Hiatus

Hi everyone! I hope you all are doing great! I have some news. I will be taking a break from baking and party planning. I was just hired to teach Spanish (my actual career) and it requires  all my energy and attention. Since this is my first year, in a completely new district there is lots for me to get used to. Thanks for understanding.

{Craft Edition} Minnie Mouse 1st Birthday Party

My sisters and I have been planning my nieces 1st birthday party. Its a little difficult when the host is in another state and will arrive the day before the party. My sister Yanavith and her hubby live in Alaska and I live in California. My sister Nadine has been helping me craft all the little projects that go into making a fabulous party.

We started with the invitation we created in Photoshop. I used the fonts Waltograph and Mickey which can be downloaded for free. The invite set the tone for the whole decor. We incorporated polka dots and the colors light pink and some dark pink, black and white, as well as the Minnie Mouse silhouette.

DIY is the way to go when it comes to keeping costs down, but so very time consuming. We decided to make felt candy bags for the kids 25 Minnie and 25 Mickey bags along with matching Minnie and Mickey ears.

Felt Candy Bags 

This bags are great because you can use them as favor bags or prize bags and they are super durable and reusable.

Felt Polka-Dot Bows

The headbands were made using a tutorial from The Suburban Mom. This is the link to the Youtube video and she also has the template and more information on her Blog. We had to tweak the template to get them just the way we wanted them, but its a great starting point. They are time consuming but so worth the time. If you are not into the DIY or just don't have the time you can purchase the Minnie Ears and Candy Bags at my Etsy Shop :)

No kids party should be without a pinata. They are just so fun and an easy activity to plan. My niece is one year old, so a heavy hitting stick is a problem. So in comes the pull pinata, which consists of having multiple strings with a trap door, one of the strings "breaks" the pinata. We made a number 1 pinata approximately 11x17 inches, and all the strings break the pinata, this one is just for the birthday girl.

Dark pink and black tissue paper was used to cover the pinata and the light pink crepe paper polka dot bow added the Minnie touch. Now we also needed a pinata all the kids could break so we made that one too. This one is pretty big about 27-30 inches tall.  We also used black tissue paper and some black polka dot wrapping paper we already had. 

The pinata has the the design on both sides including the pink polka dot crepe bow. Adding the tissue was a tedious job and I am so glad I didn't have to do it. My sister Nadine added all of the tissue paper to the pinata and the backdrop piece {keep scrolling down to see it}.

These adorable favors are filled with delicious pink taffy. The polka dot boxes are perfect for the Minnie Mouse theme and the Minnie face just adds the final touches. 

I made the Minnie face using black paper and a Minnie Mouse die I purchased on Amazon. 

The Styrofoam balls were glittered with black glitter and sealed with a clear primer to prevent the glitter from going everywhere. We will be inserting these into flower centerpieces so these are just mock centerpieces.  

These pails would also be great to display the Minnie silhouette heads. Simply add styrofoam to the pail and insert the Minnie head. We wanted the tables to have more decor than just the flowers with the Minnie heads {will be adding pictures of the actual party on another post}. So we decided to make mini Minnie Mouse inspired pinatas. 

We were going to make them just light pink but then found polka dot tissue paper and we are so glad we did because it totally changed them for the better. We also added a black felt bow to Minnie it a little. We made 7 of these babies one for each table.

The Minnie Mouse silhouette is slightly bigger than the large pinata. It will be used as part of the backdrop for the dessert table. It will be hung behind a dark pink polka dot fabric and large black and pink balloons on the sides.

Large Pink Polka Dot Crepe Paper Bow

I was told these tassels were easy and I would be done in no time, well let me tell you they lied. It took me hours to make 36 of these tassels. I made them out of tablecloths from Party City and I got 9 from each tablecloth.

{UPDATE} My Etsy Shop is now closed :(

Stay tuned for more details of the actual party!

{Pink and Yellow} Giraffe Baby Shower

This pink and yellow giraffe baby shower was designed for my friend Veronica. This was for her 2nd baby, baby Abigail. Her shower was in November and it was cold, so we opted for an indoor shower. We set up several tables and decorated them with carnation milk glass vase centerpieces. 

