Tool Birthday Cake

 

The tools and paper are made out of fondant. I found the message sign at Walmart. 

Harry Potter Birthday Party

 For Rachel's 11th birthday, she chose a Harry Potter theme. This is the cake she designed...The bottom is house color fondant. The top is piped with a leaf tip. I used fondant for the eyes and beak. The wand is a chocolate wand I bought and the snitch is made from a Ferrero Rocher. 

The charcuterie board was inspired by the house colors. 

I used edible markers for designing the character marshmallows. 

Under each sugar cone I put house color M&Ms. When a person uncovered their color, they put on the matching house color tie. 

For the ties, I drew a tie shape on a piece of cardstock and then traced the shape on colored felt. I cut them out and hot glued stripes on it and hot glued a safety pin on the back. 

Rachel's acceptance letter was in the bottom envelope. I just used a piece of string to create this fireplace display. 

At the end of the night we practiced our potion making. 

Shark Week Party

We enjoy watching some of the Shark Week specials on Discovery, so we decided to have a little themed food party for the show. 

I found some shark toys from Menards for 99 cents that I used to decorate the platter. We also made Food Network's shark jello pops. 

Ingredients: 

3 1/2 cups of white cranberry juice (I could only find white cranberry peach)

1 cup Kool-Aid Burst Berry Blue

2 Tbsp sugar

4 packages of unflavored gelatin

Pound cake (you will need 8 thin slices)

blue melting candy discs

white sprinkles

rainbow Nerds

gummy sharks

whipped cream

Start by bringing the juice, Kool-aid and sugar to a boil. Remove from heat and slowly whisk in the packages of unflavored gelatin until it is dissolved. Pour in a 9x13 inch baking pan. Refrigerate, stirring every 10 minutes until the gelatin starts to thicken. It took mine 50 minutes. 

Meanwhile, use push-pop molds to cut circles of pound cake to fit in the bottom of the mold. Melt your blue chocolate and dip the top of the mold in the chocolate. Roll the chocolate in the white sprinkles and sit on wax paper. 

Fill the pops with nerds and a gummy shark. Then top with the gelatin. I do not have a pop stand, so I used toilet paper rolls and some cups stuffed with paper towel until the gelatin was fully set. 

Top with whipped cream when serving. 

7th Annual Christmas in July Party

We love celebrating Christmas in July. We always take our annual trip to Bronner's Christmas Wonderland at this time of the year too. 

This year we did a variety of things and spread out the festivities over two days. 

Creating the charcuterie boards was pretty fun. I found some tree bowls on the Clearance at Meijer! I always hit the clearance sections after the holidays to save things for this time of the year. 

We opened small gifts. 

We played Charlie Brown  Christmas Bingo.

I froze different shape ice cream balls in the freezer for a couple of hours. I just put them on a cookie sheet covered with wax paper. That made the ice cream balls easier to work with. The kids used various things like mini chocolate chips, peanut butter cups, pretzel sticks, fruit by the foot, and some carrot sprinkles I had left from Christmas.  

We had snowmen pancakes for breakfast. 

I cut Christmas trees out of pizza dough and let the kids decorate their own pizza. 

We had frozen hot chocolate (4 packages of hot chocolate mix, 1 1/2 cups milk, and ice cubes in the blender)

We also made some Christmas ornaments and did some painting. 

Little Debbie Christmas Tree Copycat

 

I found this recipe on Pinterest: https://www.gracelikerainblog.com/2021/01/christmas-tree-cakes.html?epik=dj0yJnU9LVZXV3BSY0lvbHQ1bTFwb194dE41WW1FMWZ1R1RRUFgmcD0wJm49N21uS2xBclhPSFFZQkYyaGh6dHhpUSZ0PUFBQUFBR0xPMlBN

Ingredients: 

Cake:

6 eggs

1 white cake mix

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup oil

1/2 cup powdered sugar

Filling: 

1 7 oz jar of marshmallow fluff

3/4 cup butter softened

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Coating:  

24 oz almond bark

2 Tbsp Crisco

Start by preheating the oven to 375 degrees. Line two cookie sheet pans with parchment paper. Spray the paper with cooking spray. 

Put the eggs in a bowl and beat on high speed for 6 minutes. Add the cake mix, water, oil, and powdered sugar. Beat for another minute or so. 

Measure out about 2 1/4 cups of batter and pour into one of the baking pans. Put the other 2 1/4 cup of batter in the other baking pan. If there is any remaining, put equal amounts in the pans. Bake for about 10 minutes. 

I baked these one at a time. Let it cool completely. 

I only had a pretty large tree cookie cutter, so I only got 15 trees from each pan, but would have used a smaller cookie cutter if I had it. 

Make the filling while the cake cools. 

Beat the marshmallow fluff, butter, and vanilla until smooth. Slowly add the powdered sugar. Beat until smooth. 

I put the filling in a ziploc bag and cut the tip of the bottom of the bag. I piped that on to 15 of the cakes. 

Take the other 15 cakes and put on top of the filling. Melt the almond bark in the microwave, stirring after every minute. When it is melted, add the Crisco and stir until melted. This will help thin the chocolate. 

I put the cakes in the freezer for a couple of hours before I dipped them. I used a fork to shake off the excess almond bark before letting them sit on a piece of wax paper. While the almond bark is still wet, sprinkle with green sanding sugar. 

I piped some red cake decorating frosting on top of that to complete the look.

2021 Basketball Draft Party

The boys get very excited for the NBA Draft. This was our party from 2021. 

I created a cookie cake with the NBA logo. I just drew this freehand with frosting. 

For food we had "draft" root beer, nachos, hot dogs, soft pretzel bites, cheeseballs, and veggies. 

Space Jam Party

When the Space Jam movie with Lebron James came out last summer, we decided to throw a little movie party. I had this photo backdrop that the kids used to pose in front of. (I have used this backdrop for various basketball themed parties.) 

We also had this backdrop to take some fun pictures. 

Our food consisted of Space Jam macaroni and cheese, soft pretzels, hot dogs, concession chips and candy, and some sneaker gummies. 

 

2021 Christmas in July Party

 While trying to plan for our Christmas in July party this year, I realized I didn't post last year's party. So...here it is:

I put activities in the red solo cup tree that I made a few years ago. The kids punched through the tissue paper to find each activity. One of them was to make red and green jello trifles. 

We designed Christmas scratch art trees.

We played some games, including stack a snowman with chopsticks and marshmallows. 

Find the junior mints hidden in whipped cream. 

Frozen hot chocolate

Played the 5-marker challenge. Kids picked 5 markers (while they were blindfolded) and colored a Christmas picture using only those colors. 

Played Charlie Brown Christmas Bingo

Made candy canes 

Opened a small gift after decorating our seasonal tree. 

Ate reindeer pancakes