Bakery Artist Birthday!

Penny, always one to want more than one theme for her birthday, decided on bakery and art, so we had a bakery art themed party!

I made the garland from cupcake papers, the sprinkles tablecloth and the plates/napkins were from amazon. I re-used some items from Ellie's Art party (some plates, paint cans and splatter tableclothes were saved)

We held the party at a local art studio Young At Art where my kids have enjoyed lots of art classes and craft days. They had a party package for a rainbow craft table (lots of collage and other crafting materials set out by color),

 a paint lesson by a professional:

and another craft, which we chose to let kids paint on their aprons with stencils. 

For the babies, I had these tiny easels and tiny canvases for them. 

I definitely cheated this year and bought the cupcakes from the grocery store (luckily the pink matched the plates), but added little paint pallets (fondant and skittles) paintbrush cupcake pics and chef hats (made by an apprentice at Pink Princess Cakes)

The cake was also store bought, but we scraped the decorative frosting off and added our own (store bought) fondant and (some real, some fondant, some chocolate) decorations. 

In addition to water, punch and cake, we had rainbow Goldfish crackers, M&Ms and Skittles served in the paint cans behind the cake. 

Check out Penny's rainbow cupcake apron, her sister Ellie made that for her with her own sewing machine!!

Party Favors were the chef hats, aprons, and a tiny water color set. 

After crafting and painting, some of these guests and some non-art studio guests met for pizza after. 

 

Minnie Mouse Birthday Party

Penny has been a little obsessed with Minnie Mouse lately so I was excited to do a Minnie Party

Box mix cupcakes with homemade red candy bows and mini fudge dipped oreo ears. 

Cake by Pink Princess Cakes
The Minnie body is actually just a toy, but with fondant bow and balloon. 

CANDY!! I just picked a variety of red, white, pink and yellow candies.
Find the bowls here

These pretzels were super easy to make. I cheated and started with Flips (store bought chocolate covered pretzels) and dunked half into melted red candy, tossed some sprinkles on, then piped a tiny little bow. Some of them got 2 yellow sprinkles instead and no bow, to make them Mickeys instead. 

This bunting was leftover from a Super Mario party which was leftover from the Curious George Party. It previously said "Presten" for my nephew, but I pulled the letters off and added the mouse heads to cover the scuff from pulling the letters off. The tassles were added from the Dollar Tree, they came with a white ribbon but I swapped for yellow to pull more yellow into the decor.  

Also from the dollar tree were Minnie and Mickey Childrens books and fuzzy posters. Each child got to pick one of each, but we ended up with enough extras some families got multiple books. 

Cake getting ready for wishes! 

Instead of party hats, we had EARS!

The crepe paper ribbon table runner was reused from another party. 

The little Minnie topiary thing was repurposed Super Mario pirana plant pot (flipped over) and covered with polka dot napkin circles (from the Super Mario tables) with re-painted pokeballs hot glued together.
The paper straws can be found here. 

The cups were regular red solo cups with white dot stickers added by my kids a few days before the party. 

For napkins/forks, I made these little bows to pass out with the cake. 

Walmart had Minnie and Mickey plates, which I realize were unnecessary since the pizza parlor provides plates, but I thought they would be fun! 

Make a wish!

Surprise! 

I had done a similar cake for the Pokemon Party
Similar cake pan here

On the window behind the gifts was another tassel garland from Dollar Tree

Product links are aff links, it wont cost you more to use my link, but I get a tiny bit of money when you use my link, regardless of what you actually order. 

Putting the ART in pARTy!

I couldn't resist doing a rainbow art themed party for my little artist!

She wanted a rainbow pony unicorn party. We compromised.

Cake courtesy of Pink Princess Cakes

Food:

Paint brush Pretzels and Rainbow Chips Ahoy

\

And to drink:

(get it colorless watercolors?)

Last minute I thought of how to add the unicorn theme to the food:

We had hot dogs (because kids love hot dogs and they are super easy!) 

(you see what I did there? a rainbow of condiments)

These basting brushes were 2/pack for just over $1 at the grocery store

We also had a rainbow fruit tray and veggie tray. 

