I love planning parties, but THIS one is my favorite so far!
My daughter Madison just turned 12
and since she's sort of obsessed with baking ANYWAY
what better way to incorporate her love of baking than to include her friends in a
CAKE DECORATING THEMED BIRTHDAY PARTY?
In my head it started out as a cute idea on a small scale,
but in my true Cindy fashion, it escalated into so much more.
Even my husband thought it was cool,
and he doesn't think very many things are cool.
Besides baking, we tied in a few other fun things too,
like hipster mustaches, big lips, and bow ties,
polka dots (WHO DOESN'T LOVE POLKA DOTS?),
ruffled aprons,
and cupcake liners as decor!
Dollar Tree and Party City are so great for finding affordable place settings and decor.
Everything you see is from either of those places,
except the cupcake liners, which are from Michaels.
I made the gift bag name tags out of several layers of cupcake liners.
Scrunch each layer a little smaller so that all the colors show,
then staple them in the center to hold it all together.
Hot glue a name sticker to the top to hide your staples.
These are SUPER fun and easy to make!
More fun with cupcake liners!
I made a big long banner of different sizes,
plus I added coffee filters and small paper lace doilies.
A lot of decor bang for your buck, super cute, super easy, and adorable!
Great way to add some color to the party!
Here's a full view of the cupcake banner which is draped across the mirror.
The big surprises we had in store were personalized ruffled aprons and
a freshly baked double layer cake boxed up for each girl.
The cakes were plain and unfrosted,
but the party is all about cake decorating, right?!
Maddie's has 3 ruffles and everyone elses has 2.
The cheapest place I've found to get plain white aprons is Sam's Club.
After collecting the most colorful random fabrics I could find,
all 12 aprons were ruffled and names embroidered by my good friend Connie G.
Seriously, after sewing all of these, I owe her BIG TIME!!!
She volunteered to make them as a favor,
but I'm pretty sure halfway in she regretted it. haha
THANK YOU, CONNIE!!! I ADORE YOU!!!
Remember this hutch from Sweet Salvage?
It made a great buffet for dinner!
Here's my first attempt at a chalkboard.
I didn't have time to fix it. lol
Maddie whipped up these fabulous hipster lips, bow tie, and mustache cookies
with our BEST SUGAR COOKIE OF YOUR LIFE recipe.
To get colors this bright and deep,
you have to use edible gel dyes in the cake decorating section.
Every girl who was invited showed up.
Out of 12 girls, that's amazing!
I think Maddie must've been leaking top secret party details. ;)
Speaking of 12, all of these girls are around 12 years old,
so I wasn't sure how much they'd love the whole frilly apron thing.
Me personally, the older I get, the more I love frilly.
Turns out the girls LOVED their aprons!
My friend Suzi who was there to help out
was also playing spy.
She told me later that the girls all seemed blown away
that someone would make a personalized apron for each of them.
(again, thank you from the bottom of my heart, Connie!!!)
The next big surprise was these three gorgeous ladies!
I now love them.
They were the rockstars of this gig!
One is actually a friend of mine, April,
plus her two super talented sisters Airan and Amy.
They own and operate SUNNY SKIES BAKERY out in Buckeye.
Check 'em out!
I'm tellin' ya, these girls know their stuff!!!!!!!
Plus they are affordable and fun!!
They were so excited to do Maddie's party
and I was so excited to have them and all their skills!
These chicas even color matched their delicious fondant to the party!
Plus, I never knew fondant was delicious.
Every fondant I've ever tasted before was kinda gross.
Not the Sunny Skies Sister's fondant!
They make stuff taste good.
They set up each girl with her own station of frosting,
fondant, 2 cakes, rolling pins, plus all kinds of other goodies and tools.
Then they gave the girls step-by-step instructions on how to proceed
to cover the cakes in buttercream and decorate with fondant.
I'm STILL wrapping my head around the fact
that I had three professional bakers in my kitchen,
plus 12 tweens, my great friend Suzi (for moral support),
24 cakes, several lbs. of fondant and powdered sugar,
WITH NO STRESS OR DRAMA!
There was a lot going on in there!
I've never been so thankful for so much counter space!
Buttercream. Always yes.
Maddie heaven.
And Suzi.
(She's a rockstar too!!! Such an amazing and helpful friend!!!)
April working on her cake to show the girls some tips and tricks.
Everyone having fun.
What was really surprising is that these girls never got bored,
even though this went on for quite a while.
I'm here to tell you that twelve is a great age for this kind of party!
I loved all of Maddie's friends!
They were sweet and well-behaved.
That's a big part as to why this was my favorite party ever.
Usually kids are crazy! lol
I was blown away with how beautifully the girls decorated their cakes!
These were totally their own creations.
Sunny Skies Bakery's cake. I'm so in love with those flowers!
There's not enough praise in the world to tell these ladies how much I appreciate their extreme hard work, sharing their talents, and making it affordable!!
PLUS they even cleaned up all the mess afterwards!
Are you kidding me?!
I am a loyal friend and customer to these gals forevermore!
So many people helped with making this one little girl's birthday something extra special.
It was worth it!
I love you forever, Madison!
This post is linkup up here.
Absolutely love this. So when is the adult cake decorating party...sign me up.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sandy! And yeah, Suzi & I were thinking the same thing! lol. We even already talked to April about it. Let's talk about it when you're here this weekend!! :)
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