Easiest Star Wars Cupcake Toppers

What is it about Star Wars that makes little boys (and girls) go nuts?  My eight year old knows more about Star Wars than anyone I know.  So for his birthday last week, of course he wanted Star Wars cupcakes.  At first he requested that I use frosting to create Yoda, Obi, etc. on the top of each cupcake.  That was quickly vetoed (not only am I on bed rest for this pregnancy, but there's no way on earth I was going to do that!).  This is what I came up with:

Blue for the good guys

Red for the bad guys

Seriously, these were so easy to make!  I grabbed two packs of Star Wars stickers from Target (24 stickers in each pack), then stuck two matching stickers together with a toothpick in the middle.  The kids loved them and they only took a few minutes to make!

I'm linking up to:
Tatertots and Jello Weekend Wrap Up Party

Rainbow Cake

Remember this, last year's attempt at a rainbow cake for St. Patrick's Day? What can I say, I'm a glutton for punishment--I had to try a rainbow cake again this year.  I know what you're thinking... But it worked!  I went smaller, lots smaller this year.  Let me show you.

I only used one box of white cake mix.  I just divided it into six bowls, used food coloring to create six different colors, then poured them carefully into the bundt cake pan.  I started with the red, then poured the orange on top of that, then the yellow on top of that, etc.  I wasn't sure if I'd end up with a big brown mess, but as you can see, it worked wonderfully!  So simple, so fun.

Princess Tea Party

My daughter turned five years old yesterday, so we celebrated with a Princess Tea Party!  Because she's still so young, we only wanted to do something small.  We had six girls, for just an hour and fifteen minutes.  It was perfect... Any longer and I think it might have lost its magic.  Let me show you what we did!

Decorating was the main event.  Luckily, we were able to dig around our house and find just about everything that we needed.  I had purchased the giant rose wreath months ago at Goodwill--I was going  to pull the roses off and use the frame, but it was perfect for our tea party.  The lamp is from my kids' bedroom.  Then we just filled every glass jar we could find with pretty candies.  I picked up the china cupcake stand for a couple of bucks at Goodwill, as well.  We really only bought candy and balloons!

The cupcakes were a cinch to decorate.  I whipped up a batch of buttercream frosting, dropped a dollop of white onto each mini-cupcake, refrigerated them until set, then dropped another dollop of either pink or purple on top.  I topped them with a tiny pearl candy.

The cake is a two layer chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream frosting between the layers and on the outside.  I then used giant confetti sprinkles to polka-dot the whole thing.  I used the mini candy pearls (like on the cupcakes) to make a "5," and to outline the rose.  I created the rose from marzipan, then used edible pearl dust to color it pink.

To begin our tea party, we rang this beautiful bell.  It was my grandma's.

My daughter found this fancy hat candle holder at Goodwill, too, for only $2.  I always think of big hats when I think of tea parties, don't you?

To set the table, I purchased a cup and saucer for each girl, from Goodwill.  Each cup and saucer only cost about $.30, so to say that it was cost effective is an understatement!  We sent them each home with their own teacup and saucer, in lieu of goodie bags.

We began the party by decorating the crowns you see at each place setting (12 for $2.50 at JoAnn's).  The girls could color their crowns or glue tiny jewels onto the front.  (We already had the jewels, as they were actually the dragon scales that we used in the wand cores for my son's Harry Potter birthday party in April.)  This was a good opening activity, as it gave the kids something to do when they arrived, and while they waited for the actual tea party to begin.

After crown decorating, we painted their fingernails.  I just grabbed a few dollar varieties, plus some cheap decals that we put on once their nails were dry.  This was a big hit; all the girls talked about how excited their moms would be to see their pretty nails.

While the girls had their nails painted and waited to dry, my husband did face-painting.  We didn't do anything crazy, just whatever little thing the girls wanted.  It was mostly balloons, butterflies, hearts, etc.  I do think he did a castle with a moon in the middle and a red Christmas tree, though...

After the nails were dry and faces were painted, we served pink hot chocolate.  We don't drink real tea, plus I figured the girls would prefer hot chocolate to tea any day.  I simply heated eight cups of milk on the stove, poured in a bag of white chocolate chips (once the milk was steaming), added a touch of vanilla, then some pink food coloring.  Voila!