For the kid's cupcakes, I got little pallets and set out a rainbow of sprinkles and plain frosted cupcakes. 

Kids loved decorating their own. 

I didnt get a picture, but we also had Scribblers popcicles instead of ice cream. 

Besides the cupcake decorating, we had other artistic activities. 

The table runners on the tables were blank papers and the centerpieces were buckets of crayons and markers. 

As each kid arrived, they picked an apron to wear and keep. 

(there were 2 of each color lined up in rainbow order)

We had 3 easels, 3 had paint and 2 had chalk on the back sides. 

Once the aprons were gone/moved over, we hung paintings to dry. 

The aerial view of the room:

You can sort of see the food table back drop in this picture, the paint splatter table clothes were only big enough for the top of the table, so I did a rainbow effect of solid colored table clothes on the fronts. Behind the table is a crepe paper rainbow backdrop. 

a few more pictures of the decorations:

 
t
at first I couldnt figure out how to "hang the paint cans, then I just draped a table cloth over a broom/mop/random stick and topped with the paint can, sort of at an angle:


For a "guest book" I drew the number 4 on a canvas and provided fabric markers for each person to add to the masterpiece:


For party favors, I wrapped rainbow washi tape around a water color set with a thank you tag. Kids also kept the paint pallet from the cup cakes and their aprons.

The babies got a little horse and the toddlers got finger paint in leftover gift bags from the curious george party.

The life of a Cupcaketree

I love my Cupcake Tree. I has served me very well since our wedding 2 years ago. 

Our Wedding 

Cupcake details here. Special thanks to Tresha of Pink Princess Cakes for her help frosting cupcakes and the amazing job she did on our top cake and bride and groom cupcakes. 

The next wedding was Tresha's she did an amazing job on the wedding cake, cupcakes and grooms Reese's cake. This shows how a simple plain Cupcaketree can still be elegant.

The next wedding was my brother and his wife. The theme was all colors, a rainbow! 

I knew I wanted to use the Cupcaketree for more than just weddings so I devised this set up for our Superbowl party. Thanks again to Pink Princess Cakes for the football cupcakes. 

Next came Ellie's Ladybug 1st Birthday Party. The top cake was a no sugar super healthy cake by Pink Princess Cakes. she made cupcakes of the same recipe for all the other babies and toddlers and it was sooo yummy. 

A Lego Birthday Party (instructions to build at that link) for my nephew. I switched out the risers for posts made of Megablocks for the Lego Theme. The stickers on the rounds have the Lego logo printed on them to make it look like a building base. ( I cannot take credit for the adorable cupcakes or top Lego cake, they were done by my aunt)

The next party was an Around the World Amazing Race party for a friend's birthday. The Dessert table was Europe themed, so the German chocolate cakes got a German Flag inspired cupcake tree.

The most recent use was only 2 of the middle layers to make a platform for the Strawberry Shortcake house cake, also done by Pink Princess Cakes

For a nature-inspired simply decorated wedding reception

I was glad I left the wood theme contact paper on the cupcake tree when I re-used it for the carousel cake: 

For this, I replaced the risers with popcorn tins covered with scraps of a table runner left over from another party, and gold swirl paper straws. The top cake is even on a lazy susan so it spins like a real carousel!  

Most of these uses omitted the bottom level, what I love about the Cupcaketree is that it is flexible like that.

A few tips for decorating. A single table cloth can be used to cover the rounds easily when the bottom is not used, possibly with the bottom if you are careful. Just wrap and tape the plastic or paper onto the cardboard side of the rounds (not the white side). If you tape to the white side, and rip the tape off, it will show through some thinner, lighter colored table clothes the next time you use it. For the risers, I just lay them flat and wrap them like a gift and then cut the wrap for the tabs to stick out and tape to keep taut. The risers do not have to be perfect. Ribbon works well on the edges, just dab hot glue every few inches, spinning the round as you go. The cupcake tree can also be spray painted according to their website. They also sell end caps for the edges of the risers to cover the cut cardboard look. If you paint the cupcake tree, you will want to cover the edges with ribbon or something.

Buy it here:
http://www.cupcaketree.com/