Sweeter Than Cupcakes: cakes

Friday, October 30, 2015

Soon after Tandy's last birthday, she determined that she wanted a Peter Rabbit fourth birthday due to her love of the Nick Jr. Peter Rabbit episodes. It has been nothing but Peter Rabbit ever since!! I was easily able to get behind such a classic party theme.

For all of the detail on Tandy's Peter Rabbit Dress with applique and blue cardigan (that was too hot to wear on the day of the party) be sure to check out this post.

It seems I use my Ikea cart for every party. I just wish it made me clean out the sewing projects I usually have stacked on it instead of just dumping them on the floor!

The advantage to my kids picking their party themes so far in advance, is that I can gather items at discounted prices. You better believe I stalked all of the after Easter sales!

This shelf held some chocolate carrot favors and a scavenger hunt list with bags for collecting.

Most of the decor items are derived from the classic Peter Rabbit story, but for the garland I used quotes from the Peter Rabbit Nick Jr. show. Tandy loves to quote the lines, "A good rabbit never gives up" and "Rabbits are brave". For the animal shapes, I simply traced around some forest critter cookie cutters.

Tandy's grandparents brought the cutest vintage watering cans for display as well as a wheel barrow that held ice and drinks. The twine carrots were from an after Easter sale at Pier 1 (similar here). We made the coffee filter cabbages largely from this tutorial. Instead of dip dying the leaves we painted them with our liquid water colors to get variations in the colors.

The main party favor was a play-dough carrot.

I used this play-dough recipe. We stuffed the play-dough into pastry bags, trimmed off the tops of the bags, and tied them up with strips of gingham fabric.

First the snacks, then the treats.

We served pots of veggies for dipping.

The ranch dip was served from a hollowed out cabbage. The veggie pizza is delicious for any occasion. We garnished the strawberry soup with a slice of radish just for fun.

Coming up with the sweet party treats is always my favorite part! I already told you about Tandy's Mississippi grandparents bringing fun items for the party. Well, her Texas grandparents had a few things to contribute as well. Yes, both sets go all out, and they never know what I may request! My mom found the perfect Peter Rabbit tablecloth at a Pottery Barn outlet. And my dad brought tree slices on the plane from Texas for my use. That's love people!

I normally have the gate from our Texas ranch in front of my fireplace. Adding a simple chalkboard sign and Peter Rabbit scarecrow made the perfect backdrop.

The carrot cookie cutters were another after Easter sale item. Score!

I don't think Tandy had ever had carrot cake before, but that's what she requested. I love when those requests are so easy to accommodate! The Peter Rabbit cupcake toppers were simple and sweet.

The pie pops were a first for me. They are so much easier than cake pops!! I used store bought blueberry pie filling and store bought crust. Easy!!

Somehow I can't help making those pesky cake pops once an idea gets in my head.

I had to incorporate radishes somewhere, and red velvet radish cake pops were just the thing. I simply wrapped the stick in green fringed paper to complete the look.

The tree ring fudge was delicious, but if there were to be a next time, I would bake some spiral tree ring cookies! These were no small feat. The tutorial makes it seem so much easier than it actually was!

As I previously mentioned, we had a scavenger hunt that the kids really enjoyed. Todd played the role of Mr. McGregor, and we hid plastic toy vegetables in one area to simulate his garden.

The other fun activity was painting rabbit hats for party hats.

Here are a few more images of the party girl enjoying all of the fun!

At one point during the party, Tandy came up to me and thanked me for her party. That's all the encouragement that I ever need!! I simply love doing this for my girls!

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Tuesday, June 16, 2015

I am eager to take you on a little tour of Avery's watercolor painting party! Our party was full of DIY projects, and now that Avery is older, she participated in most of the preparation from the invitations and outfit to the table coverings. Her current favorite colors are light blue, neon pink, and neon yellow, so you will see that we used those colors throughout.

Welcome....

We'll begin with the food and move on to the activities. We provided a couple of snacks including paint splatter sandwiches (PB&J) and paint chips (Cheez-its).

For the table covering, Avery and her sister, Tandy, painted coffee filters with watercolors and glued them together.

Avery also painted the rims of the Chinet plates for perfectly coordinated serving.

We also served color wheel fruit cups from an easel.

As always, I went a little crazy with the sweets, but it was all just too much fun!

Avery and I also painted the fondant covered sugar cookies with tinted clear vanilla.

I couldn't resist cake pops with paint brush sticks!

We even painted and dipped marshmallows to serve in a plastic paint can.

If you could only have seen the 'behind the scenes' on the color coordinated sprinkle cake!! There are probably sprinkles still lingering on the floor from this endeavor!

Of course, the interior of the cake had to coordinate too!

Some blue Koolaid completed the "sustenance" of the party.

Each guest went home with a bag full of their art, a paint palette, and paint brush.

Now, let's move on to the activities. You may be wondering what colored pencils have to do with a watercolor party.

These are actually watercolor pencils that will blend like watercolors when you add water to a colored surface. I printed these images directly onto watercolor paper for the artists to first color...

...then paint.

The next activity was something like musical chairs. The girls started painting, then at the sound of the timer, they moved to the next girls work and added to it and so on.

The salt paintings were the biggest hit. I had previously free-handed some images with glue and sprinkled them with salt. The watercolor spreads along the salt in an interesting way. Tandy was hard at work on hers.