Mya 4.0

As you can see in the previous post, Mya was a robot for Halloween. She also wanted a robot birthday party and has been talking about it since August. I have to admit, this was the least planned party that I've ever thrown. Usually I'd be up on every detail but I didn't get to most of the planning until two weeks before the party. The only thing that was ready were the invitations. Thom made the invitations since I was busy with the new baby. It was a CD with a recording of a robot voice inviting guests to the party with the song "Mr. Roboto" closing the message. RSVPs were done via website.

We had about 50 guests RSVP through our website - which was when I realized that I needed to make an emergency call to dad to help out with food. He really came through with all the food - it fed everyone and there was enough for "to-go" containers.

We had a few games and activities for the kids and parents. There was the limbo, "Robot Says", musical chairs with parent/child pairs, the chicken dance (per Mya's request).

Kids made robot costumes with their parent's help:

Thanks to Mr. Jerry, we had computer parts and discs, Thom raided Costco for their cardboard boxes and we used part of our mega roll of aluminum foil to make the robots. We had glue and tape available to connect all the parts

We had a robot parade once all the costumes were made. The parents were real creative!!

Kids made robots out of marshmallows and toothpicks. It's interesting how robots compare from child to child:

Next was cake time! Due to time constraints, I couldn't make a whole robot like I I originally planned. So she just got a big robot head.

Just for the record - some kid put that tiara on Mya - She's not a "princess" type of
kid at all.

Kids left with a goody bag containing "robot parts" such as wires (string licorice), buttons (M&Ms), circuit boards (Andes mints), Nerds and this plush robot that I sewed up and stuffed with the help of Phuong:

All in all, it was a great party despite us cleaning and prepping from the moment we woke up until an hour into party time. Mya had fun as well - you could tell since she didn't mind having her shoes on the wrong feet for the entire party, she got grass stains in her jeans and muddied up her nice white top. Next time we'll try not to plan on having a baby so close to another birthday. Maybe we'll be more prepared next time.

Frozen Transfers - Why didn't I think of doing this before?!

Yes, I'm on a blogging spree today. I just downloaded a bunch of photos off of our camera and I need to do something with them before I forget about them.

I'm part of a local online message board and one lady named Leslie asked if we knew of anyone who would make Clifford cakes in a small time frame. Apparently, Clifford items and cakes are hard to come by. Due to character rights, bakeries are prohibited to reproduce them. So as a favor I volunteered to help her out with her daughter's cake. I would purchase a plain cake and add the decor.

In the past, I've freehanded a Blue's Clues cake for my friend's daughter's birthday. It was a pull-apart cupcake cake that was quite easy and fun to do. I did a star-tip decoration which I was quite familiar with. She was thrilled when she saw the cake.

So when I volunteered my services, I thought that I would do the same with Clifford. Leslie sent me a few photos of other cakes and I did some research as well. From what I've seen there weren't any star-tip decorated Clifford cakes and I wanted to try something new. I remembered seeing a technique for frozen transfers and I thought this would be a perfect time to try it out. Luckily, Leslie granted me permission to "experiment away."

Frozen transfers need buttery buttercream icing to be more effective. A lot of buttercream icings use an equal amount of shortening to butter and apparently, this just won't cut it for this technique - I guess it doesn't freeze as hard as you need it to.

Here's the recipe I used:

Buttercream Icing
3 sticks of butter at room temperature
1 cup shortening
2 tsp vanilla
2 lbs confectioner's sugar, sifted

Using a paddle attachment, beat butter and shortening until well combined. Add vanilla and beat well. Turn the mixer down to low and gradually add the confectioner's sugar until well combined. Beat on medium-high until smooth.

Black icing
You know how when you eat black icing, it gets all over your teeth and looks just horrible? Well I found out about a smart technique that reduces the mess-factor. To make a true black icing on buttercream requires A LOT of black icing gel paste. But this one is much easier and saves your black gel paste.

Fudge Icing + A little black gel Paste =

STEP 1:
Print out a reverse image of what you want to make and tape it onto a flat surface that will fit in the freezer. I used cookie sheets.

Tape a piece of wax paper on top of the image. I used parchment but should have used wax paper because some of the moisture seeped through the parchment and slightly wrinkled the image.

STEP 2:
Pipe the outline of the image. Start with the intricate areas first.

STEP 3:
Fill in the areas in the reverse order. For example, Clifford's eyes, tongue and the dots on the hat will be on the "top." Blue will lay over the hat and red will lay over on the rest of Clifford.

Pick up the wax paper and view the photo from underneath to reduce the icing gaps. If there are gaps smooth them over with a small offset spatula.

