As I try to find a few minutes here and there in the midst of a very busy weekend, I recruited the birthday girl to make some 3 dimensional snowflakes. They are quite stunning and will really help to create the wintry look I am going for. Eden’s birthday is now just a few days away and as the weekend draws to an end, I know I will be busy baking cakes and pulling together the final plans for her “Snowflake” theme every evening this week. I decided to go with the “winter” theme not so much because it is a “theme” party, but more so because we were taking the girls “snow tubing” at a local park. As it turns out, I am not sure if we will be able to spend the evening outdoors or not, as the forecast does not look great for the coming weekend. If not, I know the girls will be fine hanging-out at home. Regardless, we will continue to decorate around a winter theme.
Eden did an awesome job of making this 3D snowflake for the party. Although these snowflakes take more time than a typical one, they are not difficult to make and it is fun to include the birthday girl in the party preparations. Here is a complete step by step picture tutorial, but for a complete video tutorialcheck-out this link.
Take 6 sheets of regular 8 1/2″ X 11″ paper.
Fold over one corner to create a triangle.
Cut off the extra paper at the end.
Fold the triangle in half.
Make slits across the triangle.
Open up the triangle.
Open up to reveal the cut square.
Roll the centre by taking the edges and overlapping them. Tape in place.
Flip the square over and pull the corners of the next biggest square towards the centre, roll them and tape them.
Flip the square over. Pick-up the corners of the next square, roll towards the centre and secure.
Continue to flip, roll and secure until the entire section is complete.
Completed section.
Repeat the process with all six sheets of paper and then join all six sections together.
Completed 3D snowflake.
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Well, the Winter Birthday Party plans continue. I got the invitations out and finished her snowflakebirthday banner and it turned out great. Eden is going to be 12 and is pretty much over having birthday parties with activities and games. I still have to make a few decorations, as well as the cake and cupcakes for both her family party and her girlfriend party.
I have wanted to make these oversized pom-poms/paper flowers for like….forever, but have never had a reason to do so. It might be a bit of a stretch, but I thought why not go for it using white tissue and call them snowflakes instead of flowers. I followed Martha Stewart’s tutorial and this is what I came up with. I have only made one so far, but will probably make a few to hang from our chandelier over the table in the dining room. It was super easy to make, but takes a bit of patience and a soft touch to carefully pull the layers of tissue apart.
Use 8 full sheets of tissue paper.
Fold the sheets accordion style. My folds are about 11/2″ wide.
Continue to fold until you reach the end.
I tied the centre with fishing line, leaving enough length to hang it when I am done.
Carefully begin to pull the layers of tissue apart. The first layer or two is the most difficult.
Keep pulling…
and pulling…
and pulling until all the layers are pulled apart and you have a nice full pom pom.
I think it will look fine when I have everything put up. Sometimes you just have to wait until all of the decorations are set-up for a theme to really come together.
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My daughter’s birthday is on Friday and I still have lots to do, so this weekend I will mostly be consumed with party planning and preparations. I always make the kids a birthday banner for their party and it is usually somewhat theme related. Although we hadn’t really planned a theme for this year, she did want to take the girls sledding, so I opted for a “snow” theme ~ not exclusively, but just to give me some directions in pulling things together. I got my inspiration for the little bit of decorating I will do, from this awesome purchase I made on Thursday evening. I found some Christmas clearance items at Sears for 90% off. This snowflake garland was just too adorable to pass up. The original price was $59.99, but I picked up two strands for $6 each. I absolutely love a great deal and this was one of my best! Don’t you just love the look of the snowflakes made from twigs!
So, I decided to go with a bit of a rustic look. I picked up a roll of the brown parcel wrap paper used for packaging up mail and this will be used for her birthday banner. I plan to stick with a primarily brown and white look. Although I am just beginning to pull this together, I am planning to incorporate several snowflakes of different kinds. I was trying to think of a way to create a large snowflake stamp, so that I wouldn’t have to hand paint them all. I have a small stash of paper towel/toilet paper rolls and I figured I might be able to rig something up for my snowflake theme. Here is what I initially came up with.
