Disney Car's Birthday Party

Hello All!
This morning, there was a challenge to do a scrapbook layout about celebrations and I immediately thought about the fun party that I threw for my 3 year old.  He was in love with Disney Cars (and so were we!).  I worked to transform my house into Cars Land! I scoured the internet for inspiration. Check out my Pinterest Board for more: http://pinterest.com/meagan43/disney-cars-party/

To start - you need a starting line!  I made my own with fabric in red and black/white racing checked.  I cut out the letters of black felt and sewed them onto a rectangle of more of the black and white checked.

Then, I designated areas like in Cars Land.  You fuel up at Flo's (lunch), you get surplus at Sarge's (presents), you stop in at the Cozy Cone for treats (desserts), and play at Luigi's & Mater's.  I think everything came together!  Without further ado, here is the photos

We enlarged (a lot) a photo that we took of the real Flo's sign in Disneyland's Cars Land, backed with foam core and cut it out.  It still hangs in my kitchen 4 months later ;)

Easy decor - found the image for Dinoco online, added it to a blue background (digitally) and then added to empty cans.  Just a fun little element.  Although, they would also make a good bowling game.

I took great pains, to make all the food "theme" related.  I served: Luigi's Pizza Tires, Mack's Cheesy Wheels, Lizzie's Nuts & Bolts (snack mix - I had to search to find one that seemed most like nuts and bolts), Ramone's Fruit Cars (apples & grapes - easy & fun), and Lightning McQueen & Francesco Bernoiulli's Chocolate Dipsticks (I took the basic Wilton race car pretzel rod candy and added eyes and the right coloring to look like the iconic cars characters).  Another fun thing that we did was to make a road table cloth.  I enlisted the help of my mom who sews faster and better than I to sew a black felt strip in the center to the black & white check and then to sew yellow ribbon road lines down the middle.  Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of just it.  We made 2 roads, one for the main Flo's Table and then just a road strip for the Cozy Cone table on top of an orange base.  They turned out so great!

BTW - the kit that I used to make the Flo's food labels is a retro kit called retrO from Oscraps.

I loved this idea that I found to have Fillmore's Organic Fuel.  I emptied 2 water jugs and filled one with "Anti-Freeze" (aka lemon-lime Kool-aid) and the other with "Motor Oil" (aka iced tea).  Then I found racing checked duct tape and covered the labels of water bottles.  Fun and easy!

I had plans to make these things more 'fleshed' out.  I was actually going to make specific game areas for Luigi's & Tow Maters.  I absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE how the Mater sign turned out.  It was really easy to cut out a tan foam core board, age it with brown, and then add the white paint outline.  The tires are just black foam.  Luigi's Leaning Tower of Tires was a last minute addition and a HUGE hit to the party itself.  I found these blow-up tires are Dollar Tree and bought 12.  The kids had such a blast just stacking, rolling, jumping on and every other way of playing with blow-up tires.  WAY worth the $12!  I sent each of the kids home with one, too ;)

For the treat table, I had a blast.  My kiddos helped me to transform out Cone drink holders into Cozy Cone hotel rooms.  I found instructions on the Disney site to do it to regular cones and adjusted to what I already had on hand.  They were the perfect decorations to set the mood for this table.  

I saw this cute idea to take terra cotta pots painted orange to serve treats on and just knew that I needed to do it.  This took 3 coats of orange spray paint.  I tried gluing the tiers together, but they did not stay glued. Obviously, I used the wrong adhesive, but I didn't have any problems with the server.  For the cupcakes, I found this scrumptious recipe for Orange Creamsicle Cupcakes and wanted to serve them (keeping the orange cone theme) .  I made the little cones for the top easily with orange marshmallow fondant.

Every time, we are in Disneyland, my husband eats his weight in popcorn and of course, they added a special Cone location for "Popcone", so I wanted to include it.  I found this antique Pepsi crate and wanted to use it to hold my cones.  I made the cones from orange construction paper and filled with popcorn.  I sort of mis-judged the size of the cones and the are a little too wide - oh well.  

I also wanted to include a more traditional flavor, so I made my Bavarian Bliss cupcakes (Bavarian Cream-filled white Cupcake with Buttercream Icing).  I made Route 66 fondant toppers and some Speed Limit 3 paper signs to top them.  I added an extra couple of flags on my white cupcake stand that looks retro, so it fits perfectly for the theme. 

It all looked great.  I had wanted to make the Cozy Cone sign for over it, but ran out of time.

Last, but not least, the favors were pretty simple.  I collected inexpensive cars, stickers, and small logo items.  Included an extra chocolate dipped pretzel rod and they got to take home an inflatable tire.

Finally, I want to share the layout that I did today of all the Flo's details

It is a simple layout using Britt-ish Design's Nothing But Pictures 3 template and her Cars Rule kit

All the kids had a great time and I just loved all the little details, I wanted to leave it all up forever ;)

I hope I have given you some inspiration to pull off your own Cars party!

