Ice cream party tags and game

My seven year old granddaughter was having an ice cream themed birthday party at a local frozen yogurt restaurant. I helped her mother by making the ice cream tags to put on the party favors. I cut them out using my Cricut machine and the Simply Charmed Cartridge.
I punched holes in the tops of the cones and left them blank for her mom to write on.

Instead of Pinning the Tail on the Donkey they decided to put the Cherry on the Ice Cream Sundae. I made the sundae by sketching it out freehand then cutting the pieces out from colored scrapbook paper scraps I had on hand. After assembling it I added a few accents with my glitter pen. They hung it on the wall for a decoration until it was time for the children to try to put the cherries on. It was a fun time!

 

Halloween Boo

I painted black wooden letters from Michaels and covered them with Halloween themed scrapbook paper from Martha Stewart Crafts and Ghostly Greetings from K & Company. I traced the wooden letters onto the paper, cut out and glued the paper on. I love the result.

I plan to make one for Thanksgiving next.

Halloween Treats

I made some special cupcakes for Halloween this year...vanilla cupcakes with buttercream icing with scary eyes...pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting with fondant bats.

For the fondant bats I cut out of heavy card stock a bat using my Cricut and the Create A Critter 2 Cartridge to use a pattern. And then, yes I did, I cut out each bat with a knife going around my bat pattern. It was a little tedious, but worth it. My only mistake was rolling the fondant too thin, so I did have a little trouble with the wings threatening to break off.

For the eyes, I cut out circles from white fondant, cut the circles in half, then used a food safe marker to make pupils. That was easy!

I forgot how delicious made from scratch cupcakes taste! Yum! They were a hit.

Disney Cricut Princess Decorations-Extras

In an earlier blog I said that I would post additional wall decorations for my granddaughter's princess birthday party. I got a little sidetracked with back-to-school preparations. So here are the extras that I made for the party.

 

 

No princess party would be complete without a castle! This is from the Cricut Once Upon a Princess Cartridge.

Cinderella Slipper was made with glitter paper from Michael's but I don't know who makes it.  This is from the Disney Happily Ever After Cricut Cartridge.



Cinderella's Coach complete with horse. This was also from Happily Ever After Cartridge. I used ribbon for the harness and added gems.



  Sophia Banner: I didn't have the Cricut Pennant Cartridge at the time, so I improvised and used the Cricut Stand and Salute Cartridge. Recollecitons Hallographic Paper from Michaels was used for the crowns on the banner. I attached the banner sections with glittered blue ribbon from Michaels.

Working with Cricut is still a work in progress for me, but I think I am starting to get the hang of it. I hope you have learned something from my creations. 

Welcome Back Ducks

Tonight I was busy creating a door decoration for my daughter's classroom. I used my Cricut Expression machine to cut out the ducks and the words. I used New Arrival Cricut cartridge for the small ducks cut at 4"and Just Because Cartridge for the large duck cut Fit To Page. The words were made using the Don Juan cartridge. I used the Cricut Design Studio to weld the letters of the words together. The paper used was cardstock stack from DCWV.

Disney Cricut Princess Decorations

Disney Princess Decorations

Using Cricut Machine and Cartridges

 

The theme of my granddaughter's third birthday was Disney Princesses. I created eight Disney Princesses to use as wall decorations for the party using Cricut Cartridge Disney Dreams Come True and Cricut Cartridge Disney Happily Ever After. For most of the princesses I used the Fit to Page setting of my Cricut Expression machine using 12 x 12 paper.

Cinderella






 

Snow White

Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Belle were the first ones I did. I added a few embellishments to add some dimension and sparkle to the princesses.

Sleeping Beauty

Belle

 

Next, was Jasmine,  Pocohantas, Ariel and Mulan.

 



Jasmine

Pocohantas






                                 

Ariel

Mulan



In my next posting I will show you a few extra decorations that I made in addition to the princesses.

Zoo Animal First Birthday Cake

My next cake project was for my grandson's first birthday. My daughter comes up with the ideas and between the two of us, we turn the idea into a sweet reality. She wanted a zoo animal theme also featuring a large number one. Our ideas were based loosely on the cake featured on the front of the 2011 Wilton Yearbook.

Several days before we were to assemble the zoo animals we rolled fondant into the heads so that they would have plenty of time to dry.

For the animal bodies my daughter made brownie pops earlier in the day using the Wilton Brownie Pop Mold. We covered the brownie pops with rolled fondant in colors that match the bodies to the heads. It took some practice to get the fondant positioned just right so that the pops were covered with no folds or thin spots. The last several looked much better than the first ones we did.


Several days later when the fondant had hardened we attached the heads to the bodies using wooden skewers that were cut to size. Then arms and legs were shaped and held in place with some water applied with a food safe paint brush. The water acts as a glue to set the pieces together. Care must be taken not to moisten the fondant too much.