Paper towel tube
Cut in about 1″ strips
Slit the ring on one side
Fold the cardboard in the opposite direction to its natural curl and then staple it along the centre fold, to a cork.
Staple the cardboard on a cork.
Fold the ring with the outsides together and staple it about a quarter 1/2″ from the open end, so that the ends curl out. (Obviously there is no cork in the picture here, as I took this picture before I came up with the cork idea and then had to undo the staple and re-staple after attaching it to the cork. Just imagine that this has already been attached to the cork.)
I repeated this process 6 times, and this is what I came up with.
Dip in paint to evenly cover the surface. Make prints.
The concept was great and it worked okay, but I knew that it would be way too finicky for making lots of snowflakes. The problem was that despite my efforts to create an even base for printing, you had to play around a bit and ensure that each little arm of the snowflake made contact with the paper. This would be totally fine if you were making a few, but I planned to make quite a few and don’t have the patience for that. So, I decided to take it back a few steps and this is what I ended up with.
I made two different sized “arms” exactly as I had in the original snowflake, but didn’t attach them to anything.
I simply used a cork to make a circle for the centre of the snowflake and then was able to quickly add 6 “arms” around the circle to create my snowflake. I did the exact same thing with the smaller one and used the eraser end of the pencil to make the circle print in the middle. Although it means actually doing 6 prints plus the circle for every snowflake, it seems to be much easier to get a nice even print and faster to do. I have only played around a bit and haven’t yet done the banner, but I am thinking I could easily take a brush or even the eraser tip of the pencil to add other little lines and dots to add some variety to the basic snowflake print.
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Eden’s 12th birthday is in just a few weeks and I haven’t even got the invitations out! I set aside today to get the job done. I really didn’t have a plan, but thought I would do a winter/snowflake invitation because she wants to go sledding. She is only inviting 4 girls, so the job isn’t as overwhelming as some years. I had lots of paper on hand and decided to have her pick colours from what I had. I picked up this package at Target for $1.30 on Christmas clearance. It is wintry, but not really very festive. Eden loved the colours and picked out the paper she wanted and then I just created the invitation by using the paper she picked as my starting point.
This package contained 8 sheets of 12″ X 12″ paper, a sheet of stickers and a foam “Let it Snow” border. Not bad for under $2.
Printing the Invitations:
I began by making the actual invitation on the computer. I downloaded a free font called Gingersnaps from www.dafont.com. I love this site and often search for specialized fonts for my projects. I changed the address for the screen shot, but otherwise this is what it looks like.
I added a text box in the background, printed her age and then changed the opacity of the teal to 70%. I created the invitation as a full-page document. I then displayed the “page thumbnails” of the page I had created and duplicated the page 3 times, so that I had a total of 4 copies of the invitation.
When I went to print the document, I found “Layout” in the drop down menu on the printing page. I then select “4” under pages per sheet. It takes all four of my pages and scales them all down to fit perfectly on one page of card stock. I then cut the page into 1/4’s and proceed to make my invitations, postcard style, by decorating the opposite side of the card.
Decorating the Birthday Invitation:
I started by covering the backs of the printed invitations with the paper Eden had chosen. I then gently sanded the edges to reveal some of the white below the dyed surface. I then used a turquoise/teal ink on all of the edges. This is nothing more than dabbing the ink pad along the edges. I used a make-up style brush to get into the grooves that the pad wouldn’t reach. I then cut a strip of coordinating paper (one side with a scalloped edge) and adhered it to the right side of the card with double-sided tape. I also happened to have ribbon on hand that I ran down the straight edge of the paper strip. This became my base card. From here, I began to play with embellishments to see what I could come up with for a finished look. I ended up using a combination of a few items I had on hand. First, I took a handful of these cheap dollar store snowflakes and tried to kick them up a notch.
Cheap white snowflakes approximately 1″ in size.
