Knights and Unicorn Party

We decided to host a joint birthday party for my two oldest, whose birthdays are a month apart.  My daughter wanted a unicorn party, and my oldest was easily persuaded to have a knight theme.  I thought a castle cake would be fun.  Since this is the third of five cakes I need to make over a six week period, I wanted the cake to be simple.  Pinterest can be helpful as well as dangerous.  This time it was super helpful.  I found a cake that was easy to make.

The cake is made of a 9x9 square two layer cake and a 6 inch round layer cake.  I used some silicon cupcake wrappers and sugar cones for the towers.  The door and windows are made from a Hershey's Bar.

I also made these two bean bag game covers for the game we already owned.  I drew the castle based on my son's design and he drew everything in the sky.  It was great to have him involved.

I confess that I did  not draw this unicorn free hand.  I traced it from an image that I saw on Pinterest. Both I painted using acrylic paints.

The kids also had fun finding dragon eggs.

Summer Cake

I am in the middle of creating five cakes.  My son's teacher asked me to bring in a cake to celebrate all the summer birthdays.  I'm sure I could have just bought one, but that would be too logical.  So I made this beach themed cake based on ones I saw on Pinterest.  (I cheated and used a King Arthur Flour cake mix and I bought ready made Betty Crocker frosting.)  I think I spent more time tracking down drinks umbrellas and gummy rings than I did on the rest of the cake.

The sand is made from a mixture of graham crackers and brown sugar, pulsed in the food processor until it looks like sand.  I used the same idea to make the kids' pirate treasure map cake last summer.

The tricky thing will be transporting the cake safely to school.  I read a tip about putting a larger cardboard ring around the cardboard that the cake is sitting on.  I had cut the cardboard base out of a pizza box, so I just cut a ring around the circle I had already cut out.  Simple.

Ladybug Birthday Cake

For my daughter's fourth birthday, she wanted a ladybug theme.  Together we looked at some of the ladybug cakes on Pinterest, and she liked about half of them. In my dreamworld, I could probably make one of those fondant cakes, but in the reality of two kids and a baby, that wasn't happening.  When she later said that she wanted a cake with green frosting, purple sprinkles and ladybugs, I thought I could do that and still go to bed before midnight.

I made the ladybugs out of gum paste, based on a tutorial that I saw on YouTube.  I used a black food marker to make the spots and the pupils on the eyes.  I made a template out of a cereal box for the number four and held it over the cake while sprinkling the sanding sugar.  It wasn't perfect, but when a sprinkled more sugar over the top of the cake, it looked fine.  My daughter loved it, which is the most important.

Pinecone Elf Ornament

My neighbor has started having monthly craft nights where we make ornaments.  It has been fun.  Yesterday we made ornaments inspired from Kathy's antique elfin pinecone ornaments.  Mine looks a little bit like a witch, but I like it.

Snuggly Blanket

Several of the babies at the moms group I go to have these cuddly blankets (made with minky fabric).  I thought making a blanket for Evelyn would be an easy project, and it was pretty easy.  The difficult part was finding the time.