Party Guest}Pioneer Party

My friend Sarah is amazing.  Not only is she a talented photographer and an amazing party planner she is also the mother of six, yes I said six, of the most adorable little girls you will ever meet.  And on top of that she home schools them!  I told you she was amazing.

Sarah use to be my neighbor until they moved out to the country.  We miss those cute little girls (and Sarah and Chris too).

Fortunately I can keep up to date on the whole family through Sarah’s blog.

Recently Sarah shared a fun Pioneer Party she put on for her daughter Autumn’s birthday.

Today I am excited to share with you Autumn’s amazing party.

One of the benefits of living out in the country is that you have friends and neighbors with barns which is the perfect setting for a pioneer party.

And farms and barns usually come with animals!

Sarah sewed up a batch of pioneer bonnets and aprons for each of the party guests – I told you she was amazing!  Don’t they look cute in their little pioneer gear!?  Hannah would look cute in anything!

In addition to playing with the animals there was a lot going on at Autumn’s party!

There was candle dipping…

and the candles made cute little table favors too!

There were also potato sack races, feeding the goats and chickens

felting eggs,

and making the biscuits and butter.  What a great idea – let the party guests make the party food!

OK, I’m tired after just typing all of that!

Autumn has pronounced it to be her best birthday party yet.

Happy birthday Autumn and thanks Sarah for sharing your fun pioneer party!

Cookie Bouquet – Part Two, the Assembly

Cookie Bouquet – Part One, the Cookies is here.

The next day, after the cookies had dried over night I was ready to put the bouquet together.

For supplies you will need:

A container. I used a piece of green florist foam inside of a white gift bag that I had added black dots to to resemble dice.  I cut off the handle of the bag and turned the upper edge into the inside of the bag to reinforce the bag a bit.  You could also use a vase, a box or just use your imagination!

Filler: You will need some kind of filler, shredded paper etc. to place in and around the cookies once they are placed.

Cookies: Go here for directions.

Misc. Decor: In addition to the cookies I used other items that related to the show – Guys & Dolls.  All the crapshooters in the show wore red carnations in their labels so that was the perfect flower to use to fill in and around the cookies.

I also found some great chocolate bars wrapped like dollar bills at the dollar store!  I hot glued them to bamboo skewers.

I also bought a deck of cards at the dollar store along with some dice.  I used different card hands “full house” etc. and glued the cards together in a fan shape and attached them to a bamboo skewer too.  I also hot glued on a few dice for a finishing touch!

I didn’t end up using the red and black ribbon but it would look cute tied around some of the sticks.

After putting your foam into the container start inserting sticks into the foam.  Be sure and vary the height of your sticks to give it some variety and interest.  I put the larger items in first (candy bars,etc.) and then filled in with the smaller items such as the cookies.

I made a little printed sign for the front cutting the shapes out on my fun Cricut machine and attaching it to a lollipop stick.

Fill in around everything with your filler and you are finished!

Who wouldn’t love their own personalized cookie bouquet!?

Cookie Bouquet – Part One, the Cookies

I have always loved those cookie bouquets you can buy from places like Cookies by Design etc. but they were always just a little too expensive and frankly I didn’t think they tasted that good.

I decided that it was time I tried my hand at making my own cookie bouquet – how hard could it be anyway?

Well, I learned a lot during the process and there is definitely room for improvement but it turned out pretty cute for my first try.

I went to an expert cookie baker I Am Baker to find a sugar cookie recipe and frosting recipe that would work well.

I knew I needed a thicker, firmer sugar cookie than I usually make.

I used this recipe.

I have never been a big fan of rolling out sugar cookies.  Mainly because I can never seem to get them an even thickness.  Thanks to my friend Dawn, who is an amazing cook, for this great tip for rolling out cookie dough.  She told me to get two clean paint sticks and set them on either side of my dough.   Placing my rolling pin on top of the sticks gives you a perfectly even cookie dough  – so easy!!  I rolled my dough out to about 1/4″ but next time may try making it a bit thicker.  You could double up on your paint sticks to do this.

Before baking the cookies I was going to use for the cookie bouquet I pressed a white lollipop stick (you can get them at the craft store or a cake decorating store) into the back of the cookie – about an inch or so up into the cookie. Being careful not to push it all the way through the dough. I then took a small, flat piece of dough and covered over the stick on the back of the cookie.  Use a little water to dampen the dough and it will stick a lot better.  Smooth it out with your damp finger.