On some, I added blue gel pen topped the blue with a clear glitter glue. (Those on the envelopes only have glitter glue.) I also added a little silver dot to the center of the snowflakes I mounted on the card. These are the smallest snowflakes on the invitations, located closest to the bottom of the card. The second snowflake is a made of plain white felt. I found these snowflakes at Target in the same bin as the paper package. The snowflake at the top was made by mounting a snowflake sticker onto teal circles and hand cutting around the outside edge.
Clear snowflake stickers.
Left over circles from another project.
I simply staggered the snowflakes when I mounted them and used 3D foam mounting dots to add extra dimension when mounting the smallest snowflake at the bottom. Finally, I stamped “Save the Date!” on that adorable polka dot paper and then stuck it on a white “tag” that I had cut out on my Cricut. I added a little line/dot pattern around the outside edge with a black Sharpie and used red ink on edges of the tag. I curled blue wire around the shaft of pen and then twisted it to create a bit of a whimsical look. Finally, I added a bit of embellishment to the envelopes so they would coordinate with the invitation and then added the girl’s names.
Here is the finished invitation.
Here you can see the decorated invitation as well as the printing on the other side.
The invitation and envelope.
Here are all four, ready to be stuffed and delivered.
I am so glad to have the invitations done. We will let them dry over night and then deliver them tomorrow. Hopefully all of the girls can make it!
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Well, it’s January and with it brings Eden’s 12th birthday. I can’t believe it….she is already booked for her first babysitting job. Now that the kids are getting older, they aren’t very interested in the “over-the-top” theme parties that I used to do. I still like to make a nice invitation and cake, but the theme related games, decorations and activities seem like they are becoming nothing more than a distant memory. How sad! I used to love pulling those parties together ~ maybe I’ll be a Party Planner in my next stage of life? We hope to finalize some plans and pull things together for finalizing her plans for this year, but I know that my role is progressively becoming less significant as the girls are quite happy just to hang-out and amuse themselves, but in honour of her January birthday I thought I would share some ideas from one of her past parties.
Snowman Birthday Party
I need to begin by saying that this was early on in my birthday party planning craze and I was not yet adept at making sure every single detail was taken care of. She didn’t have a birthday party with friends until she started pre-school. Because the party was primarily adults, there weren’t any games, activities or loot bags. I have included some of the ideas I used for Eden’s party, but have also included several others that I either thought of or found on the web. This party was back in the “olden days”, pre-digital camera and I couldn’t find the negatives anywhere. I am embarrassed to say that the pictures I am sharing are photos of photos. How tacky! Anyway, no other choice. I was also quite surprised to learn that I don’t even have a full picture of the birthday banner. I think I got better at taking photos of everything, as I did more parties.
cake(s) ~ plan, design and bake a cake/cupcakes (or save the hassle and order one)
loot bags
Snowman Party Invitations:
There really is nothing fabulous about the invitations I did for Eden’s party. I was not yet into card making and thought I was brilliant because I scanned the napkin so that the invitations matched the napkins. They were fine, but nothing special. I would do something totally different now that I am into scrapbooking and card making. If you simply google “snowman birthday invitations” under images, you will see hundreds of great ideas. You can also refine your search to “homemade snowman birthday invitations” for even more ideas. I often search the web for ideas before coming up with my own.
Snowman Party Decorations:
Again, I don’t seem to have great pictures from the party, but below are a few of my favourite party ideas from her snowman themed party. I always make a huge hand-painted birthday banner that is theme related. This might have been the first year I started this tradition! I don’t have a picture of the whole banner, but I remember it was on black with both light blue and white paint. My favourite part was the snowman family in the bottom left corner. Each member of our family made a footprint and then I added the details to make them into snowmen for the banner. Of course, there were snowflakes painted on the banner as well. After the party, I cut-out Eden’s footprint and included it in the scrapbook layout from her 3rd birthday party. The foot print is a great memory in itself. I did something similar for Shay’s pirate birthday with a hand print parrot on his banner.
