Archive for July, 2009

These smart musical note cupcakes are from Kraft Foods.com and are a perfect addition to any Rock Star birthday party. Here’s what you’ll need:

• 1 pkg. (2-layer size) chocolate cake mix
• 2-1/4 cups  thawed COOL WHIP Whipped Topping (or cream cheese cake icing)
• 48 Mini OREO Bite Size Chocolate Sandwich Cookies
• 2 squares  BAKER’S Semi-Sweet Chocolate, melted (or Wilton’s candy chocolate from the craft store)

1. Prepare your cake batter and bake as directed on package for 24 cupcakes. Cool in pans 15 min. Remove from pans to wire racks; cool completely.
2. Frost cupcakes with COOL WHIP or cream cheese icing. Top each with 2 cookies for the music notes.
3. Pour melted chocolate into resealable plastic bag. Snip the corner of your bag and pipe the musical note stems and decorate your serving plate. (NOTE: If you use the COOL WHIP you’ll need to keep the cupcakes refrigerated.)

Happy baking!

We just shot our deep blue sea birthday party decor on Saturday and yesterday this month’s issue of Family Fun comes in the mail. (I’ve said this before, but if you’re not a subscriber and you love this kind of stuff you really should be.) To my happy surprise it was chalked full of brilliant under water party ideas.

The clam shell cookie idea is a pearl of wisdom. {wink} All you’ll need are some round wafer cookies, pink tinted icing, yogurt covered peanuts or raisens and then a dab of white icing and black food coloring for the eyes.

Next check out this very fun craft idea. All the kids will love making these during your bash. You’ll need (for one):

• 18 ounce beverage container
• 10 shells per container
• 1/4 cup sand
• Green and blue food coloring
• Silver glitter
• Water
• Mineral or baby oil
• Hot glue gun

 And here are the super simple steps:

1. Pour sand and shells into clean bottle.
2. Mix a drop of blue and green food coloring into 6 cups of water, then fill the bottle halfway.
3. Add a pinch of glitter.
4. Fill the rest of the bottle with oil, leaving a little air space at the top.
5. Run a bead of hot glue around the bottle opening and screw the lid on quickly.

Love this idea!! Leave it to Disney to come up with a cool magazine full of ideas all dedicated to making our kids smile.

Whether your thinking about having a splash bash in the backyard or taking a trip to the aquarium, this birthday party theme idea is creative, colorful and lots of fun.

It’s really easy to pull off this table. We offer the plates, napkins, cups, placemats, tablecloths and of course the custom invitations (below), but sorry, we don’t have goldfish. {wink}

As for the crafts and accessories:

• Cake plate - use a die cut machine to cut out waves (or draw one and then make a template) from a heavy bright blue cardstock that can be found at any craft or scrapbooking store. Then with a drop or two of hot glue, affix it to your cake plates and you’re ready to go.
• Placecard - we found these pre-painted wooden fish at the craft store as well and just wrote each child’s name on the top fin with a Sharpie.
• Table aquarium - we visited the pet store and found a fish that could easily live in a vase with a few drops of DeChlor (removes chlorine). We then simply embellished the square vase with our wave die cuts.  
• Fish placemat - our placemats are rectangle so we made a fish template and trimmed out our shape. It’s easy and fast, but makes a real impact to the table.

We hope you have a splash!