STEP 4:
Cover with white buttercream (or whatever color your cake is). Why do this? Because all the layers can be seen from the side when placed on the cake. So I outlined Clifford as well as the letters with white buttercream and spread an even layer over the whole image to even everything out.
STEP 5:
Freeze for 90 minutes

STEP 6:
Position image on cake and lightly press into cake. Slowly peel off the wax paper and voila - You have a pretty darn cool image on your cake!



Thom asked if they would be able to cut through the image and the answer is YES! The buttercream softens to it's normal consistency and acts just as if you decorated the cake by freehand!

I like this technique and I think I will be doing this quite often or whenever I get a chance to do it. Note to self: next time, use wax paper.

I could get used to decorating plain store-bought cakes. It's less mess in the kitchen and less time baking!

Mya's Candyland Birthday - The Result

This post is WAY over a month late but we've been busy with school, shoots, and traveling. Mya's Birthday was held at the Water Conservation Garden. The venue was perfect - it had pathways and interesting exhibits to look at and a covered picnic area for us to have our party.


Remember the inspiration for my centerpieces (see previous post)? Well, here are the results. One week prior to Mya's party, I planned a tea party at church where we used the wheat grass strips for the centerpiece. I purchased the grass at Sungrown Organics in the South Bay Area of San Diego. I planned ahead so that I can preserve the grass for one week to re-use at Mya's party. We had 5 picnic tables and I created the centerpieces based on the different areas throughout Candy Land. The leaves were made out of tissue paper.

Mama Ginger Tree:
The gingerbread men were baked on the stick then decorated with royal icing.

Peppermint Forest:
I glued starlites and mini canes on a stick.

Lollipop Woods:
I elongated the lollipop sticks by using floraltape to connect them together.

Gumdrop Mountains:
I glued gumdrops to styrofoam balls and skewered a few. The center ball was too heavy to stand on it's own. So we just let it sit in the grass.

Chocolate Swamp:
I melted the back of the chocolate bars and candies and sandwiched a stick between the two. The smaller sticks are tootsie rolls. I covered the chocolate with saran wrap so that they don't condensate and turn white.

Overall, I think the grass needed a trim before I used them. They were a little dry but I didn't want to waste them. After the party, I fed them to our cats. They loved it.

Giveaways:

We played a real-life Candy Land game. Guests were given a map of the garden and they were to find certain spots to collect their candy and get their map marked. Once their game pieces were complete, they got their party favor.

This is the prize/gift bag that we handed out. I totally scored on the tiny lunchboxes - they were at the $1 spot at Target... for 75% off!! 25 cents a piece is not bad for a lunch box! I added a whistle, bubbles, stickers and a lollipop-shaped sugar cookie to the bag.

The famous cake...
Mya was so excited to get her cake. We kept it at home during the first part of the party to keep it a surprise. We ordered a plain Costco sheet cake and I just added the decorations. Thom took some time-lapse photos while I was decorating the cake. I made all the non-candy pieces a few days earlier.

Here's a photo taken by my friend, Kris, from San Diego Family Photography:

I made Mya's party dress for Halloween and she has worn it 6 times between mid-October through Mid-November. She wanted to be the Fairy Lolly from Candy Land:


I made her crown out of pipe cleaners and Christmas ornaments. Her wings are bent hangers, tulle and painted fabric. I found a regular dress pattern and modified the sleeves and trim to look like Lolly's outfit. The lollipops are fabric that I painted with acrylic paint and appliquéd onto the dress.

The party turned out well. Everyone liked the theme and food was yummy (thanks Dad!).

Planning Mya's Candyland birthday

I can't believe my sweet little girl is turning 3! It seems like it was just yesterday we were holding her like she was a little football in our arms. Now she's a busy little lady, talking, running and jumping... and planning her own party.

My mother-in-law, Karen, got me a subscription to Taste of Home. The recipes are very down-home country, "that can't be good for you but I bet it tastes good." Thom and I have been trying to eat well and lose weight, so needless to say, I haven't tried the recipes yet. However, we got some use out of it as it gave us the inspiration for Mya's birthday party.

It's a Candy Land cake! Mya pulled the magazine off the table a few months ago and saw the cake on the back cover. She immediately said, "I want Candy Land cake for my birthday." And that's when it started. Coincidentally, about a week prior to the magazine arrival, I was bribing Mya with a real Candy Land game if she went #2 in the potty 10 times. So it's interesting how her party theme came about from going poop.

Mya couldn't stop talking about it. In her own words, "I'm going to have 3 candles. Everybody is going to come. All my friends are coming. And they're going to bring wrapping paper, a box, tape, and ribbon. There's going to be lots of candy and everybody is going to eat." Ah, my little Martha Stewart. I can't imagine how future birthday parties will be.

This year, we aren't having Mya's party at our house due to kitchen remodeling. It will be at a Water Conservation Garden in their multipurpose room and patio. So, it's not quite candyland-ish, but there are trails and paths in the garden and we can just pretend it's a game. They do have real peppermint, a "swamp", and gumdrop-shaped plants. I guess it's not too far-fetched.