We also served the cupcakes, candy, cookies, etc. that were being used as decorations during this time.  This was the actual tea party!

Once the hot chocolate was poured, we sang Happy Birthday and ate cake.  Did I serve way too much sugar?  Yes.  Was it worth it, though?  Definitely!

Then we opened presents and time was up!  Short and sweet describes our Princess Tea Party perfectly.  My daughter loved it, the other girls had fun, and it was so very simple to do.  What more can you ask for?

I'm linking up to:

Georgia Peach Goodness

Each summer, a magnificent company called Tree-Ripe Citrus brings truckloads of sweet Georgia peaches straight to Wisconsin.  They sell these gorgeous peaches right out the back of their truck in twenty-five pound boxes.  Thank you, Tree-Ripe Citrus, for the Peach Cobbler we ate tonight, for the Peach Pound Cake, Peach Ice Cream and Peach Freezer Jam that I'll be making tomorrow.  I do love me some good peaches.

Do you have a favorite peach recipe?  If so, please share!  If I get enough responses, I'll put together an entire post dedicated to the most scrumptious peach recipes.  Thank you!

Patriotic Serving Tray

I know that the 4th is almost done, but if I post it by midnight, I think it counts, right?  I have been eyeing big and fancy serving trays everywhere I go.  We have a screened porch right off our kitchen and dining room, so I dream of having something lovely on which to carry food to the porch for our picnic dinners.  I'm stingy, though, and am not willing to pay $10 an arm and a leg.  Lucky for me, while wondering the aisles of Target (you know you do it too) the other day, I found a $20 extra-large serving tray that was clearanced down to $4.98!  It was a bit scratched up and one of the handles was loose, but it was nothing a little Gorilla Glue couldn't fix!  Perfect!  I headed to our local Dollar Tree to check out their Patriotic Decor, and fell in love with two gift bags.  I cut them to pieces, patchworked them onto the tray, then Mod Podged the heck out of them.  What do you think?

Before

After

We used the tray tonight for a big BBQ that we hosted and it was just right!  Hurray!

Home Grown

While not a craft, these do fall under the category of My Attempts At All Things Homemade.  I am very proud of my garden this year.  We started almost everything from seed in late March and are finally reaping the benefits of all our hard work.

Cupcake Clock

I continue to have a major infatuation with cupcakes.  Not only can they taste amazing, they can look adorable just about anywhere.  Remember this mirror?  I casually glanced towards my fabric this afternoon, only to find the leftover cupcake scraps calling my name.  Loudly.  Lucky for me, I found a clock in our basement that the glass front had fallen off of, which had also called my name earlier in the day.  And so, after some very simple crafting, I now have a fantastic cupcake clock to hang in my kitchen, perfectly matched to my sweet cupcake mirror.  It's the simple pleasures in life, people.  It really is.

I'm linking up to:

From Dishtowel to Decor

My husband and I loaded our kids in the car on Saturday, after our son's early morning soccer game, for our annual trip to IKEA.  Sometimes I wish we lived closer to an IKEA, but then after I go, I think it's a really good thing we don't, because otherwise we might be broke.  Anyways, I picked up some great project supplies on Saturday, one being a small wood-framed mirror.  I had imagined Mod Podging some gorgeous paper on to it, but tonight, I was inspired to go elsewhere.

Also from IKEA, I snagged some adorable dish towels, cupcake themed.  I'm a sucker for cupcakes as is, but add a cute polka dot tag, and I'm done for!

Knowing that there were three dish towels total, I felt free to hack one of them to pieces.  So I did, and now I have the cutest little mirror hanging in my kitchen.  I'm thinking of checking IKEA's website to see if I can order more of these towels--I'm in love!

The Making of the Golden Snitch Cake

The cake.  Finally.  Before I start, though, I have to make a confession.  Here it is:

Yup, my first attempt was a massive fail.  And let's be honest, that fail should be FAIL.  The final cake was the top of the snitch (half-sphere), whereas my first try was the entire round snitch (whole sphere).  Yes, I thought it would be awesome to make a ball, filled with Jelly Bellies.  Needless to say, it didn't work.  Let's move on to what did work, shall we?

