rocket party

Back in February my mother asked M what kind of birthday cake he was going to have when he turned 3.  He told her a rocket cake and stuck to it for the next four months.  It was a surprise to me because I would have guessed my truck-loving boy would have wanted some kind of elaborate truck cake (think street sweeper).  Anyway, it was through that request that M had a rocket-themed 3rd birthday party.

My favorite part of the party was the rocket invitations, a modified idea from Martha Stewart's website.  I'd like to eventually post the PDF so others can use the template.

Most of my decorations came from Oriental Trading and we loved their inflatable planets (hung over the table).  My favorite place to shop, the Target dollar aisle, provided rocket-like bubble favors.

farm crayon party favors

M turned two this week and we celebrated with a farm-themed party.  I shared a lot of our party decorations from M's first birthday party but I didn't do too many decorations this year.  I did want to share our favor.  We gave M's little friends farm-shaped crayons.  I've seen these done on both Pinterest and Facebook in a variety of shapes and they were pretty easy to make.

I started by ordering the farm-shaped candy mold that included figures of a cow, sheep, horse, and tractor.  I found ours on ebay for under $2.  M had a wide variety of broken crayons so we collected all of them up, took off the wrappers, and broke them into smaller pieces.  I used a sharp knife to cut them small, which isn't completely necessary, but they melt faster.

M liked helping by filling the candy mold with the pieces.  He was more involved than I expected him to be, which was nice.  We filled each mold then baked them at 200 degrees for about 15-20 minutes each.  I'm guessing on the time because I really just kept an eye on them until they were completely melted.  Our candy mold was made of thin plastic (on the cheap side) and it warped after 3 or 4 batches so I would probably turn the oven down to 150 next time if I was using a similar mold.  I have seen some nicer ones that can probably stand the higher heat though.

When they were melted we stuck the whole tray (on a cookie sheet for easier moving) into the fridge to cool.  After about 10 minutes they popped right out of the mold.  The tractors were a little tricky because they had a thin middle section and kept breaking.  We had to overload them with crayon pieces to get them to work.

We got small cellophane favor bags, put a few in each, and attached a "made by M" tag.  M got a set of extras (and rejects) that seem to have held up pretty well.  I've found that he hasn't broken any by coloring with them but some haven't stood up to him throwing or dropping them.  We have a few headless cows around the house.  

I really liked this idea.  I found through searching that candy molds come in a wide variety of shapes (who knew?) so you could potentially make these for almost any occasion.  

Very Hungry Caterpillar birthday party

M turned one on Sunday and his party had the theme of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  I made a bunch of decorations, most of which I found online through Google searches or Pinterest.  I thought I'd put them all here for people like me who wish they could have found everything in one spot.  I'll also link to the original source, if there is one.

My favorite decoration was the giant tissue paper caterpillar we hung over the dessert table.  I think it was M's favorite too- he'd point to it while he ate his breakfast every morning as it hung in our kitchen before we moved it to Nonni's house for the party.  This was the most intricate of all of the decorations but after making one or two balls you get the hang of it.  I started with the head but I'd recommend starting with one of the green ones, because I think they got better as I went.  The original tissue paper caterpillar is here and the instructions for making the balls are here.  I love how fun he is and would totally hang this in my classroom down the road...even though there will probably be fun-sucking fire rules against it.

Another of my favorites were these flower pots for the utensils.  We traced quarters for the caterpillar circles then painted them.  I almost wrote "Happy Birthday M" on them but I decided against it since I figured I'd end up either using them at school or putting flowers in them.  M's Nonni gets the credit for this idea.

We didn't do goody bags but gave the kids who came bubbles instead.  These bubbles are from the dollar store (they blow great bubbles too).  We took the labels off and made our own.

The next caterpillar was made of construction paper circles and had different photos of M on each circle.  The original decoration is here.  We made ours crawl around the doorframe.

These were construction paper circles linked with ribbon.  They hung a little funny by themselves so I used double sided tape to keep them straight.  I'm thinking if you used a stronger material than construction paper they might hang better.

This sign was for the front of M's high chair...obviously try to position so that antenna doesn't get ripped off, oops.

I found my cake idea here.  It's a sheet cake on the bottom and the caterpillar is a bundt cake cut into pieces.  That was the trickiest part.  I cut it into thirds but had to do some filling of spaces with frosting. I'm still not sure exactly how you're supposed to cut the bundt cake but I was really happy with how it came out.  Dots and eyes are M&Ms.  Feet are Hershey kisses cut in half.

 M also had a "smash cake" - two 8-inch round cakes cut smaller (maybe 4 inches?).  Here are the before and after shots:

And these were our invitations.  Made with Photoshop....