The Magic of Oreos

Two words: Oreo Buttercream.

• 8 oz. unsalted softened butter
• 4 c. powdered sugar
• 2 T milk
• 2 t. vanilla extract
• 2 t. fresh lemon juice
• 12-14 Oreos, finely crushed in food processor (centers and all!)
• Bag of mini oreos - for garnish

In a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, add 1/2 the powdered sugar plus all of the other ingredients. Beat until moistened. Scrape down the bowl. Add the rest of the powdered sugar and the oreos. If the frosting is still too thick, you can add a tiny bit of milk at a time until it reaches the desired consistency. Garnish with one mini oreo per cookie, alternatively, you can cut the full size cookies in half and insert half into each cupcake.

Pink Camouflage Birthday - Part two

"Photo Booth" with Autumn and her party guests

In part two of this fabulous birthday party how-to, I will do my best to explain the cake. Sadly, I neglected to take photos of exactly what I did, but I promise it was easier than you might think!


The Cake

Using 2 boxes of cake mix, I made 2 six inch round cakes and 2 eight inch round cakes. After they cooled, I took a serrated knife and leveled them by cutting the tops off. Place the bottom layer of the 8 inch cake on a cardboard round (you can buy them or make your own) cover the top with filling or frosting, and put the top layer on. Repeat for the smaller cake. Keeping each two layer cake separate, "dirty ice" or frost with a thin layer of buttercream to make the surface smooth for the fondant to stick to. Refrigerate.

Now for the fun part!


The Fondant

when the fondant is rolled out, the "snakes" of shades of pink
fondant become the cornerstone of the Camouflage pattern

1) Buy or make fondant icing. The store bought kind has a chart on the side to tell how much you need for what size cake.
2) Pull out a chunk of fondant from the bucket and weigh it for the 8" 2 layer cake, then add a bit of pink food coloring and knead it in. Pull off three much smaller pieces and add pink food coloring to make three additional shades of pink (light to dark).
3) Take your main piece of light pink fondant shape it into a 5-6" disk, press several small snake shaped pieces of the other shades of pink fondant into it - do this randomly, with some overlapping.
4) Using a rolling pin and a bit of powder sugar (so it won's stick to the work surface or the rolling pin) roll out the fondant to a thickness of no more thank 1/4" thick.
5) Your rolled fondant piece will look like camouflage!
6) Place the rolled piece of fondant over the 8" layer cake. Smooth the fondant over the top and along the sides using your hands, working it so there are no wrinkles. Trim off any excess fondant with a knife or pizza cutter.
7) Repeat with second layer cake.


The Decorative Border

cut WAY more than you think you might use... you will use them!

1) While the leftover fondant is still rolled out on the table, take a small biscuit cutter or pastry tip and cut circles out of the camouflage fondant.
2) Roll the circles into little fondant balls - they will all be fairly similar in size.


The Assembly

in serving the cake, you can see the construction of the top layer

1) Place the larger round cake on a plate or cake stand.
2) Take 3 straws, cut to the height of the 8" layer cake, and insert them in a triangle pattern in the center area of the cake to support the weight of the 2nd tier.
3) Place the 6" cake on top, in the center.
4) Put a small dot of leftover buttercream (in a pastry bag with a tip) at the base of the bottom cake and cover with a camo fondant ball - repeat, repeat, repeat until the bases of both stacked tiers are encircled with fondant balls.

ta da!

The Adventure

My daughter is obsessed with mysteries and clues and scavenger hunts! That is why I planned on planning a scavenger hunt for the main event at her party. Unfortunately, it was scheduled to rain, and here in Southern California, if we go outside in the rain, we melt.