For this party, I wanted to have an indoor snowman for photo opps. I purchased a large white Christmas tree bag over the holidays and then we stuffed it with shredded paper. It worked fine, but it was quite a bit of work collecting enough paper and you really had to have white or it showed through. If I were doing it again, I would use some of the other great ideas I found on Pinterest for making indoor snowmen. When I think back to the planning of her party 9 years ago, I realize how much has changed in terms of technology. I did find some ideas on line back then, but the ideas (especially the images) were quite limited. Social media sites like Pinterest have made it so much easier to share great ideas.
For the centrepiece on the table, I made a snowman ice sculpture. I froze water in balloons (with varying amounts of water in each) and then melted the flat side slightly so that the balls would adhere to one another. This worked perfectly. I added the embellishments the same way…..I slightly melted the area I wanted to adhere the eyes and then attached them. I did prepare the snowman ahead and re-froze him on my steps. Very cute!
I really don’t have a picture of them, but I had also used plain white balloons that I decorated with a face and hat so that they all looked like snowmen. They also turned out well.
Here are a few pictures from Eden’s Snowman Party.
You can see Eden’s birthday banner in the background of this picture.
Footprint snowman
Snowman Ice Sculpture
Stuffed snowman
This “handprint” parrot was on a Pirate Party Birthday Banner that I made for Shay. Click the image to see the Pirate Party post.
When preparing for this post, I found so many other great ideas. If I were doing another Snowman party, I might consider including some of these great ideas.
As mentioned earlier in the post, I didn’t plan anything for our party as Eden was only 3 and it consisted primarily of adults and older kids. However, being a teacher, I can tell you that there are many great ideas based on a winter/snow/snowman theme. Pinterest is always a great source, but here are a few that I came up with quite quickly. Of course, you would need to pick activities that are age appropriate.
pin the carrot on the snowman (you could even use the refrigerator for this as shown in the pictures above)
in a perfect world you could actually go outside and build a snowman with the freshly fallen sticky snow (Ha! Ha!)
marshmallow snowman (lick and stick the marshmallows on paper to make a snowman picture)
Snowman Bowling
Make your own snowman.
Snow globes.
There are so many fabulous ideas for this theme, I could go on forever, but I am becoming deeply saddened that I will probably never get to plan another snowman party again. Rats! I would do it SOOOO much better if I had another chance.
Snowman Party Foods:
Snowman Marshmallow Pops
Snowman Milk Bottles
Snowman Popcorn Cups
Snowman Cheese Strings
Snowman Cake and Cupcakes:
For Eden’s party, I opted for a 3D snowman cake. I wanted a really bright white icing and so I used my mom’s recipe for 7-Minute Frosting. I find it a bit sweet now, but it was my favourite when I was a kid. Again, you can search for all kinds of great cake and cupcake ideas, but here is a picture of Eden’s cake. I actually can’t totally remember what I made the hat out of, but I want to say a “wagon wheel” with chocolate cookies stacked on top?? The hat is very dark in all of the pictures and I made this cake 9 years ago, so I don’t exactly remember. I still have the print out of the recipe and directions, but I know I did a bit of my own thing as well. I tried to find the link, but the page is no longer there. Sorry! Again, this is certainly not one of my better cakes, but I guess it illustrates my growth and development….let’s celebrate that! What drives me the most crazy is that I actually left the finished snowman displayed on a messy plate. I can’t believe I wouldn’t have cleaned-up the icing drips and crumbs ~ what was I thinking?
Eden’s Snowman Cake
Eden’s Snowman Cake
Loot Bags:
I didn’t hand-out any loot bags at the family party we had, but here are a few ideas:
a snowman cookie in a cellophane bag (I have made those melted snowman cookies before and they are so cute!)
snowman kit (I’ve included the link to mine, but you could make a much simpler version if you had lots to make.)
crazy carpet
snowman or winter book
snowman soup (hot chocolate, marshmallows, candy stick (candy cane), chocolate kisses). There is a little poem to go with this, but it is a bit more geared to Christmas. I am sure it could be modified. I have sometimes made these as little Christmas gifts.
the crafts the kids make at the party will be taken home as well (example – a snow globe)
you could even put all of the loot in a “snowman’s” hat in lieu of a bag
This is theme is so much fun and the ideas are literally endless. So, if you have a winter birthday party to plan why not plan your own snowman party?
