Frozen Party

I know there are a million frozen party ideas online, but this is what we did. None of which was original. I have lots of snowflake crafts so it was easy to just slightly change. This was a temporary change. With this printable.

 I printed Elsa on paper, and melted Jolly Ranchers. I don't think any of the kids ate the cake just pieces of jolly ranchers.

 Nat requested pin the crown on Elsa.

 We printed the birthday banner from this site.

 For some reason I made a 6 year old two wreaths, that one in the background too.

 I made the pinata for her. She loved it. Turns out I made it too sturdy. Don't use packing tape, masking tape probably would have been better.

Countdown

My oldest son has wanted a countdown for his birthday for years. He always wants to do a paper chain and sometimes we do, but he never keeps track of it, then I have to count those dumb paper rings to figure out how many he should take off and it really just drives me crazy. So for the last couple of months I keep thinking I'll make something permanent. I made it almost in time for my baby's birthday. It has 10 days and we did it for 8. I bought a photo album scrapbook kit thing and just printed off numbers from the internet, then glued them in. The older kids had a blast counting down.

My husband's birthday is two days before my oldest son's birthday. So I knew what was up when my son sheepishly came to me, and said, are we going to count down to dad's birthday? I said nope, only kids. He looked much relieved.

Fall Birthday Bunting

Long story short, I needed a birthday surprises for a friend. So the other three of us, left a candle, banana bread and heart attacked her front door in fall colors. I volunteered to making the Happy Birthday sign.

 Here is the close up, I used sharpie, paper, glue stick and my die cutter. It took me about an hour to make. Not bad, it was fun.

My Birthday

September doesn't really have a holiday to decorate for, so I always decorate for my birthday. I decided I wanted a different birthday wreath this year, the last one's kitschy vibe was rubbing me the wrong way after all the birthday's we've celebrated. (Part of me loves the old one, but I just wanted a modern one this year.) I printed the bunting from this site. Ignore the fact that I connected the R incorrectly. I guess I could fix it...

 Ok, I love the candle! I used a coffee stirrer, and covered it with baker's twine. Plus the flame, it makes me smile. Happy Birthday me.

Dog Cake

When my third child turned 2, life was in a bad place. We still had two weeks of summer vacation, I had started some medication for depression but it wasn't really working yet. I didn't want to do anything other than yell at everyone. I was mad and angry. But the day before his birthday, I willed myself to get up enough gumption to bake a cake. I threw it in the freezer, the next day/his birthday I willed myself to decorate it. I knew life would go on quite fine if I didn't make him a cake. I knew in the scheme of things no one would care, but I also knew I would regret it for a very long time if I didn't make the cake. (I'm living a life of minimal regrets with the depression, I'm accepting that I'm sick and can't do much, but I knew a 2nd birthday was different then day to day.)

It was a beyond easy cake to make, less than an hour, but considering all that was going on, it was a monumental cake to make. Never has it taken so much courage for me to make a cake. 

 I used pudding frosting, it was beyond easy, if I wasn't in a postpartum depression fog, it would have been beyond easy. Since I was this is a trophy of accomplishment.

I used Kraft's Pudding Recipe, because its easy and delicious. I wondered how it would work as a decorator's frosting. Since I wasn't trying to be professional, and just please three kids it worked great. It has a bit of solid mass and fluffiness anyway because of the pudding. 

what you need

1

pkg.  (3.9 oz.) JELL-O Chocolate Instant Pudding

1

cup  cold milk

1/4

cup  powdered sugar

1

tub  (8 oz.) COOL WHIP Whipped Topping, thawed

make it

BEAT pudding mix, milk and sugar in large bowl with whisk 2 min. Stir in COOL WHIP.

SPREAD onto cupcakes immediately or store frosting covered in refrigerator up to 24 hours.

