Sunday was the big day for
Zander's 5
th birthday party...a penguin party! This one was so much fun to plan.
The Cake
For the big cake on top I used a half round dome shape
cake pan to make an igloo shaped cake. The little door was made from a cupcake cut to resemble the entrance. I frosted it with a quick frosting (similar to 7-minute frosting). The next tier was easy...donut holes (snowballs), and the bottom tier had little cupcake mounds that were frosted to look like snow mounds or large snowballs.
The penguins are made out of olives, cream cheese and carrots. I will be posting a tutorial on how to make them sometime this week.
Here is a close up of the igloo cake. In the middle of the cake there was an ice cream center...which made choosing a frosting a little tricky. Normally I make a really yummy butter cream frosting, but since it had to live in the freezer due to the ice cream center, I didn't think the butter cream would hold up very well.
Here's
Zander blowing out his candles...they were trick candles!
Igloo Cheese Ball
The other igloo I made was a cheese dip made from cream cheese, feta and pesto.
Cheesy Pesto Spread
Ingredients:
7 packages (8 oz. ea.) cream cheese, softened
13 oz. goat or feta cheese, at room temperature
2 small tubs prepared pesto sauce
Spray Soccer Ball Pan and 1 jumbo muffin cavity with vegetable pan spray; line with plastic wrap. In large bowl, beat cream cheese with electric mixer until creamy. Add goat cheese; continue beating until smooth.
Press about 3/4 cup cheese mixture into prepared muffin cup. Press 1 cup cheese mixture onto bottom of soccer ball pan; spread cheese mixture around pan edges to 1 1/2 in. thickness. Spoon pesto sauce from one container into pan. Add second container of pesto to remaining cheese mixture. Scoop pesto cheese on top of pesto layer. Cover with plastic wrap; refrigerate at least 8 hours or overnight. Unmold onto serving plate. Serve with crackers
Zander wanted to make sure we had fish crackers too...because "penguins eat fish."
Ice Cream Snow Balls
The Happy Feet Penguin pinata is guarding the ice cream snowballs. I just
pre-scooped all the vanilla ice cream and rolled them into balls, then in coconut.
Brrrr. It makes my hands cold just thinking about it, but boy were they good!
One happy/messy birthday boy!
10 happy party goers (not all pictured)
Decorations
I set up the dining room to look like a cold winter wonderland, just the kind of place where a penguin would want to hang out! I hung small snowflakes from the dining room light...and large snowflakes from the ceiling. Then I used an icicle border along the chair rail. The centerpiece was a baby penguin stuffed animal with some fake snow, fake snowballs and fake ice.
Now that the party is over I'm going to leave up the decorations for a while. These snowflakes were purchased at the Dollar store and are huge. I think I will use them as chargers/place mats under our Christmas plates after I take them down.
Activities and Games
For a craft project I found
these snow globe sticker scenes at Oriental Trading and they turned out so cute.
My son came up with the games for the party. In the picture they are having a relay race with "eggs" (balloons) between their legs as they waddle to one end of the room and then back. The next game involved dancing like Mumble from Happy Feet. I borrowed the Happy Feet soundtrack from the library and we played a fun up beat song...when the music stopped all the kids had to freeze. This was the most fun and some of the kids had some pretty great moves...very entertaining!
Party Favors
For party favors we passed out penguin snow globes. The
penguin drawstring bags were used to put the candy in from the pinata.
The front and back cover are from Plexiglas cut to 8x8. I used my cropadile to punch the holes on the side. The inside pages are transparencies with various vellum cloud stickers placed on the different page layers.
My youngest got to fly the plane while the older two sat in the back with me.
Here is grandpa helping Natalie to ride her bike.
Some cute shots of Hayden and F-I-L. It looks better in real life. I think it's hard to photograph something that is mostly clear.
1. First drain the juice from a can of Jumbo olives.
3. Then fill with softened cream cheese. I used a sandwich bag with the tip cut off to pipe the cream cheese into the olive. (you can also just use your finger).
5. Cut a small carrot into 1/4" disks. (This will be the feet.)
7. Cut a slice vertically down the long side of a small olive.
9. Now that you have all your pieces, just insert a toothpick through the head, body and down into the carrot feet.
The swirl stamp, paper and greeting are from Stampin' Up! The snowflake is from Jolee's. I looked through all my Christmas stamps and I couldn't find one that said "Merry Christmas," so I used this one and it seemed to do the trick.
I embossed the greeting with silver embossing powder and it came out great.
All the examples and art shots are AMAZING and so inspiring in the new catalog. They keep getting better and better! A lot of the stamp sets I recognized from previous years, but there are some really great additions. I am more excited about all the new background paper and accessories like these:
Rub-on transfers in black and white.
Felt flowers available in 3 colors!!! So cute. These will be on my first order for sure!
Here is a close up of the igloo cake. In the middle of the cake there was an ice cream center...which made choosing a frosting a little tricky. Normally I make a really yummy butter cream frosting, but since it had to live in the freezer due to the ice cream center, I didn't think the butter cream would hold up very well.
Here's Zander blowing out his candles...they were trick candles!
The other igloo I made was a cheese dip made from cream cheese, feta and pesto.
The Happy Feet Penguin pinata is guarding the ice cream snowballs. I just pre-scooped all the vanilla ice cream and rolled them into balls, then in coconut. Brrrr. It makes my hands cold just thinking about it, but boy were they good!
One happy/messy birthday boy!
10 happy party goers (not all pictured)
I set up the dining room to look like a cold winter wonderland, just the kind of place where a penguin would want to hang out! I hung small snowflakes from the dining room light...and large snowflakes from the ceiling. Then I used an icicle border along the chair rail. The centerpiece was a baby penguin stuffed animal with some fake snow, fake snowballs and fake ice.
Now that the party is over I'm going to leave up the decorations for a while. These snowflakes were purchased at the Dollar store and are huge. I think I will use them as chargers/place mats under our Christmas plates after I take them down.
For a craft project I found these snow globe sticker scenes at Oriental Trading and they turned out so cute.
For party favors we passed out penguin snow globes. The penguin drawstring bags were used to put the candy in from the pinata.
They are so creative and I love that the doors open and each section of the house is a section in the album. (you really need to click on the picture to enlarge it to really get a feel for all the details). I've never seen anything like them and can only imagine how much time these take. She posted one on ebay that sold for over $80!!!
I set up my kitchen counter to look like a candy boutique.
Here are the cupcakes...with a giant cupcake on top!
Mmmm lots of sweet things to eat.
For activities, the girls (looking very cute in their pjs) made bracelets with cupcake and ice cream charms, made their own custom lip gloss and decorated gingerbread men.
Here is Natalie and her gingerbread cookie.
Fresh out of the box...Natalie has a new doll to love.
Make a wish...
After watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the original version) it was time to go home...but not before filling up a sundae glass with candy. I found these pink breast cancer awareness edition m&ms and they were perfect!
I just love this Stampin' Up set...I need to use it more often. I also love the dazzling diamond glitter. It looks great over any color...and what girl doesn't like a little extra sparkle?
Katie is one of my only friends (besides my blogging friends of course!) who is as crazy about scrapbooking and crafty stuff as I am...so when I saw these I had to send them with the card:
