Wall•E Birthday Invitation

Wow, it has really been a whirlwind of a week. Last weekend I was up to my eyeballs in fairy dust and butterfly wings and now I am switching gears and getting ready for my son's Wall•E party. Sunday night I was up late working on these invitations:

My son Zander really loves Wall•E so I wanted to come up with an invitation with a robot flavor. Many different ideas came to mind. I even thought of making the card out of sheets of tin, but then realized it would cost more to mail. I settled on this cool glittery black card stock from Doodlebug because it reminded me of outer space and all the sparkly stars in the sky. The Wall•E stickers are by Jolee's and the screw shaped brads were the store brand from Michaels. The information section was done on my computer using InDesign. It was fun to incorporate Zander's name in the style of Wall•E's logo.

Fairy Party

It's challenging to decorate with such a flowery theme in December because there's just not much available in the stores (unless you are looking for red and green.) I found this light up gerbera daisy garland at Amazon.com. I found the figurine in the centerpiece at the dollar store, the tea pot is one I have in my collection and the tea cups I purchased about 4 years ago at Birthdayexpress.com, but I haven't seen them lately.

The canopy is from our bed, so I just thumb-tacked it up to the ceiling and it was the perfect size. The table is a small table we use up in the playroom covered with a purple tablecloth and a couple yards of sparkly star organza fabric.

Sprinkling pixie dust on her friends as they arrived.

Our first activity was to make fairy wreaths. I wrapped the flowers around pipe cleaners using floral tape. 

Fairy nests (phylo dough "nests" filled with M&Ms)

Tinkerbell's cake. My idea was to use sparklers for candles, but the ones that I had on hand were not working at all, luckily I had these other long candles on hand.

The girls had fun decorating their own cupcakes.

I found plastic stemmed desert bowls at Party City and just hot-glued some artificial rose petals to the edge to make it look more like a flower.

Here is the way I set up the photo corner. I had fun taking pictures of all the girls. After the party I used the Photoshop brushed (Obsideon Dawn) to give them a sprinkling of pixie dust.

Drinking all the last bits of tea.

Fairies drinking tea.

All kinds of fairy-sized goodies.

Top tier is chocolate covered strawberries, then flower shaped lemon tea sandwiches. On the bottom, I made triangle shaped chicken tea sandwiches.

I found these glow stick fairy wands at the dollar store. They were fun to use while watching the new Tinkerbell movie.

Fairy Cake

Tomorrow is my daughter's 8th birthday party and she decided on a fairy theme this year.

I searched all over for ideas, but the ones that caught my eye were covered in flowers...so I asked my sister-in-law (our family cake expert) for some help. She is amazing with flowers, isn't she? She made all these up, so all I had to do was make the cake, frost it and arrange everything. It was great fun!

I looked at some of the Tinkerbell cake toppers in the cake decorating section, but they seemed kind of cheesy to me and not very well made for sure. I found this while out Christmas shopping. It's a Hallmark ornament, so Natalie will be able to keep it and use it at Christmas time!

Fabulous Food Friday: Buttercream Frosting

Buttercream Frosting

In a large mixer bowl, combine 1 1/4 cup sugar, 5 egg whites and flavoring. Heat over a pot of simmering water. Wisk for 3 minutes.

Whip on high for three minutes using the wisk attachment. 

When frosting is thick, add 4 sticks of butter, a tablespoon at a time. Using the paddle attachment, mix until blended. Add food coloring and frost your cake.

This recipe makes a lot, so I usually only make half the recipe, which frosts one cake.