I forgot to take a photo of this part of the process – sorry!!

So pretend these cookies have sticks in them!

I used a square shaped cookie cutter for the dice and found the heart, spade, diamond, etc. cookie cutters are at our local cake decorating shop.

I also used I Am Baker’s frosting recipe.

You will need two “strengths” of frosting.  One stiffer than the other.

With the stiffer frosting fill a bag and use your smallest, round tip.

Here’s a great tip for getting the frosting into the bag.  Stand the decorating bag up into a tall glass – it keeps it wide open for you to get the frosting in!

I then outlined each cookie with the stiffer white frosting.

Using the runnier frosting and a bigger round tip, flood each cookie with frosting.

I used my little offset spatula to spread the frosting into the corners that didn’t fill in.

I then let the white layer dry and mixed up my black frosting.  I found that the best way to get a real black frosting is to use the brand by AmeriColor.  I found it at my local cake decorating shop but it is also available online through Amazon.  It makes a real black color, not gray!  Their red is great too – you get red, not pink!

Using my smaller tip I outlined each cookie in black and added my dice dots.

I used this same method for the spade, hearts, diamonds etc.

I then let the cookies dry overnight.  The frosting needs to set up before you start working with the cookies or you will have a mess.  I think the cookies taste better the second day too!

Stay tuned for Cookie Bouquet – Part Two, The Assembly!

Guys & Dolls Cast Gift Ideas

This was the 11th  Spring musical our family has been involved with at the high school!  I’m not sure what I am going to do with myself when Tessa graduates from high school next year!

I have put together a lot of flower bouquets during that time.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, flowers can get a little old after a while so it’s fun to come up with something different.

Candy bouquets make a great gift.

And even a Candy Bar Cake is a great idea.

I am always on the lookout for a new, fun idea.

One night, after one of the performances, I spotted this!

How cute is that?  A flower bouquet made out of playing cards, dice and dollar bills.  The perfect flower bouquet for Big Julie (he’s a really big gambler in the show – I mean really big!!!)  I had to stop him and ask if I could take a picture. Found out that my creative friend Laurie made it for him!  Way to go Laurie.

I decided I wanted to do a little something for all the members of the cast.  Forgetting that it was a rather large cast (50 kids) I decided to make dice shaped cookies for everyone.

It turned into a little bigger project than I anticipated but they did turn out so cute!!
My kitchen table looked like this for several days!

I also made cookies shaped like hearts, diamonds, spades, clovers and some lips for the Hot Box Dolls.  I wrapped two cookies in a cellophane bag and then attached a little card.  I used playing cards for the backing.

We had given Tessa flowers the previous weekend after the show so for closing night I wanted to do something a little different.

I decided to try my hand at a cookie bouquet for the first time.  I learned quite a few things through the process and decided I needed to take an icing lesson from my friend Dawn next time she makes her amazing shortbread cookies but I think it turned out pretty good for my first try.  I made one for Tessa and one for the shows director.

I’ll do a separate post to give you a little more detail on how I put it together etc.  Stay tuned!

I helped the kids put gifts together for all the adults involved in the play – music director, choreographer, orchestra conductor, set designer etc. too.  They received their gifts in these cute white gift bags that I turned into dice!

Hope this post got your creative juices flowing!  Stay tuned for more info on the cookie bouquet!!

Guys & Dolls Cast Party Menu

Thank you to all who have emailed wondering where the photos are from the cast party I worked on last weekend!  I’ve been playing catch up the last few days and trying to get caught back up on my sleep.  Staying up until 2:00 a.m. in the morning and then losing an hour of sleep due to daylight savings time can slow an old lady like me down just a bit!!

The cast party was a great success thanks to the help of a lot of parents!

We had a yummy menu, not the typical pizza or sub sandwich fare!

There were lettuce wraps, curry, El Cafe Cubano beans (if you’ve seen Guys & Dolls, you’ll understand that one).  Both the curry and the beans were vegan as we have several kids in the cast that are vegan.  There was also some sweet pork and rice and three types of pinwheel sandwiches.   In addition we had chips and salsa, 7 layer dip and a very spicy but yummy jalapeno dip, fruit and vegetable trays!  No one went home hungry!!

For those of you unfamiliar with the show Guys & Dolls  – it takes place in the 1930’s in New York and deals with a group of missionaries trying to save a group of gamblers/crapshooters.  Of course at the end everyone falls in love, gets married and lives happily ever after!

