Lia’s Sunshine Bakery Debut

I’m so excited to tell you about my Friday Story Time by Lia this week! Last Saturday our community had their annual Spring garage sale and I had Lia’s Sunshine Bakery debut! My Face Book friend Brenda has always called me Lil’ Ms. Sunshine since I’m always happy and sharing my smile. When Brenda saw all my baking projects she told me if I have a bakery I should name it Lia’s Sunshine Bakery! So that’s just what I did!

Baking Day

Last Friday Ma and I were in the kitchen almost all day baking all kinds of treats. When I made my chocolate chip cookies, Ma helped me divide that cookie dough and I put chocolate chips in one part and M&M’s in the other!

Pop loves the delicious Italian drop cookie recipe and I knew I had to make those for my bake sale. Of course I added sprinkles to the frosting on those.

Ma said a bake sale isn’t a sale unless there are brownies so I made chewy fudge brownies. Ma helped me make peanut butter fudge because we had to make that on the stove and it gets very hot. But we forgot to take a picture of us making it! This is a picture from when I made fudge at an earlier time but the pieces were cut so perfect for my sale.

I love to make my favorite blueberry muffins, we use fresh blueberries, not frozen ones and I load up the blueberries in my batter. It was hard for Ma to not eat them as soon as they came out of the oven because she said that’s when they are the best. I did let her try one and just look at all the blueberries.

Once all the baked goods were cooled I put them in baggies and sealed them shut. The bags were filled with 4 cookies, 4 pieces of fudge, 3 brownies and 2 muffins.

Bakery Sign

After all the baking was done, Ma handled making up a sign with the specials of the day. I painted a sun on the other end of the poster board and decided I wanted to make a cardinal in the corner. As I was bringing my paint brush back, I dripped some red paint on the sun. I was so worried that I might have ruined my sun but then came up with a good idea. I turned the drip into another cardinal that was flying over the sun!

Saturday morning came early, I jumped out of bed at 6AM and was ready to set up my table with all the cookies, brownies, fudge and muffins. I even had my money jar ready.

I grabbed my blue apron and chef hat, pulled my bench from the garage and was ready for my first customer! It was cold but I was so excited that I had Lia’s Sunshine Bakery all set up and ready to sell.

The sale stated at 8AM but people stopped by way before that. Someone came to the sale looking for antiques and walked right passed my table and didn’t even look at it! I was so sad. Then someone stopped by looking for old jewelry and he did the same, didn’t even look at my table. Ma came over and told me that some people come to look just for certain things at a garage sale and to by patient. So I sat patiently and waited.

Before I knew it, people started pulling up and they came right to my table before they even looked at the rest of the garage sale things. In less than an hour almost everything was gone from my table All I had left was 4 packages of muffins and 4 packages of the Italian cookies. Since we didn’t save any cookies for Pop, it would be okay if I didn’t sell them all because he loves them so much. But that didn’t happen, within a few minutes all these were gone too along with the blueberry muffins!

My bakery was sold out in an hour! Mommy helped my count the money I made from the sale, I made $61.00! One lady gave me a $20.00 bill for 3 packages of cookies and told me to keep the change since it made her happy to see how hard I worked to get my bakery going. She told Ma and I that I was happy to see a little entrepreneur. (Ma had to tell me what that meant) Then it was time to help pop clean up the garage after the sale. What an exciting day I had!

 

Giving Back

When the people came up to my bake sale table, everyone was so happy and smiling. That made me feel so good knowing that I brought a smile to them so early in the morning. They could carry it with them all day and maybe share it with someone else.

I have been baking since I was a little girl and I always like to surprise our neighbors with cookies when I bake. That’s my way to share the sunshine. So that’s when my next plan came into the picture.

Sometimes people don’t smile because they are sick or don’t feel good. Sometimes they are sad because they don’t have anyone to share a smile with. I decided to take the donations from my bake sale and make more goodies and when Ma hears about a neighbor that needs cheering up, I will drop off a smile box of cookies or muffins! I love to bake, I love to share my smile and I love to help others see the sunshine!

The credits for this picture go to my Mommy who took it while I was baking my cookies. My Lia’s Sunshine Bakery debut was a huge success and I can’t wait to plan another one so I can keep sharing the smiles and sunshine with others.

NOTES FROM MA: I had told Lia that everyone wasn’t going to buy her treats but that didn’t matter. What mattered was she worked hard to get everything ready and what ever was left we could eat it! But there was nothing left and we didn’t even save a few cookies or brownies because I thought for sure she would have some left over. I thought she might make $5 or $10, was I wrong. I was amazed at how she handled the table all by herself and she made sure her smile was always with her. Everyone who came to her sale left with a bigger smile than they came with and they complimented her on a job well done. We all are so proud of our Lil’ Ms. Sunshine.