Birthday Fun!

I thought I would share some of the things 
we made for little girl's birthday this past week. 

It was a lot of fun and everyone helped. 

Theme: Strawberry Shortcake. Colors: Red, pinks, white and green.

For the tissue paper blossoms I found a great tutorial here at

Organize and Decorate Everything.   

They turned out beautiful and were super easy to make. 

Just 10 sheets of tissue paper a blossom.

I found this great idea over at Made. 

 These were two rolls of crepe paper streamers 

sewn together to create a ruffled streamer. 

They turned out gorgeous!

I found these great circular cutouts over at Glorious Treats. 

My son helped me with the baking and 

I iced the cupcakes in pale pink buttercream.

 

 Last but not least...a strawberry craft idea I found over at Activity Village.

Except, my teenage son thought it was funny to 

do a hand print devil when I wasn't looking. 

Nice, yeah?!

All in all a party ready in one week from finding all these 

wonderful ideas in blogland isn't to shabby. 

Thank you ladies for your fantastic ideas. 

Check out their blogs. 

They are super neat!

Strawberry Pinata

   Birthday parties are on the rise here in our home. With school starting soon...this is no easy feat. But, we like to celebrate and have fun together. Who doesn't?  
    Little girl decided that she would like a Strawberry Shortcake birthday party. Well, I kind of swayed her since she had it in her mind that she would have a fantastic birthday party themed with Tinkerbell, Princesses, My Little Pony, Dora the Explorer, and rainbows of course. Seriously, we took her to Target and went down the party aisle and she choose all items pertaining to these themes and carried them in her arms while stopping to add a very large pinata to her purchase. lol. Anyway, yeah...that didn't happen. So, we decided on Strawberry Shortcake and made a pinata. The four were so enthusiastic about it. Everyone wanted to help. Then 15 minutes into it only one was left standing to finish it up. And she was ever so happy to have this project to do with me.

 

Strawberry Pinata

Materials you will need for this project are:

1 balloon, newspaper strips, white all purpose glue,

tissue paper, tape, and scissors.

You begin by blowing up your balloon. Then combine 1 part water to 2-3 parts white glue in a bowl. 

Stir it up well and use this mixture to dredge your newspaper strips in one by one as you apply them to the balloon individually. Make sure that remove the excess mixture from the newspaper strips with your fingers before adhering it to the balloon. This is important because it makes the drying process successful.

 Once you are finished layering the balloon with papier mache then you must let the pinata to dry over night.

I hung ours out on the laundry line and it dried perfectly.   

After the pinata had completely dried, I taped a twisted tissue paper stem in place. 

 Now it is time to decorate your pinata. 

I opted for the tissue paper look. 

Cutting long strips of tissue paper and fringing one side for the decoration. 

At the bottom of the pinata be sure to leave an open space for the candy to be inserted 

as well as the balloon to be popped and removed.

Using the fringe material glue to the pinata starting at the bottom in a layered rotation form.

 Keep overlapping the layers of fringe.

 When I finished the layering, I then added leaves made out of tissue paper.

Black cardstock cut seeds were glued in place.

  An added polka dot bow makes it Strawberry cutesy. 

Now you can pop and remove the balloon.

Fill with candy and goodies.

Use a piece of newspaper to seal up the open space with glue. 

Then a piece of coordinating tissue paper to conceal it.

Once it has dried it is ready for the party!

I also have to show this drawing my son did of 
Strawberry Shortcake for his sister's birthday. 

It is so beautiful. 
What a talent!

 He did it all freehand and I was blown away at the fact that 

he drew it so quickly and perfectly. Such a proud mama!

 

~Christie

Fondant Cake

This is my first fondant cake.  

It was a lot of fun to put together. 

I made a leopard print briefcase and 

opted for a stylish purse Doctor's bag. 

It of course was a chocolate cake!

 

Last year about this time I was busily trying to help prepare for my sister's

medical school graduation party. 

I helped with the decorations and we stenciled many, many tablecloths. 

On each tablecloth we sponged alternate sizes of orange circles down the centers. 

Then we stenciled inspirational words in green along the center border and 

picked one inspirational word per tablecloth to highlight in a larger black font. 

Some of the words we chose to use were: Dream, inspire, create, family, knowledge, courage and achieve. 

We were all very excited for her.

 Here is a picture of some of the good Hawaiian food we ate that day at the party. 

All of the food was made by family members. 

On this plate we have some lomi lomi salmon, kalua pig, chicken long rice,

grilled steak, rice and potato crab salad. 

Where's the poi?