My son turned 3 this last week, and I'm not quite sure how that happened! I was so excited to finally have a party with all of our family that could make it. If only Daddy wasn't in Afghanistan, it would have been perfect. I spent weeks planning and searching Pinterest for the best ideas. I had this huge thing planned with decorations and games. Slowly over time I ditched ideas because I realized I was going to end up exhausted! I was so happy with the ideas I left myself with. Most importantly, all the kids had a blast!
I started out the party theme with these Cars invitations. I got the idea from a picture I saw on Pinterest, then I used Microsoft PowerPoint to make them myself. I printed this set of 3 onto one sheet of photo paper and they were the perfect size. Everything was readable, and I think it just looked awesome! These recieved lots of compliments from our guests!
Since Tylan's actual Birthday was the Wednesday before, I wanted to make it a special day still. I started off the morning by making these cake batter pancakes. Definitely going to make this a new tradition for birthday mornings in this family! Later in the day we continued our birthday day fun with a Mommy-Tylan date! We went to the movies and saw Hotel Transylvania which was so cute! Then headed over to Chuck E Cheese for some gaming fun. Finished the day off with some pepperoni pizza and Cinnabon (Mommy's choice)!!!!
As you can tell by this picture, he LOVED them! I made him a bunch not knowing how much he would eat, and he ate almost the whole stack! I do have to say that from personal experience if you want to make these, I had to make the glaze topping a little differently. The first time I attempted it, instead of being liquid, it turned into a ball of powdered sugar! So I took a second try and first added the liquid ingredients to the bowl. I then added a little powdered sugar at a time until I got the consistency I was looking for. Also I don't think I will add as much vanilla as they say in the recipe. All of that pure vanilla was a little too strong for my taste so I had to add more sugar.
The night before the party, my mom and I spent about an hour blowing up these balloons. PLUS the ones not seen in this picture! That hour consisted of blowing, laying down multiple times to see straight, and of course a small candy break lol. I found this idea for "stoplight" balloons on Pinterest, also. The links only led to a single picture, and not a separate blog or website.
I was SO happy with the end result! We made two of them, one for each end of the party table. I think the original maker used smaller balloons than the 12" which I used. Plus we didn't make them all the same size so there was a little difficulty making it stand. My wonderful dad made a couple stands for them out of some spare wood! Each stoplight had one red, yellow, and green balloon, and 25 black. It's a little exhausting and breath taking, but such a cute and simple decoration!
This was the main party table. I set it up with snacks on the left, then cake and cupcakes, drinks, and last were the goodie bags. I ordered the checkered flag banner from Party City. I chose the themed colors to be black, red, and ivory.
My goodie bag ideas came from multiple pictures I saw around the internet. Simple white lunch sacks hole punched and tied off with black and red ribbons. I added a message and of course a Cars sticker!
Inside I decided to put bubbles (Tylan's favorite!), a glow stick (since Halloween is just around the corner), some coloring pages that I printed off at home, 3-count Cars coloring crayons I found in the Halloween section at Target, galaxy playdough, and some candy! I found this awesome idea to make for the candy to be in, but I failed at trying to make them look good. They are Sally's Cozy Cones made it paper and foil. I didn't want to buy orange and black (black for the very bottom piece) to make each one, it would get too expensive. So instead I bought a whole bunch of white cardstock and paint. After painting and cutting, I tried to use liquid Elmer's glue to put them together and it caused the paper to wave instead of lay flat. They just did not look good at all. I was really disappointed since I was going to do this instead of a pinata!
The drink station included cups, soda, and a punch. I had also gotten one of those huge dispensers of water at the grocery store but forgot to put it out lol. The punch was delicious! I didn't make it myself, my mom did. It was made with a raspberry blueberry juice and lemon-lime soda. I believe it was half and half of each, but I'm not too sure. I printed off the "Rust-eze" and "Allinol" logos from the internet. I have a huge roll of contact paper that I used to stick them to the bottles with. The punch was supposed to be "Dinoco" blue, but I forgot to put the label on. I have a horrible memory since I had my daughter in June!
Since party time was at 2pm, I just got a few simple snacks. Chips, watermelon (cut into car shapes with a car cookie cutter!!!!), and veggies with ranch. Everything was eaten so no leftovers to take home... Yay!
For the cupcakes, I transformed them into PISTON CUP-CAKES! I am proud to say, I thought of this liner idea myself! I used a cupcake liner template, painted them gold, and used a sharpie to write on the Piston Cup logo. I used a picture of the Piston Cup to make a stencil for the handles. So easy! Just a little time consuming. I used more of the dyed sugar to top these, and handmade the flags. Cut out printed pictures of checkered flags and glued them to toothpicks.
