Monster Bash

My little guy turned 5 this January. I can't believe he is already 5. We found some great loot bag items in the dollar bins at Target back in September; and that's how we decided to have a Monster bash.

We made up a invite calling all monsters to Ethan's 5th Birthday Monster bash.

We found plates and napkins with cute little monsters playing instruments through Oriental Trading. That so fits Ethan because he loves music.

www.orientaltrading.com

For decorations we took these same monsters; printed them out and made a transparency out of them. We did this by sliding the picture into a clear page protector and tracing with a black permanent marker. We then placed them on an overhead and blew up to about 3-4 feet tall. We taped white paper onto the wall; and using the overhead traced first with a pencil. We then painted them with Tempera paint. Then after they dried we then took a black permanent marker and outlined them to give them a finished look. Here's how they turned out.

 

  

Ethan absolutely loved them! We thought they were pretty great too!

Here is Ethan with a couple of his friends. Notice their monster headbands. A friend of mine made these headbands for everyone. We used thin wire headbands and craft foam to make these. Everyone wore these and loved them; even the adults.

We danced to some great music like; Monster Mash, the Purple Peopleater, Thriller, Addams Family theme and many more great monster themed songs.

Then we moved to the kitchen table and everyone got to make there own monster. These little craft kits were part of the great items we found in the dollar bin at Target. Here's the birthday boy and a few of his friends with their monsters they made:

 

We then played the mummy wrap game. I split the group of kids up into 3 groups of three. One would be the mummy getting wrapped, the other two would be wrapping. We gave the two wrappers a roll of toilet paper and yelled go. Here's a few pics of the game:

And last, but not least...the cake. Here is the monster I created. I baked 2 8 inch round cakes and then baked a third cake in an 8 inch round pyrex bowl. I stacked the three cakes together with bowl cake on top to give it the rounded top. I then iced it with a large star tip, by pulling straight out. I made my butter cream stiff so it would stick out.  We used ping pong balls for the eyes. Mouth, tongue and the blue balls on the antennae are all fondant. The arms, my husband cut out of a styrofoam plate. Ethan absolutely loved it!

 

Unfortunately I did not get a picture of our loot bags that we got from the dollar bin. They had these cute little bags made out of the recycled plastic with handles; that had pictures of the monsters on them. In them we put monster theme notepads, pencils, sticker books, capsules that you soak in water and out pops a monster sponge.

A great time was had by all and memories were made!

Mermaids, Wizards and New Moon

Title got ya wonderin'?

That is the theme of the last few cakes I have done.

This was a wizards hat that I did for a Wizards of Waverly Place theme party. This cake is 100% edible. The bottom is a 8 inch chocolate cake, filled and iced in vanilla butter cream. The hat is also chocolate cake, iced in vanilla butter cream. I baked the hat portion of the cake in a 4 cup & 2 cup pyrex measuring cups and then stacked and iced. All the yellow accents you see are fondant. The clients were very excited. The mom had originally asked me to just do a 2-d version. Me, being me, and loving a good challenge, I was like OH NO, we can make this bad boy stand up. So they gave me the creative leniency to go for it. I always hate myself during the process for saying I will do something like that. But in the end when I have the finished product and it turns out great, and the client is happy..then I am happy I took the challenge on.

This cake was an 8 inch red velvet cake, filled and iced in vanilla butter cream. The mother to be was decorating the nursery in the sock monkey theme, so I was asked to make a sock monkey cake. This was my own design I came up with. If you ever google sock monkey cake, you will see some very scary cakes! All of the accents I hand made out of fondant; the monkey, blocks, dots and banner.

This was an 8 inch strawberry cake; filled and iced with vanilla butter cream. The wine bottle is made from fondant. The grapes and vine are all butter cream.

This Emma's 6th birhtday cake. She wanted a mermaid cake. It is a 8 inch red velvet and 6 inch white cake; as requested by the birthday girl; filled and iced in vanilla buttercream. The stars are made from chocolate using a mold.  All of the other accents, anemones, clam shell with pearl, turtle, fish, sea horses, mermaid, lobster, were all handmade by either the hubby or I. 

This was a 8 inch chocolate and 6 inch vanilla cake; filled and iced with vanilla butter cream. All of the accents are made out of fondant. This was designed to make the plates and napkins for the party.

Here is mine and the hubby's version of the New Moon book. It is all edible. It is a vanilla cake, the "pages" are vanilla butter cream scored to look like pages. Then it was covered in black Satin Ice fondant. With fondant accents on the cover of the book.