Next we shaped and cut additional features: muzzles, ears, stripes, trunks and tails.

We used Wilton Foodwriter Markers to add detail to the faces (eyes, noses, mouths, etc.) rather than cut out tiny pieces of fondant. We also decided to simplify the lions mane by cutting out a circle within a circle, using the shell tool for some texture and placing around the lions head.

Here are some closeup shots of the critters:

 
                                               I think the elephants were our favorite.

                                                                             Lions

                                                                        Monkeys

Tigers

After the animals were assembled and set aside to thoroughly dry started to make the large number one that was to sit on the center of our cake. This was made using Wilton's Number One Cake Mold. We melted yellow candy melts first to fill the first part of the cake mold. After the candy had set, we added a layer of melted green candy melts. I filled an alphabet candy mold with melted green candy melts to spell out Carter's name to add to the number one later.

Early on the day of cake assembly, my daughter baked a two layer 10" cake, one layer was chocolate and the other layer yellow cake. I covered the cooled and lightly iced cake with white fondant. I used a long rolled piece of fondant for the border and pressed an embossing tool for a design.

We cut out various sized circles of colored fondant and "glued" to the sides of the cake for a fun polka dot effect that picked up some of the animal colors.  We originally were only going to use four animals (one of each kind) but since the brownie pop mold made eight bodies, we used all eight animals, four on the cake and four seated on the sides of the oversized cake board.

I took the Number One out of the mold and with more melted green candy melts, "glued" wooden skewers to the back side. I measured the height of the cake to determine how much skewer needed to go through the cake without showing.

I found in unmolding the candy I had to move quickly so the heat from my hands wouldn't start to melt the candy. Using a layer of parchment paper between my hand and the One helped. I placed the One on a thin cutting board covered with parchment paper and refrigerated for a few minutes to help the skewers set. The letters to spell out Carter's name were "glued" on with more melted green candy melts.

The Number One was placed a little more towards the back of the center of the cake to allow room for placement of the zoo animals.

The grand finale! Ta-da! We did it! Whew! Another "first" that thankfully turned out right.

Princess Castle Cake Part III

 

 My daughter baked the cakes earlier in the day to speed things along, since I work a full time job. She made the bottom layers chocolate and the top layers yellow cake to appeal to everyone's tastes. We put the cake on  a square cake board since our original idea was to have Disney Princesses around the base of the cake.  




I added dowels in the center of the cake to prepare for adding the top tier. This was my first tier cake, although it was intimidating, I didn't have a problem. I have not mastered the art of icing a cake so don't look too closely. I knew that all of the turrets were going to hide most of the cake so I wasn't being too particular.





I shortened the dowels of the turrets going in the top tier. Trying to figure out what to cut the dowels with without ruining the decorated turrets became a concern, until my son-in-law had a brilliant idea. We used a tool intended for trimming dogs' nails! Perfect! Of course, it was thoroughly washed and cleaned before we used it.





As each turret was ready to be placed on the cake, the roof was glued to it using melted candy melts.  I also added melted candy melts to the bottom of the turret to help secure it to the cake. I suggest placing the smaller turret first, then the next taller one, and then finally the tallest one since the top of the turrets stick out further than the bottom part. I would also attach the forget-me-not flowers to the turret windows as you place each turret, since it can be a tight squeeze getting to some of them. (I discovered this the hard way.) I piped green butter-cream icing onto the window ledges to attach the flowers.




After the first set of turrets was on the top tier, I piped green butter-cream icing around the edge and inserted the flowers.






Then I placed the A shaped roof and the turrets on the bottom tier. The A shaped roof didn't quite fit on the ledge of the bottom tier. If I had realized that before hand, I would have place the top tier a little off center to make room for that roof. I added extra icing on the back of the A-roof to help anchor it to the top tier. You can see that the edges of the A-roof are hanging a little over the edges. I added windows to this tier, fastening flowers with green butter-cream icing.  I also piped the green icing and added the flowers to the edge of this tier.

I noticed that the bottom layer cakes must have not been high enough because when it came time to place the door below the A-roof, the door and the roof were touching.

I fastened the last of the turrets to the cake board with melted candy melts and added the last of the windows. We had to be careful in placement of the windows so that the pointed backing wouldn't push into the dowels that were holding the turrets in the cake. Then the final trimming of the green icing and flowers all around the door, the window ledges and around the bottom of the castle. I piped a touch of white icing to the tops of the turrets to give them a more finished look.

Princess Castle Cake

 Ta-dah! When we were finished my daughter changed her mind about using the princesses around the cake. Sophia was so enthralled with her Princess Castle Cake that she didn't even notice that there were no princesses there!

Sophia's Princess Castle Cake