So, an indoor activity it was! I made 8 "challenge cards" for each individual child. The challenges ranged from simple codes (alphabet letters corresponding with numbers), map questions (where is New Orleans), to questions they had to "Google" to find the answer (my sister was in charge of helping the kids on the computer) to my absolute favorite: "Kid vs. Food" - eat a veggie (from the crudité platter) that you've never eaten before. That one was so funny!

party guests solving challenges

I did use several of the challenges over again for different kids, like draw a self portrait, put a puzzle together, or build a 3 ft tall tinker toy structure. And I did attempt to gear the question for the individual (age, sex, interest).

After solving one challenge, the child brought proof of their answer to the "Command Central" table - my friend Julia. Their challenge card was stamped and their passport (oh, I forgot to tell you about the passport) stamped as well. They exchanged their solved challenge for a new one, and after solving all of them (or as many as they wanted to) they received a bag of camouflage MnMs.

Julia at the Command Central table (AKA the kitchen table)

The Result

All in all, this party was well worth the effort - just look at that cute little girl...oops! I mean look at that grown up 8 year old, she loved every minute of it! If your birthday girl is obsessed with all things solving-the-mystery, everything I used is now available for purchase! Find this pink camouflage printable party at the Paper & Cake (brand new) website.

Tea (& Cake) for 10

For my daughter Autumn's 5th Birthday party, she asked for a Tea Party theme. I'm pretty sure the reason she asked is because only a few months earlier, she watched me throw a tea party for my mother's birthday - and it was pink and sparkly and grown-up.

So, as usual, I did some research online to see what kind of inspiration I could come up with. The first thing I uncovered, was how to make a teapot cake (more on that nightmare later) and also, I found a very cute teapot piñata.

With my research complete, I began as I always do, with the invitations...

Invitations

To start, I drew a simple teapot shape. Using the airbrush tool in Adobe Photoshop I outlined the edges in pink and added polka dots and decorated the "lid" in shades of green. After printing these on my home color printer, I (not too carefully) cut out the shape and used a dimensional tape to adhere the teapot to a flat pink card. Do a cute little matching label (thanks Avery), throw them in the mail, and there you go!

This ended up being a little bit of extra work than I'm used to - what with all the cutting - but we were only inviting 9 little girls (and two of them sibblings) I really only had to make eight. Easy, right?


Decorations

Two words: flowers and teapots (paper teapots). Those really were the only decorations - simple, very inexpensive and visually stunning (if I do say so myself).

If you've ever read any of my birthday party how-tos, you have see these fishbowl style vases before. I own three of the small size, and one large one and they are the most versatile decorating staple I own. For this party, I purchased pink and white roses from the grocery store (they were on sale, how can you go wrong with that?) and arranged them with two shades of pink curling ribbon from my ribbon box, and placed them around the house.




As for the paper teapots, my mother drew these 3 teapot shapes which I then transferred to a thick cardstock along with the invitation teapot (no computers here ladies). Using 8.5x11" paper in different shades/patterns of pink, I traced and cut teapots until I could trace and cut no more. Using regular old scotch tape, I affixed a couple dozen of these to the windows and glass doors around the house.







Food


As this was a tea party, coming up with food items was a snap! When your guest list is just kids, make the food choices appetizing for them - if not necessarily for you. We offered apple scones, pumpkin muffins, turkey and cheese sandwiches and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

To make the sandwiches look slightly more fancy, I used alternating pieces of wheat and white bread cut into triangles without the crust (kids don't like the crust anyway, right?) You could also use a cookie or biscuit cutter for more variety.




I also served a vanilla DECAF tea (oh please make sure it is decaffeinated) with lots of milk, and lemonade on the fancy china. The girls were so careful and respectful of the dishes - it was so nice!


Activity


I'm sure everyone understands me when I say, at these birthday parties I try to save money whenever possible. This craft project is no different. On 6ft tables (from my garage) I set out baskets full of art supplies (from my kids art supply bins) and cut more teapots out of cardstock for decorating with rubber stamps, stickers, glitter glue, crayons and markers. The only item I purchased, were some cute little plastic tea cups with saucers to decorate, and to be part of the party favor bag.



