{Purple} Elephant Birthday Party

Have you "Herd" the News...

Back in April, my littlest, Leah turned three!  When I asked her several months earlier,"What kind of party she would you like?"  This was how she responded; "Well...I really like elephants and my favorite color is purple!"  "So...I think I'd like a purple elephant party!"  So here it is, a very {purple} elephant themed birthday party for my very sweet little Leah!  

My husband and I were heading out of town the very next day, so I chose to keep the food and decorations simple.  I placed a small candy bar with a variety of purple candy and peanuts, a small meat and cheese pIatter, iced tea and lemonade atop our dining room table, which I covered in purple and white striped cabana fabric. I used a mix of paper lanterns and tissue paper poms in various shades of purple to draw the eye up.  Decorated the front door with a sweet, purple elephant wreath, the mantle with a handmade custom birthday banner and made some purple topiaries out of mini cupcake wrappers.  My very sweet and talented husband made an adorable and clever elephant pinata!  The kids were able to take home sweet little treat bags filled with Nutter Butter cookie packs and the candy they gathered from the pinata.  We finished the party off with yummy peanut butter, chocolate ganache filled cupcakes, which are a favorite among family and friends.  Instead of decorating the cupcakes I chose to top them off with some purple sprinkles and some purple felt elephants I found at the local craft store.  I just attched them to toothpicks stuck them into the tops of the cupcakes and voila...Instant cupcake toppers! 

The most important thing is that Leah had a great time and so did our friends and family!

Ruby Slippers Cupcakes

  "There's no place like home..."

Ruby Slippers made of fondant and cake sparkles, set atop a chocolate cupcake with vanilla buttercream

for a "Wizard of Oz" themed birthday party!

Over The Rainbow Party - St. Patrick's Day

Rainbows are fun and so is St. Patrick's Day!  My brothers name was Patrick and my Daughter's middle name IS Patrick!  St. Patrick's Day has always been a special holiday to me and my family, and I thought it would be SO fun to do a party with a festive rainbow theme this year to celebrate this amazing man!  The following is a little information about the Irish Holiday and who St. Patrick was.

What is Saint Patrick's Day really about?   

St Patrick, the Patron Saint of Ireland, was known for bringing Christianity to Ireland. He was a Brittish boy, raised by a Deacon and kidnapped at the age of 16 to be a slave in Ireland.  During his enslavement, he turned to prayer and his faith grew in strength. One day he had a dream and in it, God told him to escape to the coast.  He then, boarded a boat in which he fled back to England. While in England, he studied to be a priest.  Several years later God called him to return to Ireland, the land of his enslavement and share the Good News of Christ. He traveled all over Ireland for the rest of his life, teaching others about his faith.  The shamrock  was a tool he used to explain the trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  St. Patricks Day is a holy day that celebrates an amazing young man who overcame his own slavery and used it to share God's love!

 

Treat Table

Entrance

I always like having something at the entrance that reflects the theme of the party helps to

set the stage for guests.

Subway art from  http://www.thatswhatchesaid.net/2012/03/07/st-patricks-day-subway-art-free-printable/

Rainbow Cupcakes

Push Pop Cakes!

It was my turn to bring treats to my bible study today and I thought it would be fun to experiment with push pops!  They seemed to be a huge hit, among my bible study ladies, so I hope I'm on to something good!  I've seen these done with various types of ingredients, mostly with pudding, but in my research I came across some that were filled with cake!  This is ingenious, totally cute and solves a problem that I've been having for years...The mess that cupcakes make!  One of the reasons that this is important to me is because cupcakes are not allowed at my children's schools for events like birthdays, holiday parties etc. due to their messy nature.  I made two different flavors this morning, using my Cafe Mocha cupcake recipe and my Cinnamon Chip cupcake recipe. YUM!!

Composition of the Push Pop Cake

Cafe Mocha Cake with Espresso infused frosting

Topped with a chocolate covered espresso bean

Check out the lids!!!  Another plus!!!

