First Birthday Idea Board

A co-worker has the cutest little girl named Mary.  She will be one this month and I get the honor of helping her parents with her party.  Her mom came up with the cutest theme... Mary had a little lamb. Here is the idea board for the party..

Kara's Far Out 11th Birthday

So June I threw my brothers grad party on a friday night, and my sisters birthday party Saturday afternoon.. 2 parties, one house in under 18 hours.  It was quite uhhhh fun. =)

Here are the pics of her party. Hers was a much smaller more intimate party.. but it had some fun features

First of all.. this picture does not do the "Groovy Jello" justice..  they were layered rainbow jello.  We took clear cups and made jello as per the directions on the box.  One layer at a time, let the first layer set before adding the next.  We chose, purple, blue, green and red.. everyone was amazed.. funny how simple things thrill people.

You might have seen these all over the internet.. tie dyed cupcakes.  They were a quick recipe using a box mix and this tutorial.  The buttercream was again my go to simple butter cream recipe. 

 Far Out Cereal Treats were rice crispy treat recipe using trix cereal instead, this would also look cool with fruity pebbles.

 Stellar Sugar Cookies were soft sugar cookies.. The soft sugar drop cookie recipe came from here.. and i rolled them in rainbow sanding sugar before baking

 Making a wish!

 It came true!  A rainbow cupcake.. ahhaha.

Other Stuffs about the party.. table cloth, plates and napkins were dollar store.  The cupcake stand was what I used the night before for my brothers party.. two boxes wrapped in wrapping paper. The food labels were made by me on cardstock and using an image from google image.  She loved it!

Star Wars Graduation Party

The end of May beginning of June was a doosey for me.  I had 3 parties in one week.. Memorial Day, my brothers graduation and my sisters birthday.. This is my fave out of the 3.  I live in South Carolina, my family lives in California.. i was lucky enough to go home for the whole week.  I told my mom I would throw the best parties for the family.. My brother called with the big idea that he wanted a Darth Vader cake with a graduation hat.. while normally I would tackle this request, I was not going to be in my own kitchen and not going to have my caking tools.. So I improvised and gave him a whole graduation star wars party.. I think it was awesome.

Here is the whole dessert table.. for actual food we got take out from our fave mexican restaurant, which I chose not to show here.

My favorite part of the display were the wookie cookies!!  I used the oatmeal cookie recipe on the tube of Quaker oats but I left out the raisins.. then just piped chocolate on!

 Light sabers were pretzel rods dipped in wilton colored chocolate melts, after they set up I wrapped the bottoms in foil and drew on some details with a sharpie

 The first thing to be wiped out by the guests were the Death Star oreo truffules.. I used this recipe  and just made an indent on the balls with the back of a wooden spoon.  Then I dipped them in white chocolate tinted with black gel food coloring, they were a big hit

May the Force be with You Chocolate Cupcakes had the "graduation darth vader" that my brother was looking for.  I used my go to one bowl chocolate cupcake recipe and a regular buttercream recipe. Chocolate sprinkles and viola

 The sign I made out of scrapbook paper (blue, silver glitter, and black)  I downloaded a jedi font and printed out the letters and traced and cut.  The characters I printed from images I found on google images.. tied with some black ribbon.  The small text at the bottom says "may the force be with you"  I thought it was appropriate for graduation.

The second biggest hit to the death star truffles was the Yoda Soda.. who would have thought.  It was simply Lime Sherbet and ginger ale.

 Of course, you probably knew these were coming.  Tatooine sugar cookies from the william and sonoma cookie cutters.   I always used this sugar cookie recipe.  The yoda cookies have americolor gel food coloring in avocado added to them.

 Last but not least, Chocolate Peanut Butter Droid Parts, which is puppy chow then after it sets I add pretzel stix, marshmallows and peanuts.

 Here is the whole gang after the grad ceremony!!

Other stuffs about the party..
The Food labels I did with that font I downloaded, I then found the characters on google image and photoshopped graduation caps on them.  The Cupcake stand was two boxes wrapped in wrapping paper (its actually christmas paper but the white underside of it).  The saucers holding the death stars are two syrofoam circles wrapped in kitchen foil. The table cloth and cups are from the dollar store and the rest of the display is from dishes around the kitchen.

A Hello Kitty Bridal Shower

So remember when I showed my idea board for this bridal shower and tutorial for the background?  Well now I will finally post how it came out =). I have also added the links to the recipes I used.. Enjoy!.

The whole table

 The Chocolate cupcakes with strawberry swiss meringue buttercream

 Homemade oreos with pink filling

 White Chocolate Dipped Pretzes

 Red Sangria with the change of using ginger ale instead of club soda

 The Chocolate dipped marshmallows with sprinkles and M&Ms

Finally The whole room.   I did my homemade backdrop, with some hello kitty dangles from the party store, also plain pink tablecloths from the party store.  I printed the labels and cupcake toppers from an image I found on google.