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I haven’t posted a birthday party theme for a while, so I thought I would toss one out today. This is based on Eden’s 10th birthday.
Invitations:
I made this invitation and envelope for the party. The invitation was made by printing the actual invitation in a white font on black cardstock. The words are on the back of the DISCO invitation. I downloaded a font called “bell bottom”. I tried to use 60 jargon (very lame, I know). I honestly don’t remember why there is green in the center, but I am pretty sure I just printed the white font directly onto black paper.
For the outside of the invitation, I actually used some left over fabric from Eden’s 60’s Halloween costume and some old denim. for jeans. The background was already black, but I gently used a embossing tool to make some little circular grooves in the “record”. The grooves are a bit hard to see, but I have a circle template in my scrapbooking arsenal, so they were easy to trace out. The word DISCO was typed in another free font I downloaded called Akka. I printed the word in black ink on purple cardstock and then cut out all of the letters by hand. I often use funky fonts in my scrapbooking and card making. One of my favourite websites for free fonts is www.dafont.com. I think that both of these were from there. The envelopes were made from plain cardstock and I embellished them with the shoe and peace sign which were both made on my Cricut. (Have I told you that I could not survive without my Cricut?)
Decorations:
I made my standard birthday banner, but didn’t do much more than that. Eden is getting older and isn’t as interested in a whole party theme.
I made the silhouette of the disco dancers with my overhead projector at school. I simply traced the images onto black paper and then cut them out.
Activities and Games:
Again, Eden is getting older and basically wanted to hang-out with her friends. We did plan two activities and both worked out well.
The girls played Just Dance on the Wii for most of the evening.
Tie Dye Sharpie Scarves
Tie Dye Sharpie Scarves
For this project, I combined the ideas of from two different bloggers. Basically, I went to the thrift store and bought a few extra-large t-shirts that were white. It didn’t matter if there was a pocket or small logo on the top as they would be cut off. I washed the shirts and then off the bottom seam. I then cut across the shirt (parallel to the bottom) to create a loop scarf. I don’t remember how wide I cut them, but I think I got all of the scarves from 2 or 3 extra-large shirts (maybe 8″?) I then stretched each scarf (loop) as much as I possibly could. Each girl received one of these as her scarf. We then did Sharpie tie dye on the scarves. This worked really well and the tutorial I followed was very helpful. One caution though, just be aware of the strong fumes from using both Sharpies and rubbing alcohol. It was okay, but I wasn’t really anticipating that and it is certainly something to consider.
Elastics around cup tops and colour away.
Turned out great. Just need to be sure they are really stretched out to loop nicely around your neck.
Cake:
I actually can’t find my party plan. I usually save all of my files, but apparently I didn’t save this one. I don’t remember going theme crazy with the food for this party, but I did have fun making the cake. I used my regular icing to generously coat the cake and then homemade marshmallow fondant for decorating.
Loot Bags:
Again, I am not remembering everything we gave out at the party, but I do remember that I made each of the girls a denim purse to go with their tie dye scarf. I made these out of old jeans that we had at home. (I had been saving them for this purpose.)
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Hip Hip Hooray! The Jets won last night and it looks like Jacob Trouba will be fine following that scary crash into the boards in last night’s game against St. Louis Blues.
I thought I would make this post while Jets fan are still on a high from our win last night.
Hockey Party Invitations
I have a membership with Smilebox. Smilebox is a great online tool for making wonderful e-cards and digital scrapbooking projects. For Shay’s hockey themed birthday party, I thought it would be cool to make the invitation in the format of a Sport Illustrated magazine cover. Basically, I used the Smilebox template, personalized the information and then emailed out the invitations for this party. Here is a screen shot of the invitation.
Your invitations should include the date, location, drop-off and pick-up times, and RSVP information. Also, be sure to include information such as: what to bring or wear to the party and mention if lunch or dinner will be served. The invitations should be sent out 2 to 3 weeks prior to the party.