The cake turned out great considering I made it in my kitchen with hardly any tools! I haven't bought any special cake tools yet, and I'm not sure why. I make these fondant cakes for just about every birthday! This one, I made two square cakes and stacked them for the bottom. I made a super yummy raspberry cake filling to put in between the cake layers. To stick the fondant on, i spread a little cake frosting all over the stack, just enough to be there. I got the fondant recipe from my sister in law a couple years ago when I first started. To make a single batch you take a microwavable bowl and add 1 cup mini marshmallows, and 1 TBSP water. Cook it for about a minute, or until you can mix it into a smooth mixture with the marshmallows melted. Add food coloring, unless you are making white. Then add 1 cup powdered sugar to mix. It has never been exactly 1 cup for me. In colorado that made it too dry, here in Oregon it was not even close to enough to form it into a ball. The globe of the cake was a giant rice krispy treat formed with a bowl. Topped with blue sugar and a couple continents made with green fondant. My wonderful cousin used her cricut to cut out the Cars logo! I just taped toothpicks to the backs to stick them to the cake.
This car rug has been in my son's room for a while now, hardly even played with. I took it along to the party with some hotwheels for the kids to play on. They really enjoyed it, definitely glad I chose to bring it along.
Lastly, the only game I chose to do was "Pin the tooth on Mater". The kids were too busy wanting to run around and play with the balloons that only a few played with this. I ordered the Mater wall decal from party city and made the teeth myself with cut out cardstock and contact paper to stick it.
Other activities not pictured were a coloring table with lots of crayons and coloring pages, a mini bowling station (a giant green rubber ball, and water bottles with a little bit of rice on the bottom for weight), and paper plates glued to giant popsicle sticks to play balloon ping pong (a big hit!).
After all my planning and work put into this party, I have to say it was a major success and I am so happy with how it turned out! What a great day to spend with family and friends to finally celebrate a birthday at home! Who knows when we will get another chance!
I started out the party theme with these Cars invitations. I got the idea from a picture I saw on Pinterest, then I used Microsoft PowerPoint to make them myself. I printed this set of 3 onto one sheet of photo paper and they were the perfect size. Everything was readable, and I think it just looked awesome! These recieved lots of compliments from our guests!
Since Tylan's actual Birthday was the Wednesday before, I wanted to make it a special day still. I started off the morning by making these cake batter pancakes. Definitely going to make this a new tradition for birthday mornings in this family! Later in the day we continued our birthday day fun with a Mommy-Tylan date! We went to the movies and saw Hotel Transylvania which was so cute! Then headed over to Chuck E Cheese for some gaming fun. Finished the day off with some pepperoni pizza and Cinnabon (Mommy's choice)!!!!
As you can tell by this picture, he LOVED them! I made him a bunch not knowing how much he would eat, and he ate almost the whole stack! I do have to say that from personal experience if you want to make these, I had to make the glaze topping a little differently. The first time I attempted it, instead of being liquid, it turned into a ball of powdered sugar! So I took a second try and first added the liquid ingredients to the bowl. I then added a little powdered sugar at a time until I got the consistency I was looking for. Also I don't think I will add as much vanilla as they say in the recipe. All of that pure vanilla was a little too strong for my taste so I had to add more sugar.
The night before the party, my mom and I spent about an hour blowing up these balloons. PLUS the ones not seen in this picture! That hour consisted of blowing, laying down multiple times to see straight, and of course a small candy break lol. I found this idea for "stoplight" balloons on Pinterest, also. The links only led to a single picture, and not a separate blog or website.
I was SO happy with the end result! We made two of them, one for each end of the party table. I think the original maker used smaller balloons than the 12" which I used. Plus we didn't make them all the same size so there was a little difficulty making it stand. My wonderful dad made a couple stands for them out of some spare wood! Each stoplight had one red, yellow, and green balloon, and 25 black. It's a little exhausting and breath taking, but such a cute and simple decoration!
This was the main party table. I set it up with snacks on the left, then cake and cupcakes, drinks, and last were the goodie bags. I ordered the checkered flag banner from Party City. I chose the themed colors to be black, red, and ivory.
My goodie bag ideas came from multiple pictures I saw around the internet. Simple white lunch sacks hole punched and tied off with black and red ribbons. I added a message and of course a Cars sticker!
Inside I decided to put bubbles (Tylan's favorite!), a glow stick (since Halloween is just around the corner), some coloring pages that I printed off at home, 3-count Cars coloring crayons I found in the Halloween section at Target, galaxy playdough, and some candy! I found this awesome idea to make for the candy to be in, but I failed at trying to make them look good. They are Sally's Cozy Cones made it paper and foil. I didn't want to buy orange and black (black for the very bottom piece) to make each one, it would get too expensive. So instead I bought a whole bunch of white cardstock and paint. After painting and cutting, I tried to use liquid Elmer's glue to put them together and it caused the paper to wave instead of lay flat. They just did not look good at all. I was really disappointed since I was going to do this instead of a pinata!
