Mad Tea Party Baby Shower

My beautiful friend Meredith is pregnant and she is having a GIRL!!  Meredith is so sweet and we LOVE her, so my friend Crystal put on our baby-shower-throwin' hats yet again!  This time, we chose a tea party as a theme.  Meredith is, quite literally, a princess (she worked at Disney World for a few years after college as Cinderella AND Aurora).  Because we chose a tea party, and Mere has such a heart for Disney magic, we chose to make the tea party an Alice In Wonderland style Mad Tea Party!

I made invitations, menus, tea labels, and place cards on microsoft word.  If any one reading this is interested in buying printables, let me know.  If there is interest, I was considering putting them in an etsy shop.  The menus said "Eat Me" and the tea labels said "Drink Me" to go with the Alice In Wonderland theme.

The invitations say: "The Queen of Hearts requests the honor of your presence at a mad tea party baby shower for Meredith.  Don't be late for the very important date 12 o'clock noon June 21.  Arrive in your best tea attire for all of us to admire!" and then it gives the address.  I made a little teabag & tag to add for the RSVP and registry info.  The RSVP says: "RSVP by June 18th to [my email address] or off with your head!"

Here is the menu:

Crystal and I combined our collections of china and serving dishes and we filled the tables with beautiful flowery dishes, silver flatware, tea pots, and tiered tea treat servers.  We made all of Meredith's favorite things, including my homemade cupcakes! I made a corsage for Mere with silk flowers with a little clock to go with the theme.  We covered Crystal's house with different types of whimsical flowers and I literally painted some roses red for the table.  I had a ton of little tea cups that my grandmother left me when she passed.  We filled them with hummus and veggies so each girl who attended had their own personal serving and got to chose a unique cup and saucer.  

If anyone has questions, please feel free to comment!!  Enjoy!

The above photo is one of the games we played:  name that baby food!  Some ladies chose only to use their noses, but some actually tasted!

Max and Ruby Birthday Cake

My beautiful niece turned 5 this June.  She is my little-bestie.  I love her, and she loves her "Meme."  This year, she chose strawberry cake with strawberry buttercream and wanted a Max and Ruby birthday party.  I pinned several cakes on Pinterest and discussed options with my Sis-in-law.  She and I decided to use THIS CAKE and THIS CAKE to model Emma's cake after.

I have usually made my own fondant for all of my cakes in the past.  However, with my internship going on and because I had so many things to mold, I opted to buy it.  I bought Duff brand and Wilton brand fondant.  My fondant tends to be slightly dry as well, and with molding characters, I knew I would need something moist and pliable.

I got the blue Duff fondant to cover the cake.  It tasted GREAT, just as good as my homemade fondant that is made with marshmallow, water, powdered sugar, and almond extract.  I bought a pack of white Wilton fondant and two multi-packs of Wilton fondant. I used the Wilton on all of the cake decorations.

I used edible markers to draw on Max and Ruby's clothes.  The pack didn't come with a black marker, so I used a felt tipped pen and made sure no one ate Max or Ruby's head (haha).  My friend Laura helped me mold Ruby because I had never made 3D models like this before, but I made Max all by myself :)  

The coolest technique we used was for the pine trees.  We made green cones with fondant and took scissors and snipped all over the tree to make it look more like a tree.

Emma let out the most heart-warming squeal when she saw her cake and she told me a thousand times that weekend that I was the best cake-baker in the world.  Man I love her!!

For those of you who are like me and know nothing about kids' cartoons these days, this is what Max and Ruby look like:

Here are the pictures of Emma's Cake!

Team Umizoomi Birthday Cake

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE my niece Emma and nephew Evan.  They are the sweetest, most kindhearted, and bright-eyed little children ever!  I have the ultimate privilege of making their birthday cakes each year.  This year was no exception.  Luckily, Evan's birthday party fell the weekend on the end of my spring break from law school, and Emma's birthday is in June, while I'm out for summer [see my next post for Emma's cake].

Evan had chocolate cake with chocolate ganache covered with fondant in a Team Umizoomi theme.  Evan loves the cartoon (and I've never seen it haha).  I used a lot of bright colors and basic shapes on Evan's cake.  I printed some images of Geo and Bot and took them to Lowe's Foods and had them printed onto edible paper.  I transferred those images to fondant and put them on the cake.  This way they would be pretty exact.  While I think I could probably make the images with fondant after a lot of hard work and intricate cutting, I am a hopeless perfectionist and its much less stressful to use an actual image.

I made a pennant bunting with Evan's name on it and a fondant "2" and used those for the topper.

The cake went over SO well and Evan and his Momma, my sweet sis-in-law, loved it!!

Let me know what you think!

Beau or Bow Baby Shower

My sweet friend Betsy, who has since had a gorgeous sweet little boy Atticus, was pregnant back in March.  She and her husband had elected to get the ultimate surprise and wait to find out the gender of their baby.  My friend Crystal and I threw her a baby shower with a pretty neat theme:

Beau or Bow: In May We Will Know

Most people use the blue and pink theme for a gender reveal, but because Betsy was equally excited to have either a boy or a girl, we chose to have a boy-girl themed shower.  We chose mustaches and bows and, of course, pink and blue to accent the party.

As for food, we had cheese and chocolate fondue.  We made two kinds of cheese: a cheddar cheese and an italian white cheese.  With the cheddar, we served kielbasa, roasted broccoli, homemade pretzel bites, and apples.  With the italian cheese, we served pepperoni, homemade meatballs, bread, and roasted asparagus.  

For dessert, we had the chocolate fondue with strawberries, pineapple, rice krispy treats, marshmallows, and cheesecake bites.  I also made two kinds of homemade funfetti cupcakes: pink and blue.

Crystal made a beautiful pennant bunting with blue and pink fabrics and  I made a corsage for Betsy with a pink and blue theme.  I used microsoft word to make the menu with images I found on google.  The formatting was tough, but I made it work!  I framed the menu for the party.  It was a hit!

Enjoy these photos!!  If anyone has any questions about how we made something, please comment!

Oh one last thing....Here is a photo of the sweet baby boy at about a week and a half after he was born!