I can fully admit my shortcomings—and one of them is that I am definitely not a crafter. You know those hilarious “Pinterest vs. Reality” memes with the gorgeous inspiration photo next to something that looks like it was made by a sugar-rushed toddler? Yeah… I’m the toddler.
Despite this, I somehow manage to generate massive, unnecessary mom guilt about not creating perfect, handmade things. I have these wonderful ideas often. Just ask my family about the time I attempted Pinterest-level greatness for my daughter’s third birthday. The theme? Tigger, because nothing says “low-effort party” like trying to replicate a hand-drawn cartoon tiger across 20 individual cakes.
Yes, cakes. Plural.
Yes, I volunteered for this.
No, I had not been drinking (though I absolutely should have been).
I had this genius idea to make individual, hand-decorated Tigger cakes for every kid at her mini golf party. I found a Wilton pan shaped like a Tigger’s head—about 6 inches across—and thought, “Perfect! How hard could this be?” (Cue the ominous music.) I even bought two pans so I could double-time the baking. So prepared. So optimistic. So... wrong.
Mistake #1: Starting at 8 PM the night before the party.
The first set went into the oven and I was feeling pretty accomplished. Then they came out... and wouldn’t come out of the pan. Despite a full greasing, Tigger’s face was more “crime scene” than “cartoon.”
I told myself, “They’re new pans—it’ll be better next round.”
Spoiler: It wasn’t.
This turned into a sad, sad cycle of bake, break, blame, repeat until about 3 AM, when I found myself sitting on the kitchen floor, covered in cake crumbs and despair, sobbing. Not a single completed cake to show for it.
I got maybe two hours of sleep before I began desperately calling bakeries—crying, groveling, begging someone, anyone, to save me from my meltdown and the ruin of this party.
Thankfully, someone came through. The party? A total hit.
The Tigger cake pans? Still in my kitchen cabinet, mocking me with their smug little tigger faces.
But THIS YEAR, friends… redemption was mine.
And it came in the form of gummy fish and blueberries.
Determined to finally create a dessert that would earn me a sliver of Instagram glory, I started with an inspiration photo of a cookie sheet covered in blue M&Ms, decorated like a beach scene. Cute, right? But if I served a cookie sheet of M&Ms for Mother’s Day, half the adults at the table would’ve stopped talking to me.
I considered blue Jell-O.
Blue whipped cream.
Blue sprinkles.
But it all felt like a one-way ticket back to Cake Breakdown 2.0.
So I turned to the source of all parenting wisdom: my favorite Facebook Mom Group. I posted the photo and asked for suggestions.
Responses flew in: sprinkles! Nerds! Jellybeans! Skittles!
Hard pass, pass, pass, and nope.
Then… someone said blueberries.
Blue. Round. Sweet. Healthy-ish.
It was everything I needed.
Armed with that mom-hack brilliance, I headed to Dollar Tree like a woman on a mission. I loaded up on:
- Gummy fish
- Green licorice (a.k.a. seaweed)
- Gummy bears
- Gummy sharks
- Gummy frogs
- Watermelon ring "floaties"
Add a large container of blueberries, and the next morning, in under 10 minutes, I assembled a dessert that was:
✅ Easy
✅ Adorable
✅ Kid-approved
✅ And didn’t require therapy afterward
The best part? Everyone loved it. I mean, actually loved it. I got compliments. Real ones. And for the first time in my crafting life, I didn’t feel like a cautionary tale.
So if you’ve ever failed at Pinterest, or cried into a broken cake, or been haunted by cartoon-shaped bakeware—this dessert is for you. I've even come up with my next round for Father's Day, the bears will have pieces of pull and peel licorice as fishing poles to catch the gummies! Genius, right?
Because you don’t have to bake like Betty Crocker to create something that makes your kids say, “Whoa, Mom made that?!”
Here's my directions:
- wash & dry blueberries
- dump in pan
- decorate: licorice seaweed, fish, sharks and frogs oh and teddy bears in their floats having fun!
Yup, it's that easy!