This is just a few of the things that have been keeping me so busy over the past couple of months.

Cakes, Cakes and More Cakes

I have been very lax in posting the cakes I have done over the past several months...so here goes.

This cake I did for a friend of a friend. This is a 8 inch chocolate cake with butter cream icing. Spiderman, the letters and numbers are fondant. I made the webs on the side out of chocolate.


I made this cake for my office. They had a Biggest Loser Competition and they asked me to make this on the last day of the competition when the winner was announced. This is a kit kat cake. It was a white cake with vanilla butter cream, surrounded by kitkats and filled in with m&m's on top.

This cake I made for Teacher Appreciation Week at Emma's preschool. It was an 8 in chocolate cake and a 6 inch vanilla cake; both with vanilla butter cream. The flowers, faces and sun were made out of fondant. Grass, clouds, stems and leaves are all butter cream. The teachers loved it!

Another cake I made for a friend of a friend. This is the Mickey head pan made by Wilton. This was chocolate cake with part vanilla and part chocolate butter cream. Black butter cream is so much easier to make if you start out with chocolate butter cream.

This was a chocolate sheet cake with chocolate butter cream. The hills were formed from cake. The bales of hay were made from fondant. The flag is paper taped to sucker sticks. The motorcycle/rider is a toy provided by the mom. My husband rigged it with some wire so that it would look like he was jumping.



This was my first topsy turvy cake to make. It was for my niece Cheyenne's 17th birthday. This was a Red Velvet and vanilla cake. 10, 8 and 6 inch tiers iced in vanilla butter cream with fondant accents. The candy on the cake is actual candy....smarties, jolly ranchers, suckers, dum dum suckers.

I made this cake for a friends son at work. This was a 9 inch vanilla cake with vanilla butter cream and fondant accents.

Well I think that finally catches me all up. I sorry for the quality of the pictures. I think I need to take some photography classes.

Princess and Little Man are so funny...every cake that I do, they decide that's the cake they want for their next birthday. So it changes often. I am so blessed because Steven helps me with all my fondant work. I love working together with him on these things. He's really good at it too.

Today happens to be my birthday and he bought me an airbrush system for my cake decorating. I am SO excited. I can't wait to try it out.

Showers and Birthdays

Three more cakes this week.

I started off with a coworkers wedding shower. Our office threw a shower for her and they asked me to do the cake. I got my inspiration from Cake Central, where there are many cakes like this. I just loved the simple elegance. This is a 9 inch white cake with pistachio pudding filling. Iced in buttercream with fondant accents. They loved it.
Next, I had a little girl's 3rd b-day. This is a version of a carnival cake I did for my daughter's birthday. They liked the bright colors so instead of the 2nd tier on top, I put a crown. Sorry about the lighting in the picture. Yuck! This is a 10 inch strawberry cake with buttercream icing and fondant accents.


Last but not least, was the baby shower cake. The inspiration came from the napkin. I unfortunately did not save it to show you. This is 10 inch white cake and 6 inch chocolate cake, iced in buttercream with fondant accents.

Close up of baby on top.

Whew...what a month February has been. Lots of cakes this month. So much fun! Thanks to my hubby for helping me out!

Sock Hop's and Princess'

I have had three cakes to do recently.

SOCK HOP:
The first one was for my good friend's little girl. She had a Sock Hop birthday party and here is what I did...

A doll cake, sitting on an 8 inch round. Then 3 10 inch round record cakes. All buttercream with fondant accents. Except the doll's skirt, it was fondant. It was a hit!

PRINCESS:
Then I had this sweet little princess cake for a little girl turning 2. A 10 inch and 6 inch iced in buttercream with fondant accents.



KIT KAT CAKE:
This cake was for a lady I work with. It was her birthday and my office manager asked me to make a cake. I have been wanting to do this cake for a while now and just had not had the opportunity yet. I think it turned out adorable.

It's a 12 inch 2 layer cake; surrounded by kit kats and filled in on top with m&m's.

Rodeo roundup

My little man turned 4 this past weekend.

He is about all things cowboy. So, we decided to have a Rodeo for his birthday.

It was a gamble...January in Texas is a toss up for weather. We really needed to be able to do this outside. How, pray tell, could we herd pigs inside?

So, I did what any good mother would do...I pleaded and begged with my heavenly Father, to please send some beautiful sunny weather my way.

