Pink/Brown Baby Shower

I was honored to be the host of one of my dear friends and co-workers. This was her first baby and I wanted to make the event beautiful and memorable. She had no idea what she wanted or what theme she should have. We came up with pink and brown for colors and we also wanted to incorporate baby feet into the theme. As soon as I had some direction I searched everywhere for inspiration and this is the end result.

I made paper chains using pink, brown, and white card stock. I created the It's A Girl hanging circles at the ends of the chains. I hung them from the ceiling all over the room. (I had to take out all of my furniture to accommodate for all the guests, and when I say we I mean my dad and brother). I also hung a set from Party City that included the pink streamers and the ball in the center of the room. I customized the ball and streamers by replacing the hanging circle from the ball, it was yellow, green, and pink , to one of the ones I made. Some tables had pink tablecloths with a brown runner and vice versa. Plates, forks, cups, and napkins were all pink or brown. A sweet baby foot cookie was at each place setting.

I also put together a candy buffet station. The "Sweets" banner that I made in Photoshop matched the invitations. All the candy was and cookies were pink and brown with a hint of white. I had malt balls, animal cookies, chocolate covered pretzels, Dove's Bliss Chocolates, and some pink and brown Mexican candy. The pink candy bags were personalized with a label and some of the jars had labels also. The baby feet pretzel rods were done using a Wilton Mold. I also used the mold to make the toppers for the cupcakes.

The centerpieces were created using pink and white carnations, baby's breath, and hot pink roses. The bubble vases were purchased at the dollar store and adorned with pink and brown ribbon. I set two vases per table for a total of 12 vases.

I made two cakes one left and one right baby foot. The cakes were made with the paisley Wilton Pan Set. One cake was filled with strawberries and the other with peaches. It was covered with PuraWhip. The baby foot designed was free handed and not too difficult to achieve. I decorated the cupcake stand with dangling crystal ribbon. The cupcakes were the mother-to-be's favorite, Pillsbury Funfetti. I used Purawhip to ice the cakes and topped them with baby feet made out of chocolate using a mold. I love how the balloons served as a backdrop and the ultrasound of Baby Mia made it just perfect. I scattered several frames of Baby Mia throughout the room.

Another item that item that is just too cute is this Pin the Pacifier on the Baby game. The baby and pacifier images were obtained online (cannot remember where) and i enlarged it in Photoshop and mounted in onto the pink foam board. Each pacifier had a number and a piece of double sided tape. This game was a hit!

All of these goodies I created in Photoshop. Some of the brushes I made using clip art and others I found free online. The invitation was one of the first things I made and everything else soon followed. The invite insert was one of my favorites. It asked each guest to bring diapers and wipes for a chance to enter a drawing for a cool prize. Then the raffle ticket was created to write down the name of each guest who participated. The candy bag labels were printed on sticker paper and punched with a scallop paper punch. The thank you tags for the cookies were also cut out with the scallop punch. The napkin wraps were used to wrap a pink and brown napkin and a fork. The candy buffet labels were printed on card stock and cut by hand, as well as the paper chain hanging decorations. I used Boring Showers font for every item from the baby shower.

Birthday Cakes

I have been baking quite a few birthday cakes this month and I wanted to share some of the pictures with you. I wish I had more time to photograph all the cakes I have done but sometimes I am in such a time crunch to finish them that I forget to take pictures of all of them. In the future I also plan to do more of a tutorial style posts so stay tuned for those.

This cake was baked for a surprise party for Aracely, a very dear friend of mine. Her sister is one of my top customers J The cake she requested was a Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Cake. It got rave reviews from the guests at the party. Its three layers of cake and two layers of mint chocolate chip ice cream. The cake also has mini chocolate chips mixed with Andes mint chocolate candies that I processed in the food processor. I used them to garnish the cake. I wrote Happy Birthday Aracely on it with a light minty green frosting just before they picked it up.

This cake was for Aracely’s brother. They have birthdays in the same month. It was a chocolate cake with fresh strawberry cheesecake filling. I used strawberry glaze and fresh strawberries to garnish the cake. It has a shell border at the bottom of the cake and rosettes on top where the strawberries are placed. This was the first time I made this cake, and they all loved it so I am adding it to the menu.

I would make my niece a birthday cake every month for her birthday. So this is an old cake but i really love it and wanted to share it. I made two one square and one round. They are both chocolate cake with jam in the middle. I used MMF (marshmallow fondant) to cover the cakes as well as add the decorations. I also used cookie cutters to cut out all the shapes and used a little bit of water with sugar to attach the cutouts to the cake. This cake was really moist and delicious. My niece smashed her little hands all over the cake! Shes too cute.