Meagan

How to Make a Fun Adult Mickey Birthday Party

Like I said, it has been a whirlwind of Disney things these last few months.  I guess that it started in February with my birthday.  I decided to have a Disney Birthday (at the young age of 39).  It started because my girls had innocently asked what theme my party was going to be, and I told them there wasn't one.  Their answer to that was that THEY would always have a themed party.  And I realized that I wanted one, too.  I had seen so many fun things and didn't want to wait for a kid's party to do them.

Here is my pinterest board of Disney stuff.  Check it out.

First thing in the morning, my dear hubby made me breakfast with Mickey-Head shaped pancakes!  How sweet.  Love that man-o-mine :)

We had a full day, but I made time while breakfast was being made to paint my toes to look like Minnie Mouse.  Really easy - just paint red and add white spots with a french manicure polish.  It wasn't perfect, but I loved it.

I had my friend with a Cri-cut cut out some big black Mickey-Heads and I hid them all over the house for my own Hidden Mickey Hunt.  Do you see the hidden Mickey on our fish tank?

I made a Mickey Head out of red tissue paper flowers.  I used it as decoration with other items.  

Plus, I added other fun Mickey elements all around the house.

I made Mickey Head Oreo suckers.  It was really easy (more on the how to's later).

I also made my own version of a Dole Whip - which didn't really turn out like a real Dole Whip.  I am going to have to work on this one some more.  Don't get me wrong, they were still yummy, but . . .

Then, to top it all off, I made Peanut Butter Cupcakes to look like Mickey Mouse.  My favorite thing.  These even had peanut butter cups sunk in the middle.

There were a few other things that I thought about making, but ran out of time.

The best part was that all my friends came, we had a yummy dinner made by my husband.  We all sat and chatted (a lot of talk about Disney :) of course) and had a great time.  What a great birthday.

So, just goes to show that you are never too old for a themed party and certainly never to old for Mickey!!

How to Make Your Own Yummy (yes Yummy) and Easy (yes Easy) Marshmallow Fondant

Hello dear readers,
Finally - the How to make Fondant, as pictured in this Noah's Ark cake.

More on this cake later :)

In the past, I always would just purchase ready made fondant (usually Wilton's) to use on any of my cakes that required fondant.  I have heard horror stories about making fondant and how hard it was.  I would watch as people would take a piece of cake and peel off this fondant and put nicely on the side of their plate to then throw away later.  I was never upset by this, because to be honest, the pre-made fondants taste like plastic.  I only used it out of fear of making my own.
Then, last July, I entered a contest for my town's birthday and the cake had to made completely from scratch.  So, I searched the recipes on-line and found this recipe on Cake Central.
Before I get to the "How to" of it all, I wanted to share my first experience.  It was VERY funny:

I was such a mess that I couldn't get this gooey mess off my fingers to roll out the cling wrap or open the ziplock bag.

 

I had to wake up my husband to come take my picture because I was laughing so hard.  I didn't know what had happened and why it didn't do what it was supposed to (the next morning, when I made my second batch, I realized that I had put in an extra cup of marshmallow and not added enough powdered sugar).  The good news - it was still salvageable!  I did not have to throw all this away.  After letting it sit over-night, I added more PS and presto - perfect Fondant!  The next day, when I made it with the actual right amounts, it worked PERFECTLY!  It really was so easy and it smelled and tasted great!  (What could taste bad about marshmallows and powdered sugar?)


For the sake of this post, I will edit the recipe a little.  All the wording is hers, and if I have anything in addition to add, it will be in blue.  For the full recipe, go to her post on Cake Central

MMF-EASY PEASY! Made Using a Kitchenaid Mixer

Posted by The_Lil_Cakehouse

This MMF (MMF stands for Marshmallow Fondant) is a tad softer than the kind I bought, but I made figures out of it without the addition of gumpaste/tylose/glucose/gumtex or any other thing that is said to help with it. My figures stayed up to the challenge, all I did was kneaded in some extra PS (per figure, I didn’t measure it, just “felt” and adjusted)–Best Part most of it was done in my Kitchenaid!!!

Ingredients

• 8 Cups of Mini Marshmallows
• 3 Tbsp of Water
• 1 Tbsp of Flavor
• 9 Cups (ish) Powdered Sugar, Sifted
• 2 Heaping Tbsp of Shortening + whatever you’ll use to grease your work space

Instructions

Directions (in this order too):

1. Grease Bowl and Dough Hook of Kitchen Aid



I find that if I sift the 7 cups that are needed at first, it is easier to add to your mixture, then sift the rest later




2. Sift 9 Cups of Powdered Sugar in a separate Mixing Bowl (found out this IS VERY important)



I have used rum, almond and vanilla flavoring

 

3. Put marshmallows, Water, Flavor, Shortening in microwave safe bowl 

4. Heat up marshmallow mixture in 30 second zaps, pull out, stir, keep heating until the marshmallows are almost melted, it will look soupy with some lumps 

5. Scoop 6 Cups of PS in Kitchen Aid. (all the while the marshmallows are sorta cooling down–but don’t let them cool completely) Make a well in the powdered sugar with the measuring cup 

6. Pour Marshmellow Mixture into PS well, it’s going to spread out and cover all the PS basically, but it helps for it to be in the middle of the PS. 