Hockey Party Decorations
For this party, Shay really wanted to play floor hockey with his buddies. We rented a room in a community center for around $75 (I think). I remember it being quite inexpensive and we had full use of the kitchen that had a window opening into the party room. It was a perfect set-up and kept my house in tact. This also meant that decorations were kept to a minimum as we had to haul everything there. I made the standard homemade birthday banner and decorated the plain white tablecloth so that it looked similar to a sheet of hockey ice with the line and Jets logo in the center. I used store-bought Jets plates and napkins as well. I also bought a little triangular Jets banner to put around the table at the entry. This table held the cake, vintage jersey Jets cookies and the loot bags. Of course, we invited the boys to wear Jerseys or hockey t-shirts if they wanted to.
Hockey Banner
Entry Table
Hockey Rink Table
Hockey Party Activities and Games
This was the simplest party ever. Seriously, my husband played floor hockey with the boys for the entire time. We literally had to cut them off, so that we had time for cake and gifts at the end. The community club provided the nets, sticks and pucks and set-up benches as “boards” at our request. It was awesome! I relaxed with my friend and daughter. Unfortunately, the three of us ate most of the snacks on the table, as the boys had no interest in stopping to snack.
We used benches for the boards.
Food and Snacks
I knew the boys would be kept busy playing hockey, so we kept the food to a minimum. I did buy a few frozen pizzas to cooked in the community center oven, but when the oven was preheating there was lots of smoke and a few flames as a previous user had obviously spilled something over and it had not been cleaned. We decided to forgo the pizza plan and in the end we were pressed for time without it as the boys had so much fun they were more interested in playing hockey that having a pizza snack. It was a mid afternoon party, so I wasn’t concerned about them missing a meal or anything so we just skipped it. At the time, it seemed like a better option than burning the community club down! We had snacks and drinks out on the table throughout, so the boys could munch throughout the party and stay hydrated. We served the cake and ice cream near the end, before opening presents. We used plain navy blue cups for the pop, but I had painted white numbers on each cup. The numbers corresponded with those worn by some of the most popular Jets players. So, they kept track of their drinks by remember the Jets number they picked.
Hockey Rink Birthday Cake
I love baking a cake or cupcakes from scratch and then decorating them to match our theme. I have never taken a cake decorating course, so my cakes are far from perfect, but I have lots of fun looking at different theme cakes online and then coming up with my own variations. Obviously, some turn out better than others. We almost always serve ice cream with our cake. For this hockey rink cake, I added bristle board “boards” and used coloured tape for the lines. I used a layer of buttercream icing and then fondant on top. Shay had a mini table hockey type of game and I was able to easily snap the nets off of it, wash them and then set them on the cake for the party. (They snapped back on the game just as easily after.)
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Hockey Themed Loot Bags
I picked-up red gift bags from the dollar store and made a little thank you tag for each bag in the form of hockey skates. The bags were filled with the following:
a current copy of the Scholastic Hockey News magazine
Each guest also took one of the homemade vintage Jets jersey cookies with them on the way out
loot bags
Thank you skate tag
bookmark
vintage Winnipeg Jets jersey cookies
Timing for the Event
I generally keep our parties to 2 hours. The boys played hockey for about an hour and 15 minutes and then stopped for cake and presents at the end. The timing was perfect and I knew that if we had extra time, they could always pick-up the sticks and continue to play until they were picked-up. If booking outside of the home, be sure to check on rental prices and allow yourself time for set-up before and clean-up at the end. The community club we rented charged us for two hours, but allowed a half hour extra before and after for decorating and tidying.
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Here is a super quick and easy birthday cake idea. I made these for my son’s 9th birthday. Basically, bake a batch of homemade cupcakes. (These were made from our favourite chocolate cake recipe.) Purchase waffle cones and a few red gum balls for cherries. (I used some red-coated wire for the stem and just poked it in the gum ball.) Stagger the cupcakes to create a giant ice cream cone. I like to do things like this with odd numbers ~ I just think it looks better. Basically, just randomly pipe on buttercream icing to depict the flavours you want. I then added a few little globs/swirls to make it look more like ice cream. I used Wilton Tip 12. I began with the cupcake closest to the cone and worked my way to the top of the “scoops”. I also added a few sprinkles and “chocolate” similar to the original idea. The original idea was taken from Pinterest and so much prettier, but this was for Shay’s birthday, so I tried to go with more of a masculine look. He loves Tiger Tiger! The hardest part of this “cake” is that you have to change colours so often. When doing something like this it is often easier to use disposable bags, so you don’t have to do much cleaning between colours. I think this would be so cute for a little girl, with softer, prettier colours!