Right after the craft, the kids all played dress up. I placed the full length mirror from my closet against the wall, and filled up a toy box full of our dress up things, as well as a few items we borrowed from a neighbor. It was a HIT! These little girls who came already dressed in cute party clothes piled on more sparkly frilly layers and topped that off with a crown, tiara or fairy wings.







Games



Does anyone else have an unnatural obsession with the Cake Walk activity from their childhood? I can not help myself but to come up with any/every excuse to plan a cake walk! Using a (borrowed) heart shaped cake pan, box-of-cake mix and can-of-frosting, I made 10 of the cutest pink sprinkle covered cakes. I put them all on a 6" cardboard cake round and added a paper doily for good measure.




You've never heard of a Cake Walk before? Well, let me explain how it works. First, mark a large numbered circle on the ground with chalk (if you can't use chalk then whatever you do use has to stand up to marching and running and stomping little feet so choose carefully). We had 10 guests so we numbered our spots on the ground 1 through 10 (you can certainly have more numbers than that, but, depending on how many guests you have you can always take turns). We played music as the girls marched in a circle, and when the music stops everyone stands on one number.

Technically, you then pull a number out of a "hat" and call it out - whomever is standing on the number gets to go choose a cake as their prize. Now, these girls were all 5 and under - and I think everyone here remembers my personal guideline of "non-competitive games"- so we did stretch the truth a little and called out numbers that didn't necessarily correspond with what was written on the paper, just so that each child won one cake, fair and square (and I didn't have to make more than 10 of those cute little heart shaped cakes).

Now if that wasn't enough, we also had a Piñata. Not just any Piñata, a teapot Piñata!







Cake



Let's just say, it is always a smart idea to have a back up plan... just in case. A bakery nearby should do the trick.

This cake was a nightmare for me to make! I'm not even going to tell you how to make it, there are so many places online that you can go to that give you step by step instructions, like here and here.

My problems began when the "directions" I found online called for angel food cake baked in a round Pyrex glass mixing bowl. Well, after the angel food blew up, I switched to regular cake (box of cake mix) and baked cake in the mixing bowl 3 times. What a mess! I just wasn't grasping the idea that the regular cake was to heavy to hold itself up. At about 11 o'clock the night before, I gave up, and told myself I would order a cake the next morning at 10am. At about 7am, I gave myself one last chance to put it together. I slowly assembled the bottom and top halves with a sliver of the third round in between. About a ton of buttercream later, it was finished - and it even looked pretty cute.

Tip #1: Try using cardstock for the handle and the spout.
Tip #2: Use a beautiful platter rather than a cake board covered in tin foil.

But in the end, with the look on my daughter's face, it was kind of worth it. Don't you think?

To wrap it up, I hope you have gotten at least a couple good ideas to help you
with your next tea party. Just use your creativity to make any theme your own, spend as little as possible and make it look homemade - even if it isn't!

Featured: Creative Parties & Showers

Remember this fabulous Race Car themed party I gave for my son's first birthday? Well, the lovely Shannon over at Creative Parties and Showers is featuring it over at her blog today. Yay!

Pirate Birthday Party {part two}

Want to create this party for yourself? This Pirate Birthday printable party set comes with invitations, decorations and tutorials. Only available at Paper & Cake!

Ready for more Pirate Birthday Party ideas? Well, thanks for being patient because this info is worth it's weight in gold!

Dress Up

Every pirate needs at least a good hat and a sparkly sash. Oh, and a tattoo or two too. These felt hats were fairly inexpensive and easy to customize with some metallic silver dimensional fabric paint from Michael's. I wrote every child's name in under 10 minutes, me, Mrs. Print-it-out-on-the-computer-and-trace-it-so-it-is-perfect, freehanded all 23 names.

The black and gold sashes were cut from 4 yards of fabric purchased with a coupon (thanks Aunt Janet) from our local chain store.

And to help those pirates feel more, well, like pirates, temporary tattoos work every time.

