Katie's Puffin Rock Party

We celebrated Katie's 5th birthday this weekend with a Puffin Rock-themed pool party. Not many of our friends know the show or its characters, but it's a favorite at our house, so when Katie asked for a Puffin party, I got to work planning it and quickly discovered that there is ZERO merchandise available, which meant I had to get creative. Thankfully, the theme lends itself perfectly for a pool party!

All week, it had been raining at the same time every day, which happened to be the exact same time window as the party... So I had an unusual amount of anxiety. I got the cake done the day before and had plenty of time to decorate and prepare food (plus my awesome mom was here and helped), so I had little to worry about other than the one thing I couldn't control: the weather! Fortunately, the rain never came (despite the clouds, wind, and thunder!), the birthday girl was so happy, and everyone had a great time! So here are the details...

First: the cake! It was such a fun one to make. I love making fondant figurines and incorporating all the little details. Most people don't even notice them, but when they do... it's awesome! Plus, the best part is that my kids usually DO notice, and of course, this is all for them.

I made the figurines the week before the party; from left to right: Silky the seal, Mossy the shrew (with his pile of blueberries), Oona the puffling, Baba the puffling, May the rabbit, and Bernie the crab, in case you are unfamiliar with these cute little animals.

After the animals were made, I baked the cakes, filled them with Italian meringue buttercream, carved the cake into a mountain, and then crumb-coated it all before putting it in the fridge to get the icing to harden. At this point, I still didn't have a clear idea of how the cake would all come together; I was just hoping it would all work out once I got the fondant on.

And it did! I don't have any worthwhile work-in-progress photos because I found my groove, was "in the zone" and worked way too late into the night without any thought about documenting the process.  

So I'll just show you as many angles and close-ups as I can. One head-on photo isn't enough to capture every detail. Here's Mossy with his berries.

The waterfall side of the island.

Side view of the whole cake.

Oona and Baba with their signature rainbow at the top.

The whole island in all its glory! 

And just for comparison purposes, here is what Puffin Rock really looks like on the show. I left off a few details, but Katie easily recognized and LOVED it.

Now for the party. This was the food and cake table. I decorated it with "kelp"made from plastic table covers and "bubbles" made with clear balloons. My mom and the little ones spread out shells between the platters. The party was between meal times, so we just had snacks to fuel the little fishies as they swam and played.

The food followed the theme too: May's veggies (with hummus), Baba's iggly wigglies (veggie sticks), Oona's shiny shells (Doritos)... 

I made croissant PB&Js with candy eyes to make them sort of look like crabs (Bernie sandwiches!)... 

And I made homemade goldfish crackers, which are always a hit (Baba's Fishy-fishies). My mom prepared a bowl full of grapes and berries (Mossy's berries!). I also found some rainbow lollipops on Oriental Trading and put them in a jar filled with marshmallow "clouds" for decoration/a yummy treat.

I printed quick little signs for all the foods... here's a close up of the "worms".

One more cake shot. Ok, time to move on from the food!

Since it was a mostly outdoor party, I didn't go too crazy with the decorations. I made streamer rainbows and printed some cute banners of Oona and Baba. I also printed some coloring pages and placed them on the table in case of rain or if any kids needed to take a break inside.

Since it didn't rain, I didn't expect anyone to color, but at the very end, my coloring-crazy kids (and a few friends) did do some coloring, so I'm glad I had the pages for them.

Katie wanted a piñata this year, and I wasn't sure if she would want to hit it... she always gets piñata-shy at parties, but I went for it anyway. We found a parrot piñata at Party City, bought some puffin-colored tissue paper, and I transformed the parrot into Oona.

She finally overcame her fear and began the attack on the candy-filled puffin. Happily. I filled it with fish gummies, DumDums, and chewy Jolly Ranchers.

And she wore the head as a mask after collecting her candy! 

Then it was cake time. My sweet little girl isn't used to being the center of attention. We had to nudge her closer to her cake. But she was so excited. I love the way she is looking at her cake.

Make a wish!

Happy birthday girl with her daddy. After cake, she swam a bit longer, and then decided she was ready to dry off and open her presents, so she changed into the dress I made her. I printed the Puffin Rock logo onto iron-on transfer fabric and attached it to a simple pink dress from Primary.com.

She was so ready to open presents that she sat down and waited for her guests to come in from the pool. 

Present-opening is always chaotic, but she enjoyed it! 

Her friends were really into it too.

Once it was time for everyone to leave, Katie handed out favors of pull-back toy crabs, seashell candy necklaces, and home-printed stickers to all her friends. 

I love this little Puffin, and she had a wonderful 5th birthday party. I cannot believe she is now five! 

Happy Birthday to my sweet, strong, clever, willful, precious little-big girl. I want to hug you and squeeze you and keep you forever.

Anthony's Wild Things Party

Anthony turned 3 on Tuesday. I won't even let myself think the thoughts or feel the feelings about my baby being 3... So I will share the details of all the neat stuff I pulled together for his party. 