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As a rule, I make my cakes from scratch just like my mom did when I was a kid. Occasionally, I will buy a mix, but I prefer to make them myself. I have a few recipes that are my “go to” cakes. Our family loves chocolate, so I usually make chocolate birthday cakes or cupcakes. Today I am sharing my favourite chocolate cake recipe. It is super moist and works every time. It is simple to make and super high in calories (I am guessing). Oh well, that’s what birthdays are for! This photo captures the chocolate cake with our favourite frosting. I tend to keep the cake for our “family” parties plain and simple and make the more elaborate cakes for their celebrations with friends.
Chocolate Cake
Ingredients:
2 cups of flour
1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons of baking soda
1 cup of sugar
4 heaping Tablespoons of cocoa
1 cup of water
1 cup of Miracle Whip
Method:
Put the dry ingredients into a bowl and mix. In a separate bowl, whisk together the miracle whip and water until most of the lumps are removed. Add the wet ingredients into the dry mixture. Beat well. Pour into a square cake pan. Double the recipe for a 9″ X 13″ cake. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until the cake tester comes out clean.
Our Favourite Frosting
This frosting is very creamy and delicious. It is not overly sweet and although not the same, would be most similar to the icing on a Jeannie’s Bakery cake. Very yummy, but not great for decorating. I sometimes do my “crumb coat” with this and then use butter cream or fondant for decorating.
Ingredients:
1 cup of whole milk
5 Tablespoons of flour
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup of butter
1 cup white sugar
Mix the milk and flour in a saucepan. Heat the mixture over medium heat stirring constantly to prevent the milk from scorching. Once it has thickened, set the pot directly into an ice bath to cool. (Bowl of ice with a bit of water). Continue to stir the mixture while it is cooling to prevent it from crusting over or forming lumps. Once cool, stir in the vanilla. Cream the butter and sugar in a separate bowl. Add the cooled flour mixture 1 tablespoon at a time while continuing to beat.
Tips:
This icing is so worth the effort, but it can be a bit finicky. Follow the instructions and be sure to cool the flour mixture completely. Do not use butter that is too soft. Enjoy!
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For my daughter’s 7th birthday, we had a Hawaiian themed party. It was one of my favourite birthday party themes and we had so much fun. I followed the same structure that I use for most parties, and even duplicated some of the ideas.
invitations
decorations
activities/games
snacks and beverages
cake(s) ~ plan, design and bake a cake/cupcakes (or save the hassle and order one)
loot bags
This is Eden all dressed up for her party. All of the girls received similar “costumes” as part of their loot bag. We used this backdrop for many of the birthday photos.
For a complete breakdown of party planning steps and organization, see my Birthday Party Planning post.
Invitations:
At this point, I had not done much card making, so the invitations were made on the computer with cute fonts and clip art. It was nothing special, but contained all of the information and matched the theme. I tried to put a sample in the post, but I have changed from Word to Mac, so the format was all off and didn’t look nearly as good as the original. I normally make an extra invitation to put in the kid’s scrapbooks as well.
Decorations:
I made my traditional happy birthday banner for Eden. In addition, I made a huge ocean/beach backdrop for photos. I don’t usually buy those decoration sets, but did purchase a few for this particular party. You can see the Hula Girl and a few other decorations that are not homemade. Some of the murals/decorations were lent to me for the party, as the grade 2 classes in my school do a big Hawaiian theme. The colours were very beachy and bright, and we had tiki lights around the room. We had grass skirts around the buffet in the dining room and a centerpiece that consisted of floating flower candles and scattered sea shells. We had coconut incense (very mild), flip-flop plates and butterfly and fish serving dishes. There were beach towels randomly placed around the room, a palm tree with “balloons” for coconuts, and we used the wicker chairs from our outdoor furniture set to add to theme. I also used decorations from past birthdays such as the homemade butterflies from Eden’s second birthday. We also dressed up in theme related attire. Tropical music played in the background and was used for the games.