I used a Betty Crocker Bake'n Fill Cake Pan.  This is crucial if you want to fill your cake with Jelly Bellies.  You can find it here.  The secret is a dome pan, seen below, with an insert pan that molds your cake, so that it bakes hollow.

So I baked my dome cake, with the insert, then filled it with Jelly Bellies, after it cooled.  I also baked a flat round cake.  I coated the rim of the dome cake with yellow buttercream frosting, then laid my flat round cake on top.  I then laid my cake plate on top of that and flipped it over.  See below:

Magical, right?  I then frosted the entire cake with yellow buttercream.  I used Wilton Gold Sparkle Gel to create the decorations on the outside of the Golden Snitch.  To be honest, I paused Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone a million times, trying to see the front, back, sides and top of the Snitch.  To be even more honest, embarrassingly so, I took pictures of the TV with my cell phone, so that I could refer back to the paused pictures while I was working in the kitchen.  My husband kept telling me that nobody would care, but, well, I cared!  

The wings... I thought for days about how to make the wings on the Golden Snitch.  I considered using real feathers, painted cardboard, card stock, cookies.  I even tried a few of those things.  What finally worked came from here.  I used yellow Wilton Candy Melts.  I melted the candy inside a decorating bag, with a thin tip already in the end of the bag.  I drew a wing on a piece of paper (trying multiple times!), then placed a piece of wax paper over that paper.  I used the decorating bag to pipe the melted candies onto the wax paper, tracing the shape of the wing onto the wax paper.  Then I slid the paper with the wing drawn on it out from under the wax paper, flipped it over, and traced another wing with the decorating bag.  That way, my wings were symmetric.  Lastly, I painted the wings, front and back, with Wilton Pearl Dust that I had left over from this.  I hope that makes sense--Please leave me a comment if you need more details.  I'm sorry I don't have pictures of that.

I did not put the wings into the cake until it was time to bring the cake out during the party.  I left the cake in the fridge over night and the wings in the freezer overnight.  Then I gently slid the wings into the sides of the cake.  I think that they would have been fine all night, but I didn't want to risk them breaking or sliding down the sides of the cake.

So there you have it!  Nothing too difficult, just a little time-consuming.  But it was so worth it when I saw all those little faces light up, first upon seeing the cake, then as all of the Jelly Bellies spilled out.  Good luck making your own cake!

Welcome to Hogwarts!

The party was amazing.  AMAZING!  (If I do say so myself...)  The kids had a wonderful time, the parents were blown away, and I didn't even end up with migraine!  My husband and I spent countless hours planning, creating, and preparing for this party; It was worth every minute.

Upon arrival, children were escorted through the front door, which had been transformed into Platform 9 3/4.  I made a Platform 9 3/4 sign by painting a piece of wood red, then using my Silhouette to cut "HOGWARTS EXPRESS" from sparkly gold paper.  I Mod Podged the letters to the board, along with a Hogwarts crest that I found on Google Images, then printed and cut.  I used a bowl to draw a circle on the board, painted it white, then drew and painted the 9 3/4 with black paint.  I think it looks pretty close to the sign from the movie!

The brick wall was made from a light blue sheet that I picked up at Goodwill.  My husband cut it to fit our doorway, then drew the bricks on with a Sharpie.  He also cut the slit for the kids to run through.  I spray painted it red, keeping the spray can at a bit of a distance so as to create an uneven look, like bricks.

I made this flag to hang outside our house.  Sort of like balloons for a regular party, right?  The how-to for the flag can be found here.

Inside our house, the kids found The Great Hall, with a nighttime sky on the enchanted ceiling.

In the books and movie, robes are a must-have at Hogwarts.  I sewed a robe for each of the kids, nine total.  They took me about a half-hour each, although eventually I just assembly-lined them, doing all the ironing at one time, hems at one time, etc. 

After they had their robes, the children were taken to Ollivander's Wand Shop.  There, they could choose a wand.  My husband carved unique patterns into all of the wands.  Didn't he do an incredible job?

