What she wore . . . birthday edition

photos by Laura of Housewife In Town

Miss A, the birthday princess wore the cutest outfit ever!! I stumbled across petti rompers whilst cruising through etsy pages and I'm so glad I did! I bought three for a deal ($49.95) at Posh Petti Designs. 2 Dusty rose (one for each girly, for a sisters and 1st birthday photo shoot I had scheduled) and 1 in ivory or cream to be the cutest birthday suit you ever saw!

These suits are ADORABLE on their own, but for her birthday, I wanted to make one even more spectacular. I created a halter-type neck tie by just hand sewing a V-shape of matching satin ribbon ($1.99) at the front top center. I then deconstructed a GORGEOUS fake peony ($2.99 w/coupon reg. $5.99) from Joann's and glued a jewely button ($3.00) in the center and hot glued that to a stiff piece of felt ($1.19) which I then sewed to the front. Voila' so so sewwwwww cute, I can hardly stand it! She only attempted total outfit destruction once during the photo shoot, but my sweet photographer had a glue gun handy, so we were all good :)

12 Months Photo Tree

When Y turned 1, I made a really cute banner using a picture of her at every month. This time around I wanted to do the same thing, only a little different.

I clean house for an amazing super-mamma with killer style (someday I'll have to see if she'll let me feature her house on my blog). Anyways, one day while I was cleaning I noticed the most fabulous new element in her TV room: a GIGANTIC tree branch painted all gloss white with a little white glossy bird on it! What an awesome idea, right?! Anyways, so that was how I got this idea!

I just had my dad save me a tree branch from his annual trimming spree and then fine tuned it to the shape I liked, leaving lots of little sprigs to hang photos on. I then spray painted it champagne (which turned out slightly more silver than I had hoped). The frames are from the dollar store and spray painted "ballet slipper" pink. I had to remove both the glass and the little kick stand thing because they were just too darn heavy. To hang them on the tree I just slipped little ribbon loops through the little hanging tabs on the back of the frames. I then adorned the branch with a couple silk flower blossoms and paper butterflies. I'm so pleased with the result! It was the perfect centerpiece for A's dessert table. You really could change this idea up to fit any party theme or age. I think it's really fun to use photos from the previous year to show how the birthday star or starlet has changed :)

Rosette Cake Smash Cake

I think my favorite part of any 1st birthday party is watching the precious little star or starlet dig into their own cake! When thinking how to approach Miss A's cake, I remembered the adorable rosette cakes I'd seen here and here. Mine is somewhat sloppier, which is fine as long as no one finds out I used to decorate cakes as an actual job ;) don't tell! But I like to think of it as simply more freeform or kitsch-y fabulous! This would be a fantastic beginner cake, the impressive result is a lot more bang for the actual buck you put into it! In other words: this is EASY, try it!

Here's the scoop:

1. 6" cakes seem perfect size and I used 1 cake mix, so it filled my cake pans full and then some! resulting in bonus would-otherwise-be-discarded-so-i-guess-i'll-eat-them giant cake tops You just cut off the heaping tops level with the top of the pans.
2. I used a cake mix and store bought strawberry frosting because well, sometimes you gotta pick where to cut your corners!
3. I crumb coat the first layer (which means just put a thin coat of frosting to secure all the crumbs and make sure no cake color is showing through) and then plop on the second layer and crumb coat the whole thing together.
4. Using a pastry bag and a larger star shaped decorating tip, you start from the center of the cake making little spiral rosettes. At the end of the rosette I found it looked nice if you just keep the tip moving along the outside of your circle rosette for a few seconds after you've quit squeezing your bag and applying frosting, that way your rosettes don't have little protruding peaks although that is not bad, and mine had several! This is super-forgiving decorating, you can make them all varying sizes, fill in wholes with little half-rosettes, put a better rosette on top of a failed one, whatever you want!
5. And just fyi I got that amazingly cute mini cake stand at Hobby Lobby for $11.99 but used my printable 40% OFF coupon! They had it in 3 different sizes, I might need the mother one to join it's baby :)

A loved it, she went to town for a glorious several minutes until this sleepy girl couldn't resist rubbing her tired eyes and caking them in frosting!

I'm slightly smitten with this cake and am thinking it will definitely make an appearance at many another occasion in many other colors. In fact, if you want some fun homework, google "rosette cake" or try to find them on pintrest: A-dorable! The 6" double-layered size makes me swoon! Wouldn't this make an adorable anniversary cake for a dinner for two?

A Ponyo Party

First and foremost, I want to stress that this was NOT my party, I took no part in this amazingly cute and creative celebration, but my AMAZINGLY creative and talented friend, Tami did and we were lucky enough to attend!

I haven't even seen Ponyo and I was going nuts for these amazing invitations!!! I'm a pretty big fan of googley eyes in general, so they sorta had me at hello.

can you deal with the cuteness?? Lemme show you the rest!

Adorable beachy decor including seashells and live fishy centerpieces (a big hit with the kiddos!):

Super yummy food including wham (fake ham) sandwiches, and delicious vegetarian sushi:

seriously cute cake with a marshmallow fondant Ponyo and candy rocks and seashells:

The favors were so great! Each child got their own green bucket and shovel and a handmade Ponyo puppet!

Don't you sorta with this chica was your mom? Overall a fabulous fabulous party! Well done, sweet friend and happy happy birthday to your little Miss!

Sweet Shoppe Candy Buffet

This was a big hit at Y's candy-themed 3 celebration! Props almost entirely to my darling husband for the construction and even sewing that this project entailed. The awning was constructed of PVC pipe and is free standing tightly around the table. The fabric is two full size flat sheets, one hand died yellow, using Rit dye and the other left white, he then cut them into wide stripes and sewed them together for me (he's great, right?). All because my vision was to have yellow and white stripes and i couldn't find such a fabric anywhere locally. The jars are a combination from Ikea and Walmart (i'm stoked to integrate them into my pantry and kitchen now!). I got a dozen plastic candy tongs for under $5 and 3 platic scoops just as cheap from Oriental trading to serve the candy. The favor boxes (takeout style) were from Hobby Lobby (the 4th love of my life). And I made cute labels with each child's name for them just using mailing label paper (same technique for candy jar labels). They were a little pricey, so as a supplement I also bought a big package of clear favor bags with twist ties so all the adults could visit the sweet shoppe too! This was a big hit, my sweet little nephew held off for as long as he could before asking me if the sweet shop was open :P so cute! I think it will make an appearance in variated forms in many more parties to come!

Yo Gabba Gabba Birthday Party