Max’s Dinosaur Party

 

Max turned 3 a couple of weeks ago, which of course meant a birthday party. He loves dinosaurs so we went with that as this year’s theme. Max was really into the planning this year and spent ages trawling Pinterest with me looking for ideas. He decided on the green and orange colour scheme, the decorations and insisted on a pinata as one of the games (we also had a very cool pin the tail on the dino made by my talented little sister).

 

 

 

Max also chose chocolate cake for his birthday cake, asked for dino cookies (I used our shortbread recipe and then also covered some in sprinkles to make them more attractive to the kids), jelly, vanilla sprinkle cupcakes and popcorn (which I served in cute cupcake cases that I decorated with dinosaur stickers) along with the usual cheerios, sausage rolls and fruit platters. As has become tradition drinks were served in my gorgeous mini milk bottles from The Pretty Baker, it wouldn't be a party without them.

 

To thank all our guests for coming Max and I recycled some of his baby food jars by adding dinosaurs to the lids, spray painting them and adding jelly beans in cool or warm tones.

 

Max had a great day and is already talking about his next party, at present he thinks he'd like a superhero party! I can’t wait.

A Very Dr Seuss 1st Birthday Party

You might remember back in 2011 I blogged about our gorgeous friend Jess and her cake making venture 'Rosy Cakes', since then Jess has been very busy baking and decorating countless cakes, being Mum her nearly 3 year old Molly and Solomon who turned 1 this week - and was the reason for the amazing Dr Seuss themed party Max and I went to last Saturday!

As you can see Jess not only has a flair for making and decorating amazing cakes but for creating fabulous parties! I loved how balanced everything was, the different heights of everything on the table and how the colour scheme of red, white and blue ran through everything from the blue lemonade to the families co-ordinated outfits. The backdrop for the food table was simple but so effective!

Jess made delicious chocolate cupcakes with bright blue buttercream, cake pops and marshmallows (dipped in white chocolate and covered in blue sugar crystal) on gorgeous blue and white paper straws, there were also some healthy choices with popcorn and grapes served in paper cupcake cases with Dr Seuss stickers on the front. I also loved the mini milk bottles which were jazzed up with some bakers twine, paper and more Dr Seuss stickers!

My Max and Jess' Molly will be turning 3 in a few months time and this party has me feeling inspired to get on with planning Max's next party - which I have been informed will be dinosaur themed! What are your favourite kids party themes?

If you want to keep up with what Jess is working on check out her Facebook page, I am constantly blown away with what she comes up with!

If we didn’t have birthdays,
you wouldn’t be you.
If you’d never been born,
well then what would you do?
If you’d never been born,
well then what would you be?
You might be a fish!
Or a toad in a tree!
You might be a doorknob!
Or three baked potatoes!
You might be a bag full of
hard green tomatoes.

Or worse than all that…
Why, you might be a WASN’T!
A Wasn’t has no fun at all.
No, he doesn’t.

A Wasn’t just isn’t.
He just isn’t present.
But you… You ARE YOU!
And, now isn’t that pleasant!

- Dr Seuss

A huge thank you to Jess for sharing her photos with us and a big happy 1st birthday to wee Solomon xox

Funfetti Cookies

These Funfetti Cookies are so much fun!  Just look at them; don’t they just make you want to smile?  The recipe is for a simple refrigerator cookie – mix, refrigerate, slice and bake.  I actually just tweaked the recipe I used for the Chocolate Sprinkle Cookies I made not so long ago.  Why not make them too?

Ingredients:
300g butter, softened
1 cup icing sugar
2 ½ cups flour
¼ cup sprinkles (the ‘stick’ variety)

Method:
Beat the butter and icing sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy.  Stir in the flour in two batches.  Mix through the sprinkles.
Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface until smooth.  Divide the mixture in half and roll each half into a 25cm log.  Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 180°C.  Line baking a couple of baking trays with baking paper.
Cut the logs into 1cm slices.  Place about 2.5cm apart on the trays and bake for 10 minutes.  Leave to cool on the trays for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. 

*If you are having trouble getting the mixture to stick together to roll into the logs, soften and beat through another 50g butter.  The butter needs to be quite soft.

It’s A Party Y’all!

If you have been following our blog for a while you will know that I am big on parties, I love birthdays (Christmas, Easter – anything that calls for gatherings, decorations and food!) and having Max makes birthdays so much cooler. It wasn’t long after last year’s ‘Robots and Rockets’ party that we decided on a cowboy party for Max’s second birthday, I pinned up lots of cute ideas which helped me put the party together.