7. Put 1 More Cup of PS on top of MM’s 

8. Kitchenaid first setting, on mine its Stir, once the PS is mostly incorporated, put on the next setting (I used 2), let it run for a while, you’ll notice there is PS on the sides of the bowl, that’s fine, leave it there, try and refrain from scraping it down  

9. Here’s where it comes to your EYE and Finger, You’ll notice it will start to creep up on the dough hook, if its not doing this yet, start adding the PS 1/2 cup at a time until it does (I didn’t let it fully creep up, once it started is when I moved to the next step). 

10. Touch the mixture, if its goo and sticking to your finger completely, add 1/4 of PS, if its slightly sticky, then you’re ready for the next part 

11. Prepare a portion of your counter (or where ever you hand knead MMF), Bring your sifted PS left over in your separate bowl where you can get to it easily, Shortening on the area where you’ll knead, dump out Mixture (Just for a visual, I still had to scrape mine out–I tried not to fully mix this in the mixer–I found I got a better workable material if I had some hand kneading in there so I could feel the right consistency). Grease your hands up 

12. Add more PS like 1/8 of a cup at a time if it appears to be falling under its own weigh–the perfect MMF should be able to hold its weight a little even at this stage– hand knead, add more PS if you need to, (by the time It was all said and done I had left over PS in the bowl-quite a bit, I’d say I only used about 3/4 of the bag in the mixer, and then like another 1/2 cup (maybe) when I had kneaded it.) 

13. Grease it up, wrap in saran wrap–I used to do the gallon bag also, but I only did saran wrap this time like triple wrapped, but if I were making it a couple days in advance I probaby would of done a gallon bag also–let rest overnight (or at least several hours, 8+).

 Well, that's it!  The best part is that it saves for a really long time.  

Enjoy the recipe and talk to you soon,  

Meagan

How to Make Cool Super Mario Brothers Cupcakes

To celebrate my 8 year old's birthday in class, I made cupcakes.  Since she is very girly, I made Hello Kitty Cupcakes, but I realized that there were quite a few boys in the class that may want something a little less girly.  I found this cute idea on the Cake Central website where someone made Hello Kitty Cupcakes and Super Mario Brothers ones for the same party.
I picked 2 of the elements from the game that are very easy - the power-ups (mushrooms) and stars.


Start by baking your cupcakes in preferred flavor (I chose white cake and chocolate cake).  I also used basic canned white frosting and then tinted it to color.  I made 1 batch of white, 1 light green, 1 orange, 1 plain white, and then I also had made chocolate frosting.  You would not need to go this far.  You could keep it basic and just chose 1 color.  Also, you will need a small batch of white fondant. 

To make the mushroom (aka Power-Up) stalk: 

First roll out the white fondant to be about 1/4" thick.  Start by cutting a strip of white fondant about 1" thick.  I used my Fondant Ribbon Cutter.  


Then, take your circle cutter and cut out the top half of your circle (you could cut all the way through, but then you would waste some of your fondant that way).

Next, using the same circle, cut the bottom of the mushroom off.  
Now, you should have a shape with straight sides, but rounded bottom and top.
Once you have then cut out, put them aside under a glass to keep them from drying out.

While you have the white rolled out, go ahead and cut out your white spots for the mushroom.  I looked through my stuff to find a circle cutter small enough, but ended up using my icing circle tip.
You need 3 spots for each mushroom that you are making.  
Put these with your stalks to keep from drying.

Now, you will need to color a small amount of the fondant red and roll out to the same thickness as your white stalks.
Cut out a circle from the red fondant and place on your thin fondant foam and using your fondant smoother, lightly pull along ("pet") top to either side, so that the fondant becomes an oval.  You could also use your finger if you are careful.

I also then squished the top and bottom in with my fingers.

To put it all together - start by cutting a small portion off of the bottom of your red mushroom cap with your same circle cutter (this will mimic the top of the stalk).
Now, place your stalk against the bottom of your cap and using a small amount of water or clear vanilla extract, meld the 2 pieces together.  Use a tool to blend them and bind them a little better.

Use your smoothing tool to make your "spots" flatter and wider.  Attach 3 spots across the cap of your mushroom using water/vanilla and press in with the smoother.

To add the eyes, color a very small amount of fondant black.  Roll a tiny ball of black fondant into a ball.  Lengthen into an oval.  Place eyes onto stalk and press flat.  Use water/vanilla and press further if needed to attach.

And you are done!

I also cut out stars from yellow fondant and added black eyes.  Place the mushroom or stars on top of the iced cupcakes to complete the look.
It's really easy.
I hope you like them and they are the hit of your Mario party!
Meagan