Composition of the Push Pop Cake

Cinnamon Chip Cake with Vanilla Buttercream, topped with Cinnamon Chips

Pink Champagne Cupcakes

Today I made some delicious, light and fluffy pink champagne cupcakes with pink champagne buttercream frosting!  These celebratory cupcakes were perfect for for this small wedding of 20 guests!  The colors were bright pink and sage with a rose theme present throughout the wedding decor, wich I echoed in the decorations atop the cupcakes.

King Cake Cupcakes for Mardi Gras 2012!!

Today is Fat Tuesday and I thought it would be fun to celebrate the start of the Mardi Gras season with King Cake Cupcakes!! King Cake is a traditional dessert with a hint of cinnamon, sometimes filled with cream cheese, served during the Mardi Gras celebration. In fact, there are parties that are entirely centered around this cake! The The cake is tratitionally baked in a bundt style and drizzled with a glaze that has been tinted the traditional colors of Mardi Gras; Purple for justice, green for faith and gold for power. Once baked a small baby which is supposed to represent Baby Jesus is hidden in the cake and the tradition is that whoever gets the peice with the baby in it, will get to host next years King Cake party and of course make the cake! This is a high honor for the person who finds the baby!! While researching the cake, I thought it was interesting and I never knew this before, that Mardi Gras actually has religious roots. It really never occured to me that it happened at the start of Lent and ended when Lent was over. I guess you learn something new every day!

Compostion of the Cupcake

My interpretation of the Mardi Gras King Cake in cupcake form is a southern buttermilk spice cake topped with Cream Cheese frosting swirled on top with all three Mardi Gras colors.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Cupcakes

Another cupcake order!  Yesterday I made a batch of cupcakes for a birthday party!  I usually try to use my own recipes, but these ones are actually an adaptation from a recipe I found in the July, 2011 Martha Stewart Magazine.  I saw them, thought they were adorable and since I have a love affair with chocolate chip cookies, I had to give them a try!  They were amazing!!!  The only thing I really did differently was add chocolate chips to the batter and use my own buttercream frosting recipe. 

Composition of the cupcake!

These cupcakes have a delicoius chocolate chip cookie bottom, the cake is a white cake which I added some semisweet mini chocolate chips too, The frosting is my own Very Vanilla Buttercream.  The cupcakes are topped with a mini chocolate chip cookie. The result is a perfect cupcake for chocolate chip cookie lovers!

Devil's Food and Marshmallow Cupcakes

A couple of months ago I had the priviledge of donating some cupcakes in the form of a gift certificate to a silent auction raising money for the Panreatic Cancer Action Network!  I was so excited to hear from the person who bid and got them!  She had a dinner party for her very close friends birthday this weekend and my cupcakes were dessert!  These cupcakes are devil's food cake filled with marshmallow.  I iced half of them with Marshmallow frosting and the other half with dark chocolate frosting.  Each cupcake was topped with a piece of molded Ghirardelli chocolate!  I was very happy with the way these turned out...So rich and delicious!

Queen of Hearts Party - Valentines Day

One of my all time favorite stories is the one of "Alice in Wonderland"!  Though my favorite part of the movie is of course the Mad Hatter's tea party, I have not yet been given the opportunity to do a party in that theme.  Valentines Day, however gave me the perfect opportunity to put focus on the part of the story of the Queen of Hearts!  Once I had everything finalized and put together I was very pleased with the results and would love to share what I came up with.  There will be more pictures of this party to come!  Some of the activities, of course involved croquet, "pin the heart on the queen" and decorating foam valentine hearts.

 

Setting the stage For the Guests

I discovered another wreath with this same kind of idea from larkandlola.blogspot via Pinterest.  I thought it was so adorable that I decided to make my own and put my own creative touches on it. 



The Treat Table

Red Velvet Cupcakes

An Invitation for Tea and Croquet with the Queen

Presenting the Queen of Hearts!!



Party Favors

I found these little clear paint cans at my local craft store and filled them with red heart shaped candies to give to party guests.




Alice and the Queen

Garland

made out of playing cards and red grosgrain ribbon

Table Top Decor

Milk glass vases filled with roses and playing cards.  I don't sew, so I made the table runners out of felt and fabric glue in the colors of the queen dress.  You can see in the next photograph that I trimmed them with red ruffle ribbon.