Birthday Crown

I've made a few birthday crowns over the years, although I can't find pictures of all of them at this time.
Here are a few of them: Birthday Boy, Cupcake, Pinkalicious- that I've since picked out and written Princess Natalie, Tulle,  Buttons
 A few months ago a friend's daughter had a birthday.  I made her this for my daughter to give her.  A few years ago we gave the older sister a crown. I wanted this to look different than the last which had tulle. I picked the fabric because I thought it was so pretty.  She likes purple, but also it was a Frozen party, so I figured blue was fitting. Unfortunately I couldn't come up with a way for her name to be that visible through the pattern. :(

My daughter wouldn't pose for me, so I used my 20 month old son.  What a mean mom I am. In my defense my oldest son has a crown, just not a girl crown.

 Look how cute he is, with his brown eyes, his ears folded over and tongue sticking out.

I wanted the crown to be just as pretty as a tulle crown, so I used REAL pearls on it.  I'm not sure if I achieved what I was aiming for.

 Does it channel any Frozen? Its at least the right color scheme.

Crown Cake

For her family party I decorated a crown cake for my 5 year old.  It wasn't an original idea, I found ONE picture online.

Pink Princess Tea Party

My daughter turned 5 which I just can't believe.  She is my baby! My oldest should be five not her.  This year we did a friend party, for the party we had a pink princess tea party.  With mini tea cups.

The day before I realized other than the table setting for the tea party we really didn't have any decorations so I made a bunting at the last minute.  To wish the princess Happy birthday.

 We also played pin the crown on the royalty. Turns out fan art is the best play to find free printables.

 The bunting with the table set.

 We had mini cupcakes so they fit on the mini plates.

 I made mini felt crowns for the girls.

 And we invited two boys, so we dressed them up as knights/kings.  I made these covers for them.  I didn't sew, I just cut the apron to the right size, and then cut out a fleur de lis out of felt and glue gunned it on.  It was quite easy, and my favorite craft of the party.  The boys love them.  I also made a foam duct tape sword for each boy.  (My son the model didn't come to the party.)

I will also add the boys LOVED the tea party as much as the girls, what is not to love about mini cups of water and mini cupcakes? We also played Don't Eat Pete Princess style.

Birthday Bunting

I decided I didn't like my birthday banner so I made a new one from the left over paint chips my kids had collected while we were painting the interior of our house.

I made many small ones to go around the majority of my living room and kitchen.  You can tell what colors we favored.  Pink/Red, Yellows, and neutrals for me.

7th Birthday

My oldest turned seven. He doesn't really like cake, but he does love chocolate chip cookies. So this year I made a Chocolate Chip cookie icebox cake. It was seriously the easiest thing ever, as long as you planned ahead.

I also borrowed a stamp set from my friend and made him cute little birthday cake bunting for his cake. It was so fun, but also took about TWO hours! I need to get a mini stamp set, it was super fun, I stamped all sorts of things!

Back to the icebox cake, I made the cookies Wednesday, and practically burnt them on purpose, and then stuck them in the freezer until Friday. You want your cookies crisp, to say the least, because by the time you eat your cake, they will be as mushy as mush. I put a ¼ cup less flour in my dough, used butter instead of butter flavor shortening (since it has a lower melting point) and baked my cookies for an extra 5 minutes or so. See the difference.  The top one is what my cookies normally look like, the bottom one is for the cake, maybe I should have used less flour. 

Then on Friday night I made fresh whipped topping, from whipping cream, I made four cups because the whipping cream comes in cartons of two cups, but three would have been plenty for the LARGE cake I made. We fed 14 people this cake, and still had almost half a cake left over. Next time I make this, I think I would only make half a batch of cookies for my cake. Once my whipping cream was made, I covered a plate in one layer of cookies, then put a layer of whipped cream, a layer of cookies, a layer of whipped cream, and on so until it was as big as I wanted. Then let chill over night. Just for the record I was going to make this on a cake stand, it was his 7th birthday after all, but my husband told me to make it on a paper plate. I thought it was weird he cared so I listened, well turns out he thought we were making it for the party we went on Friday night.

So yummy, so much easier than frosting a cake. Next time I want to try with oatmeal cookies. I think it will taste like a Little Debbie Oatmeal creme pie, without all the store bought chemicals. You can also make mini cakes with this. 

