Last November I threw my oldest daughter a baking party for her 9th birthday. Here are the details...
The Invitations: My favorite feature? The envelopes were clear plastic and I threw in some adorable cake sprinkles as confetti. What a delicious way to be invited to a party!!
The Decor: Some of my favorite details that saved me money and looked fabulous...Perfectly matching wrapping paper rolled out on the table to serve as a table cloth...Oatmeal, hot chocolate and peanut canisters covered with coordinating fabrics and papers to hold baking utensils... felt flags with bits of leftover fabric from the aprons...last but not least, a party is not a party in my world without lanterns tied with ribbons!
The Party: The girls made cookies and decorated their own mini cakes. I made each girl an apron and a chef's hat. The chef's hats were easy to make and oh so cute! You can make them by going HERE.
Tips: I made all the sugar and gingerbread cookie dough in advance, rolled it out onto wax paper and piled them up in the freezer so the dough was ready to go when the girls were. For next time, I would borrow cookie sheets so that each girl has her own place to plop cookies when ready for the oven to avoid cookie mix ups!
I glued white cups to white plates and provided paint and crepe paper in the party colors (I'm a bit of a nut case when it comes to party colors...MUST STICK WITH THE THEME!!). While the cookies were baking the girls decorated their own cake stands.
The girls each got to decorate a 6 inch cake. Next time, I would provide smaller cakes. this felt like way too much sugar by the end of the party!! Again, wanting to stick with the theme at all costs, I pre-mixed the icing and even pre-matched a base color and a piping color so each cake would turn out looking cute-ish. This was my plan but by the time the kids were done piling their cakes with candy and sprinkles, I'm not sure my careful calculation mattered much!!
Once the cookies were cooled, the girls iced and candy-fied their cookies as well. I packed the cookies neatly into the adorable pink cake boxes and tied them up with teeny baking utensils. The box of cookies, aprons and cakes on stands were their "goody bags".
I had two sisters at the house helping me. This is crucial when running this type of hands on party with this age!!!
The Cookies: Here are the cookies I made for her to take to school on her "real day". After going to great lengths to make the tray look just right, She informed me that it was "way too much" and "super embarrassing" and asked me if she could please just bring the cookies in a grocery bag. WOW...words can't describe the mental toughness it took for me to allow this display to be dismantled and to throw the cookies in a bag. Perhaps next year we'll just buy cupcakes at Safeway like all the other kids. Ha- let's not get carried away!
A new alternative to the wine glass "charm"!