The Taste of Home issue came out in August so the party idea has been in planning since then.
Thom doesn't want me to plan the party since we (ahem, I) have a lot of work that needs to get done. All he wants me to do is the cake and favors. Ugh... but the decorations are the fun part! My dad's cooking and my sister is going to help with the decorations. I can't really plan on baking the cake if our oven is out of commission. So we're going to buy a plain Costco cake and I'm just going to decorate it. I've drawn out plans that are a little more elaborate than the pictured cake. Plus Candy Land has changed quite a bit since I was a kid. I've typed out a few notes while brainstorming...

Get green icing spray for the cake
Cut mini gingerbread man for game pieces.
Mama Ginger tree - Tree-shaped gingerbread cookies with leaves of green royal icing.
Peppermint forest - mini candy cane and starlites
Gumdrop mountains - mound marshmallow treats for the mountain and cover with tinted whipped cream and colored sugars. Use a fruit roll for gumdrop pass. Gumdrops line the mountain
Lord Licorice - Red Vines and black licorice arches and sticks.
Grandma Nut - House made of gingerbread and circus peanut candies. Pipe garden with leaves, vines and "nuts"
Lollipop woods - Pipe leaves for the base of the lollipops. Stick Dum-dums, mini swirl pops, and regular sugar pops.
Snowflake lake - sugar lake, purple frosting border, area will be where Happy Birthday sign will be.
Chocolate Swamp - use See's chocolate lollipops for cattails (pipe leaves for the base), chocolate ganache for the swamp, chocolate chips and chocolate pieces in the swamp.
King Candy's Castle - Bubble gum dispenser made from mini cupcakes and a oblong votive filled with bubblegum, MMF gate with candy, marshmallow treat towers covered with MMF. Skittle path.
Path - Starburst candy.
"Happy Birthday Mya" - MMF twisted to look like candy cane. Shaped, staked on wires and dried.

BTW - MMF is Marshmallow Fondant. It's more tasty than the regular "is this gum I can swallow?" stuff. All it is, is 2 pounds of powdered sugar to one bag of melted marshmallows. You knead it until smooth and you've got fondant!

Since the Candy Land theme was set, we've been looking out for things on sale to have for the party. At the end of September, we were headed for a weigh-in for a weight loss competition and Thom wanted to stop by a store so he can "shed some weight" in the bathroom. We found a Target and while I was waiting for him to emerge from the men's room I gravitated towards the dangerous $1 spot. There, I found these adorable mini lunchboxes in different types of candies:
As I was ogling over them, a lady walks up to me and asks, "¿Habla Español?" I politely declined and said, "Lo siento mucho, no, habla Español." LOL. She laughs and says, "Oh...well, I was going to tell you in Spanish but since you speak English, all the items here are 75% off. Look at the sign!" And there it was... a sign for 75% off clearance items. I couldn't believe my eyes and ears. Thom finally emerged from the bathroom and I directed him towards the lunchboxes and did my best sales pitch on why we should get them for Mya's party... oh, and I also emphasized that they're only a 25 cents. He said, "If you're going to get them go get them now before you change your mind. How many do you think? $5 worth?" So we walked out of there with 20 mini lunchboxes for Mya's party. I have to thank my Spanish-Filipino blood for coming through that day. Otherwise I would not have paid attention to that sign.

It's quite convenient that Halloween is 4 days prior to her party. That means we can hit up candy sales, too.

I thought of table centerpieces since we have 5 picnic tables. I thought of cutting wheatgrass in rectangles and sticking lollipops and other candy out of them like they were flowers. My inspiration came from this:
Okay, so it's not exactly as I described, but I like the idea of using paper to "fluff up" the centerpiece. While this is quite dramatic with the butterflies, I think I might go simple by using tissue paper. Thanks to a reliable source (Tina), I was able to find flats of wheatgrass at a holistic health center not too far away from me. I'll take these pops and treat them as flowers:
Then I'll cut some green tissue paper (which was on sale at Michael's) and cut leaf shapes out of them. I'll attach them to the pop with floral tape. I plan to make some gumdrop flowers by sticking them together with toothpicks, candy canes stay as is, chocolate will be made from candy bars (I'll melt the bottoms and sandwich them between lollipop sticks) and See's pops, and gingerbread men pops will be made as I made the Easter cookie pops.

Favors will be interesting now that I have lunch boxes. I think I'll open them up, place some cookies shaped like lollipops (I don't want to overload on the candy) and other treats in addition to the existing candies, and pop them in a cellophane bag, displaying its contents.

All this for a 3rd birthday?! Well, let's hope things don't get more elaborate in the upcoming years. I think this will all be doable and not overdone.