveto25@hotmail.com. Also, if you have any other fundraising ideas, we'd love to hear from you!

We're excited about this fundraising event and look forward to hearing from you and seeing you there! Let's get the community involved in this amazing cause!

We made the paper!

If you happen to come across the Clarington This Week paper today (Friday April 13th), you just might stumble upon US on the front page!! Ahhh....so exciting!

You can check out the article online at http://www.durhamregion.com/community/article/1329598--courtice-twins-launch-year-of-fundraising-and-adventure if you don't get a copy of the paper.

Thanks again for everyone's support! We look forward to the upcoming adventures and fun!! Let the 'Drive' continue :)