Bird Themed Birthday Cake Recipes

As promised I am back with the two most amazing cake recipes EVER.

In my last post I shared the details of my daughter's bird themed first birthday party and a lot of freebies. In case you missed it, click here.

I baked two cakes for the event since I didn't want to get in to the hassle of making a tiered one. I knew how I wanted them to look, I just needed a cake recipe. 

I decided to use different recipes for both the cakes. For the fondant cake I followed Robyn Stone's "The Best Chocolate Cake Recipe {Ever}". I came across it on Facebook ( I don't remember who posted it, perhaps one of the food pages that I follow). Robyn shared this recipe a few years back on her blog and she is still receiving a lot of positive comments! 

I am SO GLAD I followed it. It is definitely my go to cake recipe from now. The cake turned out soft, moist and simply DELICIOUS. I LOVED it and so did all my guests who got to taste this cake.The compliments just kept on coming 😄😄😄 And so did requests for the recipes!

Since this was my first time working with a fondant, I decided to go with ready-to-roll fondant icing. I used it to cover the cake, for birds, lettering and bunting. As easy as it was to make the birds and rest of the decorations covering the cake with fondant was a pain. They make it seem so easy in tutorials. I covered the "faults" with fondant decorations :p 

For my Bird Nest cake, I followed Maham Alavi's Chocolate Malt Cake recipe. It tastes amazing once refrigerated and cold. I used Kellogg's all-bran original to create the nest. Simply melt some dark chocolate and add it to a cup and a half of cereal. Then working quickly form the chocolate cereal mixture into a nest. Keep it in fridge for a couple of hours to set. Once set fill the nest with Cadbury mini eggs :)

CLICK HERE for the Best Chocolate Cake recipe.

CLICK HERE for the Malt Cake recipe.

 xx

Thomas The Train Party With Free Printables!

Chugga-chugga! Choo-choo!

Hello everyone!
Remember how I'd been working on Mikaeel's second birthday party? Well, it has been more than a month but I am so happy to finally be sharing it (mind you the post has lots of pictures with printable FREEBIES at the end). But hey, you can easily pull off a similar train-themed birthday party for your kiddo's next birthday! :)

My sister wanted to celebrate Mikaeel's 2nd birthday with a train-themed birthday party (we did Sesame Street on his first one!). So we decided on Thomas the train as our theme and settled on blue, red and yellow as our main colors with a bit of green thrown in. 

I started with the invites. I had fun making cookie monster and elmo cards and I felt evelope cards would be great because I wouldn't have to worry about creating separate envelopes. Besides they are super quick and easy to whip up. I got the train images off the internet, changed them somewhat using Photoshop, and then proceeded to design the card.

For a more professional look, I printed some of the text on tracing paper and the rest on white printing paper and then sealed off the envelope with a Thomas image. 

Next came the banner. I wanted it to say, "Happy Birthday Mikaeel" with each word hanging from a different string but brought together at both ends with large crepe paper flowers. I also wanted the wall behind the banner covered in  yellow crepe paper. So for "Happy Birthday" I stuck with red and blue and for "Mikaeel" I went for a train look (my sister's idea!). And I am so glad that I did because it looked really cute! 

I also made a small banner that said "Mikaeel" for the food table. I simply used this template for colored triangles and then pasted them onto 1/4 inch larger triangles cut from black chart paper. Using blue piping, I hand-stitched them together. 

Then I made lots of crepe paper flowers.

Simply love how they turned out! (UPDATE: click here for the tutorial)

No party is complete without a door-sign.

And let's not forget party favors! I got the template for these here, printed it out on blue printing paper and assembled. I created "Thank you for coming" on photoshop and stuck it on all party favors.

For the table, I wanted  to create a cupcake train. But since I was short on time, I decided to go with a simple food train. I made the engine out of thick cardstock, created slits in the front and back wheel and inserted a rectangular piece of cardstock so that the engine could stand on its own!

And made some cute food labels so the guests wouldn't have to ask or skip over a particular food.

I even made a photobooth backdrop for the party! Using UHU patafix I adhered crepe paper to the wall and pasted train cut outs and paper flowers on it. It was an instant hit with the guests!

And now for some free printables.

food label

xx

Accordion-pleated paper flower and Christmas tree garland

Deck the halls with boughs of holly,
Fa la la la la, la la la la
Tis the season to be jolly,

Fa la la la la, la la la la 

  

Christmas is just around the corner and thinking about it brought back memories of school and the fun we used to have as kids around this time of the year. 

There would be the much awaited Christmas play, rehearsals and if you were lucky you would be part of it which meant missing classes. So I always made sure I was in the play, no matter how small (or mute:p) the part! Then there would be Christmas carols  and school party where the lower grades got to show off their classrooms which were decked up with stockings, hollies, bells and what not made by little hands to the rest of the school. And let's not forget the much longed for holidays and break from school! 

So I thought I will do two tutorials today. In the first we will make accordion style paper flowers and in the second we will use that technique to create a Christmas tree garland. So lets begin.

 

Accordion-pleated paper flower.

Gather the following supplies:  2 pieces of square paper, scissors, pencil, ruler and a stapler. 

Mark one inch from the corner and make a fold. 

Use your first fold as a guide to make more accordion style folds. Remember how we used to make paper fans as kids? You are using the same technique here, but it has been given a more fancy name- so simply fold and flip, fold and flip..

until it is folded up like this:

Now cut off the ends in a pointed or rounded shape or leave as it is. Fold it in half and staple the ends together (you can also glue it or use a clear tape). Do the same with your other piece of paper so that you have two half circles.

Simply staple the two halves together to form a full circle and you are almost done.

To cover the center of the circle, pretty it up with a button, lace or a fancy piece of scalloped paper.

And that's about it. You just made your self an accordion style paper flower. 

Christmas tree garland

You will need: 

Red wrapping paper cut into 5 inch squares
Green card stock cut into 4 inch squares
Cream card stock cut into 3 inch circles (and if you want the circle to show from behind the tree, cut 5 inch or larger circles. You'll know what I am talking about in a bit.)
Stapler/tape/glue
UHU petafix (available at any stationary shop)

Grab your red squares and using the first tutorial make accordion flowers. I kept half inch wide accordion folds.

Now glue your circles to the center of each paper flower.

Next take your green card stock and draw a Christmas tree. I roughly drew a christmas tree on one, cut it out and used the template to draw and cut the rest. Once you have your trees cut out..

Take out your UHU petafix and following the manufacturer's instructions fix it to the circle like so:

Next, attach your trees to it.

Grab some twine, ribbon or whatever you'd like to use and tape it on the back of your flowers.

And you are ready to hang your garland.

Enjoy!

x