His current favorite book is Where the Wild Things Are, so we held a Wild Rumpus for him. Basically that meant inviting mostly family (a 2-year-old who doesn't go to school doesn't have a lot of friends yet) to come eat and play. 

For the invitations, I (or rather, Paul) cut out these wild thing outlines with my Silhouette Cameo cutter, then we used a pen in place of the blade to write out all the details. I love the way it turned out! (The pen ran out of ink on the last one, so I had to write in the date with black on the one we kept... The others were all metallic brown). 

I decorated the house with wild things made from tissue paper poms, a felt leaf garland, and lots of green and brown balloons and streamers all around. 

Anthony wore a "wolf suit", which was just a light gray fuzzy hoodie, light gray sweatpants, a fuzzy tail, and a felt crown (Of course I sewed the latter two).

I glued felt horns and fur onto headbands for our guests to be wild things too.

They played in the "private boat for Max," made with cut-up, taped-together, painted-red moving boxes we had stored in the closet from past parties. It was a hit!

The other thing that went over really well was the craft: make your own wild thing, with sticky back foam cut into horns and teeth and whatnot, googly eyes, and small paper plates. 

We stuck popsicle sticks to them so they could be used as masks. I love how they turned out!

The food consisted of Anthony's favorite foods: cantaloupe, blueberries, veggie tray, and MEAT. Paul smoked a brisket (which he is VERY good at doing), and we also had a few other BBQ staples (except I forgot the pickles!): bread, sauce, baked beans, chips and salsa. 

I added a few signs with relevant phrases from the book to connect the food to the theme, including labeling the blueberries as "terrible eyes" and some Bugles as "terrible claws."

Then, of course, there was the cake. 

I'm particularly proud of the faces; I think I was pretty spot-on in reproducing them from the book. 

The cake wasn't free from headaches; I had some structural issues with the arm Max rode on, and the fondant grass around the base never stuck all the way, and I ended up ripping them off.

Here are a few behind-the scenes pictures. The legs and arms were rice krispy treats; the body and head were chocolate cake. I covered everything in dark chocolate ganache, and fondant on top of that. People often ask how does one cut into a cake with structural supports. This is what it looked like after we ate some. The key is to know where the bars and boards are, and cut around them.

Our guests left with their headbands and crafts as well as kazoos (requested by Anthony), eyeball bouncy balls (to "roll their terrible eyes"), and a chocolate "wild thing" to eat up. 

Since Anthony's birthday is on Groundhog Day (thus the groundhog at the bottom of the cake), our groundhog photo op board had to make its appearance, this time sporting a king of wild things crown (in past years it has worn a sombrero and a hard hat). 

Anthony was a gracious host, escorting his guests to the door as they departed.

Our little wild thing had a lot of fun, and we are thankful to everyone who helped us celebrate him!

Katie's Octonauts Cake

Katie finally (yes, finally... it seemed like she would be three forever!) turned four, so we celebrated with an Octonauts-themed pool party, which was a lot of fun, and has yielded a lazy pajama day today to recover from the weekend. Not to mention the fact that I started working on the components of this cake several weeks before the party (and then made another large cake at the same time). So I have been living, breathing, and, yes, eating cake for a long time now. But the outcome was so very worth the effort.

Like I said, I started several weeks ago with just a bunch of drawings and a little Tunip.

Then I made little tiny furniture.

I poured gelatin repeatedly over silicone domes (and a metal ball pan) to make the "glass" for the pods. I am still amazed that gelatin will dry completely hard like this!

Then it was time to put the little pods together. Here's Tunip's garden. I forgot to take a close-up picture of the games room. Oops.

And here are the bedrooms of the Octo-crew. Barnacles and Kwazii share a pod, and Dashi and Peso share another. Making all the tiny furniture reminded me of our gingerbread house from last Christmas.

Next up, the HQ.

And Professor Inkling.

The small details are the most fun to make.

Once the furniture and contents of the pods were done, it was time to focus on the characters: Barnacles, Kwazii, and Peso!

I let everything sit and dry for a few days, and I went to work on another cake before coming back to the Octonauts.

Paul helped me with the structure again. We used the same board as the wine cake, but it had a thicker center post and additional supports for the arms.

Paul also helped by making sea creatures with a silicone mold.

He got creative and made a few without the mold too... totally awesome. He always likes contributing to our kids' cakes in whatever way he can.

I airbrushed waves onto the bottom cake and then covered the bottom and the center with rice crispy treats. Then I used candy melts to get a smooth surface before covering the whole thing in fondant.

This took a lot of fondant to cover!

I added the characters, sea creatures, and the final details to the Octopod and finally finished around 1:00am. 

Katie saw it first thing when she woke up, and I heard her exclaim "Thank you Kwazii! Thank you Peso!"

She was so happy, and THIS is why I make cakes. 

Happy Birthday to my Katie!