It was fun to use the theme of the show in planning the party.

There is a trip down to Havana in the show to El Cafe Cubano  and there is lots of dice throwing  and gambling going on in the show.

For dessert there were lots of fun things!

Thanks to Cindy who hand dipped all these amazing strawberries.  The little tuxedo and wedding veil strawberries were a huge hit (the show ends with a wedding) – aren’t they darling!

Another mom made up a batch of “dice” krispie treats.

I baked up a batch of yummy chocolate/caramel cupcakes with a whip cream frosting.  I couldn’t resist when I found these fun cupcake toppers at the cake decorating shop!  They even had sprinkles shaped like hearts, spades, diamonds etc.!

And then there was this amazing cake made by one of the mom’s – Caryn Ogle.  She used the logo from the poster for the show and created two mini cakes shaped like dice!  Isn’t it great!

Here are the happy couples cutting the cake!

For dessert there was also apple strudel to go along with the reference to cheesecake and strudel in the show!

I love developing a theme for a party.  It was so fun to have the other mom’s join in with me with their amazing creativity to help create a really fun event for the kids that had worked so hard and so long on the show.

Would you like help in developing a theme for your next party? I’d love to help you.  Please check out my services page to see what I have available.

Later this week I’ll share some ideas I came up with for gifts for the performers.

Candy Bouquet

Sorry to be a little quiet here on the blog lately.  We’ve got lots of party planning going on around our house.

Last week and this week have been “show week” at our house.  The two weeks the high school musical – this year Guys & Dolls – is performing.  Tessa is a cute little Hot Box Doll and the featured dancer.

I am busy helping pull together the details for the cast party Saturday night as well as some gifts for all the adults that help put the show together.

I counted up the other day how many high school productions my 3 “theater” kids have been in (I have 3 theater kids and one sports kid!) and it is about 30.  Not only is that a lot of performances but a lot of flower bouquets to present to the performer after the show.

In the past I have gotten a little tired of just bringing flowers, especially when it is a male performer.  Another idea I came up with was a candy bouquet.

I have put them together either in a vase/pot or just wrapped up in tissue like a flower bouquet would come.

I tape the candy bars onto the end of bamboo skewers and tie them together with some tissue and ribbon – the kids love it.

Here is a candy bouquet I put together for Tessa when she was performing in Willy Wonka.  This was an easy one to do as I used all kinds of Willy Wonka candy!  I just wrapped a box in some peppermint candy wrapping paper, put a piece of styrofoam in the inside and covered it with shredded paper.  Popped in the skewers with the candy attached and added a bow.  She loved it!

I’ll be back soon to share plans for the cast party I’m organizing as well as some fun cookie bouquets I am putting together – think dice, spades, hearts, diamonds etc…….

Luck be a Lady tonight!!!

Bridal Shower Party Planning Guide

I recently put together a personalized party planning guide for a  bridal shower that Jessica is hosting this spring.

The bride and groom are very environmentally friendly so they wanted to integrate that into the theme of the party.  They chose a color scheme of sage green, cream and brown.  They had pretty much figured out their menu so just wanted my help with some  decoration ideas, games and table set up.  I put together a custom party package for her.

  

Included in the customized party planning guide is an idea board.  To tie in with the environmentally friendly theme, we decided to use a lot of burlap (reusable) to make gift bags for the party favors and the table decor.  I even suggested a fun burlap banner on which they could stencil the couple’s last name!

Here is what the idea board looked like.

 

The Party Planning Guide includes suggestions for theme, menu, party favors and game ideas along with information on how to create them and links to recipes.

If you have an upcoming party that you would like some help with please fill out my Party form and we can chat!   I’d love to put together a personalized party planning guide for you!

Bridal Shower Cake

Thanks to my friend Andrea for sending along a picture of this darling cake that was presented to her daughter at her bridal shower.  It was made by her sister in law to be!

What a fun way to present a bride with the towels she registered for – in the form of a cake!!

Thanks to blog reader Ellen for passing on the following links to two great sites where you can purchase a diaper cake if you don’t want to make one yourself.  Or if you want to make your own there is some great inspiration here!!

Diaper Cake Walk

Diaper Productions

Do you have a photo of a special cake you  have created?  We’d love to share it here on Your Homebased Parties.  Just email the photo as a jpeg to www.yourhomebasedparties.com.