He totally came through! He loves me...and I don't deserve it! But that's another story.

We had beautiful weather in Texas on what could have been a cold January day.
Here's a picture of our cowboys and cowgirls. I had a stick horse for everyone. I had borrowed them from a friend. They all received a cowboy hat, and bandana before we started the rodeo. Which I got from Oriental Trading, really cheap.

Decorations:
As you can see from the picture, I used red white and blue bandannas tied together and draped along the fence. Also used Wanted pictures that I ordered from Ziggos Western. We had bales of hay sitting around the yard as well.

Unfortunately I did not get pictures of inside. I had bought a barn scene setter and put up in our entryway, along with a horse and cowboy cut out. I also made wanted posters for each child who attended the party. So I had those posted all over the place. The kids had a lot of fun looking for their picture. My son's poster said "Ethan THE KID" WANTED for Turning a year older. My daughter's said..."Emma BOSSY BRITCHES" WANTED for trying to run this place.

Food:
We had fixin's for frito pie. I also made pulled pork sandwiches. You just take a pork butt and put in your crock pot and cook over night. It will be falling apart. With a fork, pull apart and then pour in a bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce. Serve with buns. It turned out so yummy.We also had nachos; which are the birthday boys' favorite.

Games:
We played some great games. The first thing we did was a modified version of barrel racing. They rode their stick ponies around bales of hay instead of barrels.

Then we played Pig Herding. I split them up in to two teams. Again they had to be on their stick horse. I gave them each a fly swatter. Then I released about 30 pigs, which were pink balloons blown up, into the middle of the yard. Each team had to try and get as many pigs to there side of the yard as they could using the fly swatter. They had a blast.
One little girl misunderstood what I said, when I said we were going to herd some pigs. So when I told them to go, she said "okay let's HURT some pigs." All the adults started rolling. I had to stop the game and explain to her that I had said HERD not HURT. All I need is her to go to church and tell people I abuse animals.

Then we played the "Blindfold branding game". We took a large piece of brown kraft paper and traced with an overhead projector the picture of a cow. We posted this up on the fence at the kids level. Then we made a "brand" out of a large dowel rod and a sponge. Since my sons name starts with an E; thats what we made the brand. I took a clean household sponge and cut the letter E out of it. Then we backed it with a piece of heavy duty plastic. I actually had an old storage tub that was broke and we were about to throw away. My husband cut a square out of that larger than the E. We glued the E to the plastic; then stapled the plastic to the end of a large dowel rod. I had a plate of tempera paint out there. I explained to the kids about branding, the why and where the brand is put on the cow. Each kid came up one at a time, got blindfolded. I would dip the brand in paint for them and then let them go. The birthday boy won this game. I only wound up with one green E on my fence.


The last activity for them was "Needle in a haystack game." I bought some harmonicas and parachute men and hid them in a pile of hay. They had to dig through and find their loot. They also had a cowboy boot cup with a small pack of crayons and activity book and sheriffs badge to take home with them. As well as the cowboy hat and bandana I gave each one before we started the rodeo.


Cake:
I love this cake. I have been wanting to make a cake like this for some time. When I asked little man what kind of cake he wanted me to make, he told me he wanted me to make a cake with cowboy on a horse roping a calf. I told him I would see what I could do about a cowboy on a horse...but the roping a calf part...probably not. My hubby was a huge help. I am totally thrilled with the way it turned out.
All in all it was a wonderful day. Little man had a blast. Mommy can't believe her baby is four!

Flip Flops and Over the Hill

Last weekend, not only did Becky and I make Emma's birthday cake, but I had orders for two more cakes.

We had this Over the Hill Cake for a gentleman who was turning 40. By the way, the closer I get to 40 the less over the hill it seems.

The gentleman's wife told me the richer the better. So we went with a chocolate chip chocolate cake with chocolate butter cream icing with chocolate covered strawberries on top. (How many times can I say chocolate in one sentence?) With chocolate and caramel drizzled down the sides. I know, you probably have a toothache just reading that...

Then we also had this next cake for a luau party. This was chocolate cake with vanilla butter cream. We had fondant accents and graham crackers crushed to look like sand.

I guess I thought I was superwoman, taking on two cake orders plus my daughter's and setting up for the birthday party. I must have temporarily lost my mind ya'll. If it was not for my partner in crime, my best friend Becky, we wouldn't have made it. But I think they all three turned out well.