For the past two years I've made my son cookie crème sandwiches, for his birthday in school, but to make sandwiches for enough kids you need two packages of cookie crème, and that is almost $6 for just the crème! So I think next year, I'm just going to make sandwiches with whipped cream, and refrigerate over night, I personally like whipped cream better than the cookie crème. Remember my son doesn't really like cake, and he thinks all those cupcakes everyone brings into school are exciting which I get. But at the same time, I don't want to bring in cupcakes for a child who doesn't really like them, normal chocolate chip cookies are too boring for such an event as a birthday, but apparently cookie sandwiches are not too boring.    

I also ate a fourth of the cake in left overs, none one else in my house wanted it, and it was too yummy to waste in my opinion.  (I did give a fourth of it away.) But I got a little sick of the chocolate chips, I'm wondering how it would taste if you either use none or less chips, and made chocolate whipped cream.  Or if you ground up the chips, and then used chocolate whipped cream.  It has so many possibilities. The chocolate chip icebox cake idea I orginally found in Martha, but I found this recipe the most helpful. Back to Martha I did not use mascarpone cheese or whiskey. Mascarpone is apparently expensive and it tastes similar to cream cheese, and my kid doesn't like cream cheese.  I blame that on my husband's genetics, I don't understand how any human being can not like cream cheese. 

Nattie Girl Cupakes

Back in December my daughter turned four. I made Nattie face cupcakes. I saw a similar idea on Pinterest. I made a million of these, including 20 gluten free ones, for preschool. I didn't give her a friend party so I also made them for playgroup.

Birthday girl

My baby girl turns 4 this week. Can you believe it? I can't. Since its birthday week our birthday decorations are out with the Christmas decorations. Which sort of makes them seem obsolete, but since I put them out for my birthday it only seems fair.

Wall- E Party

Well the big event Wall-E party came and went.  As you remember the invites. Here is what the table looked like.  We had Juice boxes, mini pigs in a blankets, apples, and carrots.  

 Here is our jello pudding dirt cups, with little sluggy hopefully roachy looking bugs in them.  (I obviously made more pudding cups, but this is all that fit on my cake dish. Then treat bags in the background, that I had to assemble-- glue wall-e on yellow bags.

 At one point we did wall-e pin the cockroach on wall-e, which is on the door. We used post-it notes with the roach from the movie glued on the paper, so we wouldn't ruin our poster.  We also did wall-e bingo, the pinata, and the last event was trash toss, of newspaper balls thrown in a box.

 With that many kids we had a picnic for dinner.

 The birthday boy blowing out is 6 candle.

 Eating the pudding cups, I thought they were super yummy.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Birthday

My son turned six a few weeks ago as you and know, and I made a lot of chocolate chip cookies the day before.  I made a giant cookie pie again, and was once again not happy with the results, it was better than the previous year, but it was too dry.  Although I'm not convinced anyone makes a yummy giant cookie, I think it just looks exciting. Although I need to work on my decorating skills of giant cookies, I've improved but I still have a way to go.  My son asked for those candy candy cake things. 

My boy is adorable isn't he?  I'm so crafty.

 Then for his birthday in school, I make chocolate chip cookie sandwiches. Which meant I had to make 60 perfectly size chocolate chip cookies.  I used betty crocker cookie creme, which you can buy in the premade frosting section. Everyone said they were yummy (ie half the kids, the teacher, the teacher's assistant, my friend who I gave the last four cookies to), but I thought the cookie creme was too store bought tasting, I would be interested in finding a yummy homemade recipe.

 The birthday boy loved them!  He also loved being sung too, and getting to eat the first bite (a tradition in the kindie class). It was also 100 day at school, so he was dressed up like he was 100 years old.  Note the mustache that is actually a beard.

Just for the record, I needed two bags of cookie creme for my 30 sandwiches, and I think I used less than recommendations.
I still want to try out the chocolate chip cookie ice box cake.