Games

Pirate Ship Battle

While doing some Pirate-y research one day, I happened upon one fabulous idea over at Party Planning Mom. She made two large cardboard pirate ships and had a game involving paper canon balls.

So, putting my own spin this super idea, I had access to giant 4ft. by 6ft. ultra heavy duty cardboard server boxes from my husband's work (every time he sees a new one, he brings it home - so we've made; a house, a market, a cafe and a pirate ship). Using a sawzall, he cut two of them down into ship-shaped shapes. After some failed experimenting with (notches and slits) we decided on a roll of duct tape to hold them together.

The night before the party, my friend Julia came by (as she always does, bless her, to help with all the last minute ridiculousness) and helped me paint them, using leftover cans of brown, blue and red that I found on the "old paint shelf".

To round out this "game" (if you've ever been here before, you know I am a fan of the non competitive games - everyone is a winner!), I made canon balls out of wadded up paper covered in aluminum foil. Not wanting to be wasteful, I used the ripped out pages of outdated catalogues and covered them in the smallest piece of foil possible. There were probably a hundred of the balls, and grown-ups and kids alike threw these almost constantly throughout the 3 hour party.

Treasure Hunt

What would you do with a couple hundred necklaces and 300 plastic coins? Well hide them of course! We draped and sprinkled pirate treasure from stem to stern, I mean all over the house, inside and out - just randomly. Using their decorated tresure loot bags, the kids picked up what they could find as part of their "goody bag" to bring home with them. We didn't set any rules for this one, in fact tresure hunting went on throughout the party (and yes, I am still finding necklaces... especially outside).

Craft Activity

Make your own treasure map! Again, I took it a little further by formatting the little icons to fit on a sheet of clear Avery address labels. I wanted the children to create their treasure map and immediately be able to use it - without having to wait for glue to dry.

Also at the craft table, I set out brown paper lunch sacks (for treasure collecting) with name tags for them, along with crayons, markers and self-adhesive jewels for decorating till your heart's content.

Cake

I LOVED making this ridiculous cake! It was very easy... well... comparatively. I used plain old box of cake mix (it works just fine and tastes good too) and splurged by frosting with a chocolate mousse buttercream.

1} Bake 2 9x12 cakes, cool them completely. Using the template below and a long serrated knife, cut your cake into 4 sections.

template 1

2} cut one of the long rectangles into triangles that will form the bow (front end of the ship).

template 2

3} Take a piece of cardboard, and cut it into the shape of the finished size/shape, to use on the bottom of the cake. That is, one rectangle plus one triangle.

4} Place your first rectangular layer on the cardboard and frost (or use any filling of your choice). Place second rectangular layer and frost. Repeat with third layer.

5} Next, stack and frost two small rectangles overhanging at the back. Use wooden skewers to hold cake in place. Trim skewers to height by first inserting all the way into the cake, mark the height with a pen, pull them back out and cut at your mark, then reinsert.

6} Stack and frost in between each of the 5 triangular layers that make up the bow of the ship. Again, use wooden skewers to hold in place. Your final side-view should look like this diagram below.

diagram 3

7} Frost entire ship until covered, and refrigerate.

8} Place cake on a larger cake board to decorate according to the photo below. The water is strips of "Blue Raspberry Sour Belt", I used red and white m&m's, black licorice for the anchor (this was difficult, to get it to stay in the shape my friend Julia used twist ties to hold it in place overnight), and made printable sails on my computer - again held in place with wooden skewers.

As if a cake wasn't enough, I made a few cupcakes as well. I used the same box of cake mix, same frosting, and designed a coordinating cupcake "wrapper" to round out the look.

want your own cupcake wrappers? you can find them in the shop!

ball and chain accessory and photo courtesy of my sister

I tried extra hard to save money by using what I already had around the house. A pirate theme is simple to accessorize - especially using this Pirate printable partyware collection - and easy to plan. Use some creative thinking to make it your own, spend as little as possible and make it look homemade - even if it isn't!