I decided on a red, blue and bright green colour scheme – these colours come out of the tee-pee we got Max for Christmas which was at the centre of our ‘campsite’ area and was surrounded by hay bales which helped to set the tone/look of the party. Other decorations included some balloons in our colour scheme with the addition of a cow print balloon with each bunch. I made two buntings, one to go along the railing of our deck out of red and blue bandanas and one made from an old coffee sack which I painted Max’s name onto and placed on the food table. I also made some cacti and directional signs made from old moving boxes and painted with test pots from our local paint shop.

In terms of food I made cowboy cookies, red velvet cupcakes (the cute gingham cupcake cases are from The Pretty Baker, which is also what was used to make the bunting on the cake – they have an amazing selection of things that will make your party that much more special) and smores pops, we put together fruit platters, made fairy bread shaped like cacti and Marmite sandwiches in the shape of cows. We served savouries in the form of cheerios, sausage rolls, chicken nuggets and wedges with sour cream and bacon. I served popcorn in cute recycled wood cones, they are from PopRoc Parties as are the crates. Drinks were all served out of mini milk bottles with stripped paper straws and wrapped with bakers twine.

The cake was a four layer easy peasy chocolate cake sandwiched together and covered with vanilla butter cream. I used black fondant to cut out splotches so it created a cow pattern and placed M&M’s around the base.

We decided on a pick n mix your own loot bag station it was fun for the adults and the kids and much more cost effective than buying little toys to thank each of the kids for coming.

For fun we set up a photo booth using a cheap white sheet and our clothes line, there was a shooting range where the kids used a water gun to shoot tin cans, a watering hole for paddling in and some home made hobby horses using this template.

Max seemed to have a great day which is the most important thing and I as happy with how everything turned out. Now I’m thinking about next year! What are your favourite themes for kids parties? Leave us a comment here or on facebook to let us know.

Time To Party

Max is turning 1! This is an updated picture of him smashing his 11 month cake, I snapped it on my phone at a cake smash photo shoot we did with Andie who has guest blogged on here before. Of course we are throwing a party to celebrate, it is also doubling as a leaving party since our family has relocated to Taranaki (from Auckland) as of a week ago – which means a trip up to Auckland, the first of many to come I am sure.

I started looking for ideas for Maxie’s party when he was about 5 months old and and decided on a robots and rockets theme to match the bedroom theme we picked before he was born, after settling on the theme I created this little inspiration board…


I have had lots of fun coming up with decorating ideas and planning lots of yummy food. Since we don’t have a house in Auckland to have the party in we have hired a venue at the botanical gardens, I will only have half an hour set up time so I have to have all my decorations ready to go and the food has to look and taste delicious but easy to transport. Below are my two updated inspiration boards and a sneak peek at some of the goodies I have collected!

   
I will be sure to share all the yummy goodies with you after the party and I am sure I will be testing out my new kitchen once we are properly settled in our new home, I’m having serious baking withdrawals!

Warriors Grand Final Baking

 League ball cookies, Jersey cake, Max – future Warrior (as delicious as any baking), Warrior cupcakes

Today was an exciting day in our household - the NRL Grand Final day always is – but this year it was very special because the Warriors were playing for the second time since since the club formed in 1995 (their first grand final was in 2002 and I was there!). We had triple the reasons to be excited this year as all three Warriors sides were playing (the Vulcans and the Under 20’s as well as the first grade side), while the Vulcans and Senior team lost the Under 20’s won back to back titles. To celebrate I baked some of these biscuits in the shape of league balls and made this chocolate cake (making one and a half times the mixture) to make the jersey cake and cupcakes.

You could use these for any sports party by changing the colours to those of the team you support – might be a fun idea for a Rugby World Cup Party

11 for 2011 – the best year in Warrior club history. For a birthday cake you could put the age of the birthday boy or girl.

The cupcake picks are really easy to make, find an image you like and print, use folded over cello tape  to stick a tooth pick in the middle of the back of your image and then add a matching image on the backside.

The jersey was a really simple shape to make, I cut it free hand and just used a star tip to pipe on coloured buttercream frosting, I used the same buttercream frosting on the cupcakes. To get the swirled two tone effect on the cupcakes I placed the two colours side by side in my piping bag.

Even though I didn’t get the result I wanted from the game I had great fun and hopefully have given you some fun ideas for a sports party – or maybe a Rugby World Cup party in the coming weeks!