Pink, yellow, and white carnations filled the milk glasses. We used 6 dozen carnations. Ikea frames also decorated the tables. The inserts in the Ikea frames where created in Photoshop and matched the invitation. 

We had several games that required writing so we used pink golf pencils and added a giraffe pattern flag stickers. We also handed out giraffe buttons that we ordered from Etsy. I designed them in Photoshop. 

For the dessert table we had a small cake flanked by pink, yellow, and brown candy and desserts.

 

 The dessert table consisted of chocolate covered pretzels, sugar cookies with giraffe print, cupcakes, pink gumballs, and some Mexican candy and cookies.

As favors we also gave out the giraffe cookies and set them at each place setting.

The cake with a fondant giraffe decal. 

Giraffe balloon clusters added to the giraffe theme. 

Thanks for reading!

{Mustache & Bow Ties} Little Man Cake

My friend Stephanie was having her first baby. I was thrilled when she commissioned one of my cakes :) Her Little Man theme included bow ties and mustaches. Although the cake only focused on the bow ties. She also wanted to incorporate the banner with baby Nehemiah's name and along the top tier. 

Close up of the bunting. I used this tutorial to make the patterns for the fondant triangles and for the bow ties. It made all the difference in the cake to go the extra step instead of laying the dots and stripes on top of the triangles. Its a much cleaner look. 

The bow ties and onesies go all around the cake. The letters were cut from fondant using the Curlz tappit letter cuters. A onesie with a bow tie frames the front nicely. 

Thanks for stopping by and taking a looksy :) These boy party ideas were also featured on Spaceships and Laser Beams.

Love and Prayers

Favorite Things Cake

My sister Nadine OBVI :) had a birthday! Her request: Huge, Girly, My Favorite Things!! I could not resist going all out and this cake was born. By far the largest cake I have EVER made. It had its challenges but learned so much about stacking and support. Let me break down to you my sissys favorite things!! 

From the top SHOES and Chanel...she loves shoes and high ones. All girls want is a pair of Loubis right..so That was the crown jewel litterally. That shoe took more than 400 edible pearls (I purchased all pearls on the cake on Etsy except the pink ones on the beauty mask). I tore apart one of my shoes to get the template (not Loubis of course). You can find the template here on Cakecentral or on my Scribd account. I didn't really incorporate the iconic C's but definitely the color shceme is reminiscent of Chanel. 

The second tier is dedicated to CANDY. My sister would rather eat candy than food. So this tier has two swirl fondant lollipops and pink and silver circles which remind me of cotton candy and they look pretty.

The Tiffany Blue tier has a diamond pattern accented with black pearls. On this tier we have the love of Tiffany of course but also sports and music. The Lakers are her favorite basketball team and she likes boxing as well so I sculpted pink boxing gloves and cut out a black music note. The Lakers' logo is an edible image (all edible images were purchased on Etsy) that I glued to a fondant heart and accented the heart with a string of purple pearls. 

Can you tell she has a cheetah obsession. Everything cheetah she wants. So I made her a tier with a cheetah print. I used powder colors with vodka and painted the pattern after I used Wilton Color Mist in Gold to the entire tier as well as the cosmetic bag and the N-A-D-I-N-E letters. 

More than candy and cheetah she loves her sleep so I included a beauty mask. I used a food marker to write "beauty sleep" and pink edible pearls as an accent. 

Last bur certainly not least is the makeup and shopping tier. She always has her phone so I recreated her exact phone and used an edible image of her actual FB page feed. I also used an edible image for the Starbucks cup because who doesn't like their Starbucks when they shop. She shops the most at Victoria's Secret, Forever 21, and the MAC counter so it was a no brainer to include those items. The Forever 21 gift cards also had edible images. 

The makeup bag with the MAC Cosmetics is ridiculously adorbs!!! My niece wanted to put on the makeup because she thought they were real, yes that's only the opinion of a 4 year old but a 4 year old who has opinions like a teenager!! I sculpted a lipstick, face brush, eye shadows, and a face powder. 

The entire cake is edible and when she saw it she was excited that its exactly what she envisioned or should I say what she sketched for me!! Yup that's how she rolls! Happy Birthday Sister! Love you!