let them eat cake

Sometimes I make cakes ... usually just for family, and every once in a while for friends.  It is fun to take a break from the sewing machine occasionally.  :)  So here are some of the unblogged cakes of the last year or two:

This mermaid cake was for a friend's party last month.  The scary part about making your own cakes is seeing how much sugar goes into them.  I make all of my own frosting and fondant, and between the outer fondant and buttercream frosting underneath, this cake contains four pounds of powdered sugar.  yowza.

My friend, Sonja, made the super adorable mermaid toppers.

Oscar requested an Iron Man cake for his 4th birthday, which was funny because he really didn't know who Iron Man was at the time.  He was delighted, nonetheless.

I really like doing cakes in the shape of letters and numbers.  The actual cake carving and assembly can be easy, but frosting them can be a real pain if the are stacked high and thin.  I gave up on this number 7 cake and covered it entirely in sprinkles to hide the mess underneath.  But it turned out looking pretty festive anyway.

Last year, Sonja's daughter was having a Halloween birthday party, but wanted a Hello Kitty cake.  We added some vampire fangs and called it good (this was one of my favorites).

Practice makes perfect(ish).  The first time I attempted a ruffle cake for Ruby's birthday, it was way too hot outside (and thus inside, since air conditioning in Santa Barbara is rare), so the icing was sad and droopy (not that she cared).  With a little more practice, and better weather conditions, I made a much nicer ruffle cake for Lilly's cowgirl party.

Oscar's soccer team, the Green Dragons, needed a cake for their end-of-season party.  Oscar helped me add the decorations on this one, which was a lot of fun.

And most recently, I made another cake for Sonja's daughter's monster birthday party.  The monster's "fur" is made using a grass tip, which is very easy, but a bit time intense.  It had by far the coolest texture of any cake I've ever decorated!  I need to get my hands on more party photos to share with you for this one, because it was a really great party.

Cora's birthday carnival brunch

Baby Cora just turned two!  I guess that means she is not a baby anymore ... but we can just go on pretending, right?  The carnival theme came about because 1) when Cora arrived, our lives turned into kind of a three ring circus, and 2) I really wanted to reuse those decorations from Oscar's school carnival.  :) 

Of course, I used my favorite tool, Silhouette CAMEO for most of the decorations (banners, labels, vinyl, food picks, etc).  There are a few days left to enter the giveaway, and your odds are pretty good!  Also, I'll be posting the Black Friday deals on Thanksgiving day this year, so watch for that.  This sale is going to be the best they've ever offered, so you won't want to miss it.

I have to say, serving brunch was the easiest party food yet.  We skipped the cake all together and just served mini-doughnuts.

 For the rest of the spread, we had mini quiche, croissants, sausage, tiny yogurt cups, little pancake stacks, and apple fritter bread (which is crazy delicious, and you should totally try the recipe!).

The pancakes were my favorite.

But you know what was really my favorite from the party?  This girl.  She is a total nutter, and we love her to bits.

I made her a Geranium Tunic using the Children on Parade fabric by Sarah Jane.  I've been hanging onto it for a while, so I don't know how easy it is to find now.  It is one of my favorite fabrics ever!

So all it all, it was just a really fun morning where we ate ourselves sick and clowned around.

 Happy birthday, Cora!

a very halloween birthday

I'm sure by now you are all sick of hearing about Halloween, but I had to share a few more photos of Oscar & Audrey's double birthday party.  My friend, Sonja, and I put so much work into it, but it was such a great time!  Both of the birthday kids were in Halloween heaven.

I wish I had taken more photos of the decorations!  Sonja's house looked awesome - she made several cute felt buntings, including the bats pictured above.  There were also decorated lanterns, lots of bat silhouettes, and a gigantic yarn spiderweb that covered an entire wall in her hallway.

I made a simple cake (vanilla with blackberry filling and chocolate frosting), and decorated the top with cardstock cutouts (made with my Silhouette) to look like a haunted house, or "house of spooks" as Oscar called it.  Sonja made yummy nutella mini cupcakes, decorated with the cupcake toppers.  Sonja's husband, Jake, cooked up a delicious dinner of pulled pork burritos with all the fixings, and we also had clementines dressed up as jack-o-lanterns, spooky mummy sugar cookies on a stick, cookie bones, and brownies with cute jack-o-lantern wrappers (there was no shortage of treats).

Since the kids were mostly 3-years an under, we kept the activities simple.  After handing out the treat bags Sonja and I made, we sent them on a mini trick-or-treat to the doors inside her house.  The kids received stickers, spider rings, a piece of candy, and a pumpkin-wrapped brownie.  Afterward, we sent them outside to break open a pinata to fill their bags with a few more treats.

We ended the evening with cake, of course.  After Audrey beat Oscar to the punch of blowing out the candles, we re-lit them at least five more times.  I hope they got all their wishes in.

You can find many of the ideas and tutorials from projects mentioned above linked on my Halloween Party Pinterest Board.

Happy Halloween!

I'm not in a writing mood tonight, so the text on this post is going to be sparse. I had the pleasure of helping with Halloween party decorations on Saturday. ALL of the ideas are from Martha:

Flyaway Favors (filled with candy)

glittered pumpkins

spooky silhouettes

glittery hanging spiders

a pumpkin shaped cheeseball
(all the great buffet decorations were by Breanna and Sheena)

Witch's Curtain

more silhouettes

(and more table decor by Sheena and Breanna)

After the party, I moved the decor to my apartment, which was fun because I never really decorate for Halloween:

I was "Halloween Pam" from The Office.

Happy Halloween!

Oscar's car party

Top:  1.  race car coloring track  2. decorated styrofoam cooler  3. paper pennant bunting

Middle:  4.  watch-me-grow birthday banner  5. 90-minute birthday shirt  6.  party favor bags

Bottom:  7.  race car water bottle labels  8.  race car crayons  9. cupcake toppers

Oscar's birthday party was supposed to be at the park, but the weather was uncooperative.  :(  We moved the party inside to our apartment to avoid the rain, and although it was close quarters, we all had a great time.

 

I used Pingg.com to send out invitations.  Normally I am not a e-vite sort of girl, but it really kept things simple and it was nice to have the rsvp's tracked automatically.   Did you know you can use your own image to create your invitations?  I designed the little red race car using a combo of MS Paint and Picnik.com and then used it in the invitations and party decor.

All of the little guests were 2 years old, so we avoided organized games and activities.  Instead, we set out a large piece of craft paper with a painted road to color with race car crayons and Oscar's new car playmat with a big bucket of matchbox cars to zoom around.

My Silhouette craft cutter saved a lot of time with the party decorations.  I used it to cut the pennants for the bunting, the backing for the watch-me-grow birthday banner, and the little cars that decorated the styrofoam ice cream cooler.

I ordered a giant red balloon in hopes of extra cute birthday photos.  In my mind I pictured a bright sunny day at the park, little boy, big balloon.  Instead, it has rained for the last 4 days straight and I don't have a good photo of Oscar with his balloon, which is now sagging.  :(  Oh well, you can't win them all.  You can find big round balloons HERE at Darlybird.

Oscar's birthday shirt was a 90-minute shirt with a big number 2 appliqued on the front.  It matched his car playmat because yes, I am that crazy.

Here are some images I created for Oscar's car party, which you are welcome to save for personal use.  Upload them to a photo editor (I use Picnik) and they are easily customizable to any age party.