The drink station included cups, soda, and a punch. I had also gotten one of those huge dispensers of water at the grocery store but forgot to put it out lol. The punch was delicious! I didn't make it myself, my mom did. It was made with a raspberry blueberry juice and lemon-lime soda. I believe it was half and half of each, but I'm not too sure. I printed off the "Rust-eze" and "Allinol" logos from the internet. I have a huge roll of contact paper that I used to stick them to the bottles with. The punch was supposed to be "Dinoco" blue, but I forgot to put the label on. I have a horrible memory since I had my daughter in June!
Since party time was at 2pm, I just got a few simple snacks. Chips, watermelon (cut into car shapes with a car cookie cutter!!!!), and veggies with ranch. Everything was eaten so no leftovers to take home... Yay!
Ahhh..... My favorite part! The black donut looking thing in front is actually a giant rice krispy treat shaped with a bundt cake pan to make into a tire! While it was still warm and sticky, I topped it with sugar dyed with black food coloring. When I attempted to draw on it with white icing, it just rolled off the sugar so I peeled it back off. I had the idea to make it a white wall tire, but it just didn't work out. Still great to eat though! All of the color added to the cake and rice krispy treats really added to the fun of the party! Everyone had a great time taking pictures and checking out each others teeth :D
I had found a way to make edible glitter online. It shows to use salt, I'm assuming for crafts. The pinner I pinned it from said to use sugar. So I baked it as said, and it gooed out and became rock hard. FAIL! So after this I just mixed everything together and skipped the baking part. Turned out just fine! I used this to top the tire and the glove piece of the cake.
For the cupcakes, I transformed them into PISTON CUP-CAKES! I am proud to say, I thought of this liner idea myself! I used a cupcake liner template, painted them gold, and used a sharpie to write on the Piston Cup logo. I used a picture of the Piston Cup to make a stencil for the handles. So easy! Just a little time consuming. I used more of the dyed sugar to top these, and handmade the flags. Cut out printed pictures of checkered flags and glued them to toothpicks.
The cake turned out great considering I made it in my kitchen with hardly any tools! I haven't bought any special cake tools yet, and I'm not sure why. I make these fondant cakes for just about every birthday! This one, I made two square cakes and stacked them for the bottom. I made a super yummy raspberry cake filling to put in between the cake layers. To stick the fondant on, i spread a little cake frosting all over the stack, just enough to be there. I got the fondant recipe from my sister in law a couple years ago when I first started. To make a single batch you take a microwavable bowl and add 1 cup mini marshmallows, and 1 TBSP water. Cook it for about a minute, or until you can mix it into a smooth mixture with the marshmallows melted. Add food coloring, unless you are making white. Then add 1 cup powdered sugar to mix. It has never been exactly 1 cup for me. In colorado that made it too dry, here in Oregon it was not even close to enough to form it into a ball. The globe of the cake was a giant rice krispy treat formed with a bowl. Topped with blue sugar and a couple continents made with green fondant. My wonderful cousin used her cricut to cut out the Cars logo! I just taped toothpicks to the backs to stick them to the cake.
This car rug has been in my son's room for a while now, hardly even played with. I took it along to the party with some hotwheels for the kids to play on. They really enjoyed it, definitely glad I chose to bring it along.
Lastly, the only game I chose to do was "Pin the tooth on Mater". The kids were too busy wanting to run around and play with the balloons that only a few played with this. I ordered the Mater wall decal from party city and made the teeth myself with cut out cardstock and contact paper to stick it.
Other activities not pictured were a coloring table with lots of crayons and coloring pages, a mini bowling station (a giant green rubber ball, and water bottles with a little bit of rice on the bottom for weight), and paper plates glued to giant popsicle sticks to play balloon ping pong (a big hit!).
After all my planning and work put into this party, I have to say it was a major success and I am so happy with how it turned out! What a great day to spend with family and friends to finally celebrate a birthday at home! Who knows when we will get another chance!
You did a great job on the party and your first blog <3 I hope you use it after you guys move away again (:
ReplyDeleteThanks! I'll slowly be working on posting new things, and my projects I made in the past. I'm hoping to make my own crochet and knit stuff to sell!
ReplyDeleteYou are an AMAZING WIFE! Really enjoyed reading this from Afghanistan. Hard to see how much work you really put into all of this. :)
ReplyDeleteLove you sweetheart!
Madhur Satta Matka, Madhur Bazar, Madhur Result, Madhur Morning.
ReplyDelete