Back to School Pencil Cake

I've been thinking lately about the fun of family traditions. With school starting, I wanted to find some fun traditions that we could do each year at the beginning of school, just like the one I posted about yesterday. :) (Pencil Pouches on School-year's Eve) 

I saw an amazingly CUTE idea of making a Back-to-School Pencil Cake on Food Network's website. (Go there for the Tutorial.)  I found it several weeks ago and have been SO excited to make it and start a fun tradition of making it at the beginning of school each year.

I made mine a little bit differently than Food Network shows.

I used a cake mix instead of buying the 2 angel food cakes.

And I cut the cake in half and put them side by side.

Everything else was pretty close to their tutorial. 

BUT I had some major problems with the following:

1.the cake -- the mix I bought was really gross actually. A huge disappointment. And the cake was crumbly and uneven...... :(

2. the frosting -- it was a little too runny. :( 

3. the chocolate -- it was SUPER runny when I went to write "Happy School year" on the cake....hence the creepy looking "H". haha 

So in the end, the cake wasn't as amazing as I'd been picturing it would be.

But oh well. The kids still LOVED it. 

I guess traditions don't have to be perfect to be fun. :)