It's a Princess Party!

A few weeks ago, a friend at school asked my catering class to come up with some appetizers, two cakes, and a few decorations for her daughter's (and niece's) birthday party. The girls are one year apart and are turning three and four. They LOVE princesses, Disney princesses, and all that has to do with royalty. Being the frugalista that I am, I came up with things that involved supplies that I already had on hand for most of the decor--which I'll talk about in a bit.

On to cakes--I needed to make two, one for each birthday girl. Now, as you see these pictures, please keep in mind that I have never had a cake decorating class. I have only made one birthday cake prior to these. They are not perfect or even as lovely as I had hoped for, but I think they will work.

The first cake was to be heart shaped. There were heart shaped cake pans available to buy, but they were too old-ladyish for this occasion. So, I made a square cake, a round cake, cut the round and stuck it onto the square to make a heart. Ta da! Pink and purple were requested--as this was for a very girly event. This cake weighed approximately 845 pounds. It doesn't look very big, but there are four cake mixes in this one! Yes, I cheated. I did not make this cake from scratch.


This cake, however, was made from scratch. Underneath the veneer of this carriage is a set of two of the Southern Living pound cakes. I baked them in a bundt pan, flipped them together, and did my best to create a horse-drawn carriage like Cinderella's. Tomorrow at the birthday party, this will be horse drawn. I think the cracker wheels are also going to be traded out for Oreos.

This is the top of the carriage. I felt like it needed to say her name and "Happy Birthday!" Anyway, it was my first time writing on a cake, so it's not beautiful. Again, it works. I had a whole, whole lot of fun with this cake. :)

Now on to decor. I tried to keep things fairly simple and VERY affordable. The only things that had to be purchased for the following items were: 2 pieces of yellow/gold poster board, rhinestones, and ribbon (but the ribbon was left over from decorating Valentine's boxes, so does it really count?).

We made crowns for table decor, using the items listed above. There are also little crowns for the table that state what the appetizers are in a cutesy manner. We made little wands with the leftover supplies. There is also pink & purple confetti in the shapes of hearts & stars. My kids worked very hard creating all of this! I think they had fun with it. It was a nice teachable moment--setting a scene for a party using what you have on hand and not buying ALL premade decorations. (They are adding some decor that's premade & not shown here.) This was a great activity for my catering class.

We also made a little bit of wall art. We pulled up coloring sheets on the internet, put them up on my overhead projector, traced them, colored, cut, and laminated. For the most part, they turned out really well!





Snow White

Cinderella

Disney princesses--sorry for the crooked picture.

This sign is for the outside of the party location. It's reinforced with cardboard to give it some stability in the wind. We used the dye cut and mad tracing skills to accomplish this masterpiece. My gluers didn't get this exactly as I had it laid out initially, but it's still pretty cute!



They're having a big meal at the party, but we made a few appetizers: veggie pizza, veggie dip (and veggie sticks), chicken bacon bites, gouda bites, and lil smokie pigs in blankets. We had it all completed or ready to stick in the oven with baking instructions written on the containers.

We also made sugar cookie wands that turned out pretty well. They were so easy, and the girls will have so much fun with them. Those were the last things finished today, and I forgot to take pictures of them. They were really cute though! Overall, I think this was a success!

Lingering thought of the day: After completing this catering type project and hosting an FCCLA fundraising dinner tonight, it's nice to sprawl out on my couch and play with my blog. It was a good day. I had fun with both projects and really enjoyed this! Random thought: I could really stand to have a pedi. My achy feet are craving one.