birthday party

The holidays in this house start with Halloween and slowly gain speed until February, when things really get going. We had three expected family birthdays, then another one came along out of the blue! In planning Caitlyn's 3rd, I came across Cathy Gaubert's blog with some super cute ideas here

The invites use Papertrey Ink Forest Friends stamps, and Nana's Nursery patterned papers from DCWV. For party favors and cake/cupcake toppers, I found a set of unfinished wooden people from A Toy Garden here. They're painted with watercolors and finished with acrylic glaze. The Forest Prince, Red Riding Hood and Little Gnome all have cute felt hats sewed from a template I made. There's also a mushroom and a bowling ball tied off with a tag in lollipop bags. The mushroom toppers are shaker pegs from the wood area at Michaels - just trim and file the end of the mushrooms in the favor bags so they will stand up like bowling pins. The ones on the cake were left as-is. I adore the green sprinkles - like shredded Easter grass!

With homemade food, decor, and all, I thought a boxed organic cake was more than justified. But halfway into the recipe I realized it was for ONE cake round - and I needed to fill a Bundt! There was no time for the store so I whipped up another round of Amy Sedaris cupcakes (recipe here - love her!) (Fact - she and Stephen Colbert co-wrote the TV show Strangers with Candy.)

I had no idea how long to bake the combo-batter, so the cake turned out pretty dry. It's totally humbling to serve a non-delicious cake :) But Caitlyn LOVED it - despite the goofy picture. And the party was all about her so that's all that really matters.