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Games and Activities:
Pin the Coconut on the Tree – We separated Fudgee-O sandwich cookies. The girls licked the icing and stuck it to the tree. The cookies were the coconuts!
Pineapple Bowling – I made paper maché pineapples from 2 L pop bottles and then we used a real coconut for a bowling ball. Our long hardwood floor hallway made a great bowling alley. (These were used later in the year for Shay’s Pirate Party)
Musical Beach Towels
Hula Dancing and the Limbo (under a pool noodle)
Pass the Present – Wrap a little gift/surprise item in a box (in paper that goes with the theme, if possible). You then proceed to add layers of wrapping paper on the outside equal to the number of kids, so that each child will get a turn to unwrap the present. You pass the present around the circle to music and when the music stops, the person holding the present gets to unwrap a layer. The person that unwraps the final layer gets to keep the prize inside.
Craft: The girls made bracelets with seashell beads.
Seashell Bracelet
Pin the Coconut on the Tree
Pineapple Bowling
Pineapple Bowling
Snacks and Beverages:
We served fresh fruit, fish crackers and a little plate of fish-shaped jube jubes.
Virgin Strawberry Daiquiris were served for the beverage. The drinks were served with a slice of fresh fruit on the edge, a straw and of course, an umbrella!
Cake and Ice Cream:
I made two cakes. One for Eden’s Hawaiian Party with her friends and one for the family party. The Hula Girl cake was served at the party she had with her friends and the flip-flop cake was served later in the evening to family. The Hula Girl cake was based on the same idea as a Barbie Doll cake. I just tweaked the idea for the Hawaiian theme. The flip-flops were easy and didn’t require much prep. I simply made two sheet cakes and cut them each into a flip-flop shape. I frosted them and then decorated them with a Fruit Roll-Up. I don’t seem to have a picture of the cake and ice cream being served, but I cut a 2 L box of ice cream into slices and then used a pineapple cookie cutter to make ice cream cut-outs. I sprinkled yellow coloured sugar on the pineapple and green on for the leaves. They were then re-frozen on a tray until serving time. Everyone got a piece of pineapple ice cream (vanilla flavoured) with their cake.
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Loot Bags:
Each of the girls received a lei, grass skirt, sunglasses and a flower for their hair as soon as they arrived. This would all be taken home at the end of the party as part of their loot. They also received flip-flop barrettes, homemade flip-flop cookies and a beach themed discovery bottle. The discovery bottles were made from recylced water bottles. We filled them with water, blue food colouring (a bit of oil – I think), some sand, seashells and a few tiny sea animals (plastic or erasers). To be honest, it was a few years ago and I don’t exactly remember or have a photo of the finished bottles. Once they have been filled,you simply glue gun the lid closed. All of their loot was taken home in a canvas bag that had big tropical flowers on it. I have so many great pictures of all of the girls against the backdrop all dressed-up with their umbrella drinks in hand. So cute, but I didn’t feel I could share photos with anyone else’s children, so you just have to use your imagination. I absolutely love giving costumes as part of the loot. The kids not only have fun at the party, but can continue to play dress-up at home after.
Here you can see the flip flop cookies that were handed-out to the guests at the end of the party.
There was a beach umbrella right at the entrance that the girls walked under to enter the party. You can see the loot bags on the left.
This party was so much fun. We have so many great photos of the party. I always try to get a few group shots and a picture of the birthday boy/girl with each of their friends, in addition to all of the random snap shots that are taken. A party like this is so much work, but my daughter still remembers it and talks about it. It seems like the days of theme parties are behind us, as the kids have gotten older and just want to hang-out with their friends. I am so glad I put the extra effort in when they were little!
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