The kids decorated their wands with markers.

They also could choose Phoenix feathers or dragon scales for the core of their wands.  My husband drilled holes into one end of each wand.  The kids stuffed them with feathers and small jewels (dragon feathers), and then I sealed the holes with hot glue.

Next was the Sorting Hat.  I created this hat using crumpled brown paper bags.  I hot glued torn pieces of the bags to a black witches hat that we had in our dress up clothes.  I tried to make the face look like the hat from the movie--My son loved it, but I'm not so sure.

I thought long and hard about how to have the Sorting Hat speak.  We thought about walkie-talkies or recordings.  But eventually, we decided to go with a baby monitor.  We hung a the speaker-end of the monitor inside the Sorting Hat, then put the other end in our basement.  My husband went downstairs and spoke into the baby monitor as the Sorting Hat, so it sounded like the hat was talking.  It worked perfectly--One of the dad's even asked me afterwards how we did it.  Success!

After being sorted, we went to Potions Class.  Each child got a small ceramic cauldron (found at JoAnn's).  The first potion contained an explosive clear liquid (water), jellyfish serum (bubble solution), and fire rocks (dry ice).  The kids were amazed by this.  

We had to rinse out the cauldrons between potions, so the kids spent the time stupifying each other.  We brought the benches for our picnic table inside and covered them with Dollar Store black tablecloths (same for the table).  It really added to the look of The Great Hall.

The next potion was a mixture of water and Iocane Powder (cornstartch).  This went unbelievably well.  Everybody had fun mixing, then being shocked that their solid turned "runny."  One kid said, "It's like a solid liquid!"  Yup, you got it.

This made a huge mess, so I was very glad that we had put down the tablecloths.

After Potions was over, it was time for a little QUIDDITCH!

Everybody got a broom, made from sticks and brush, found on the side of the road, courtesy of my hubby.

We had three foam balls, all red--One large one that was the Quaffle and two smaller ones that were the Bludgers.  The kids were separated into two teams.  They had to try to get the Quaffle through one of the hoops, but if they were hit by a Bludger, they had to drop the Quaffle.  They also had to stay on their brooms.

The rings were made by spray painting hula hoops that were nailed to wood, stuck in the ground.  There were three on each side, just like in real Quidditch.

That's a Bludger.

Prior to the party, I spray painted a golf ball gold, then hid it in our yard.  We chose a Seeker from each team, and rotated the Seekers each time a team scored--Those kids were responsible for searching the yard for the Golden Snitch.  Here it is after being found.

Quidditch took a lot of energy, so it was time for some food!  Cake time!  My son wanted a Golden Snitch cake--No pressure there, right?  This is what I came up with:

I have a lot of pictures from the making of this cake, so I'll post a how-to sometime in the near future.  In case you're wondering, though, yes, the wings are edible too!

Edit: Here's the how-to on the cake.

This was the coolest part of the cake by far--It was filled with Jelly Bellies, i.e.. Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans!  When I cut the first piece out of the cake, the Jelly Bellies all spilled out too.  The kids (and adults!) thought that it was pretty amazing.  One of the dads was completely incredulous that I had made the cake--He told me that it was "just so magical."  Talk about a compliment!

We also served Butterbeer.  It was Cream Soda (CAUTION: Be sure to buy non-caffeinated soda!  The first time my husband bought it, I checked the can and it had caffeine.  Can you even imagine?!?), mixed with Butterscotch Syrup.  I served it in small Ball glass jars that I had put in the freezer before the party, and then sprayed some Ready-Whip on top.  I liked it, so did a few of the kids, but I'm not sure I'd make it again...

So that's our party!  I forgot to take any pictures of the invitations--They were invitations to Hogwarts, printed on parchment paper, then sealed with red wax and the Hogwarts H.  I'll see if I can scrounge one up for pictures.  I think the reason this party worked so well was because of all the prep-time.  We also kept each activity to 15 minutes, so nobody got bored.  Everything moved quickly and fluidly, because of the preparation.  My son said that it was the best party he'd every been to, and, pardon my lack of humility here, I'm going to have to agree with him!

I'm linking up to these parties: