confetti by lexi

i scream, you scream...

we all scream for ice cream! happy national ice cream day! i barely made it, but did you know that, while today is national ice cream day, the whole month of july is national ice cream month? so let the celebration continue! i pulled together a collage of some of my favorite ice cream projects. ice cream is very inspiring...

i've posted the green/boy version of this invite before, but i never got around to sharing the pink version, so here it is up close, with sweet wording for a special one year old. ice cream is always a good party theme - change the flavor, change the phrase - this invite is easy to personalize!

of course, there was a matching cake just like for the green one. don't worry, ice cream was served, too!

another fun favorite is ice cream cone cupcakes. no actual ice cream here - but it was a hit for my daughter's birthday snack way back when and we got a few double takes as we walked them in!

moving on to the calorie free variety. we went through a heavy painting phase several years ago, which led to a fun gallery wall in my studio. the wall has filled out quite a bit since the original post, but the ice cream cone is still a definite fave!

and last, but not least, i can't forget to mention comfort food and comfort food additions, companion stamp sets highlighting the perfect pint, with a bowl and spoon to serve it up, and some fun and comforting sayings! you can see more fun cards on pinterest here and here. i'm sure i've missed a sweet project or two, but this is a start! and remember it's not just a day, it's the whole month...

yum!
:) lexi

millie's modern typewriter cake

last week was my daughter's eighth grade play, and as for several of our school's recent eighth grade cast parties, i was charged with making the cake. now i can add thoroughly modern millie's typewriter to beauty and the beast's castle, guys and doll's dice, and from my older daughter's production of the wiz, the yellow brick road to oz. millie, aka colleen, was the best helper and together we created a cake that had everyone looking twice. a few people walked right by thinking it was a real typewriter!

we used gum paste for the keys, knobs, and return, with a cylinder of rice crispy treats covered in black fondant for the paper carriage. the paper is simply a piece of sugar paper. i used a food decorating marker in black to write on the keys and paper. this was such a fun cake to make, and came out pretty much as i imagined. i rarely ever do a practice cake, so it's always nice when it works so well!

i posted several pictures that night of my sweet millie on instagram, but i couldn't resist a more complete collage. she had so much fun on stage and looked adorable in her brown bob and flapper girl fashions. it reminded me of the time we went to see a friend in a kids' production when colleen was about five, and the first thing she said when it was over was, "how can i get to be up there?!" she's been "up there" a few times, but this time definitely takes the cake! now we're in the home stretch to graduation - next stop high school with big sis. yikes!!

:) lexi

happy thanksgiving!

after a last minute burst of creative energy yesterday, we ended up with turkey brownies...

pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, a litte experimental twist on my favorite tollhouse recipe...

and quickie printed name cards. and then today, we ate and drank, and ate some more...

gobble! gobble!
:) lexi

a mad hatter's tea

surprise! i have a second post in one week and it's not even a countdown to new stamps. i've been trying to find time to photograph this party ensemble and finally made it happen. the party was in the middle of crazy august, on stamp-a-faire day actually. which is partly why august was crazy, i guess. anyway, my sister in law chose an alice in wonderland mad hatter's tea party theme for my niece's birthday (or un-birthday since it was a few weeks after) and asked me to create, so create i did...

i went with bright colors and black and white for a whimsical wonderland feel. i had so much fun pulling together all the details - tea and cake with drink me! and eat me! tags, a pocket watch and mad hatter's hat, and of course the 4 of hearts to note the birthday girl's age!

i even created a coordinating return address sticker to set the stage - open me!

matching party favor tags...

and personalized thank you notes were also a must!

and of course, there was a mad hatter's cake as well. it was the very merriest un-birthday ever...

cheers!
:) lexi

congrats on the new pad!

hello! long time, no blog. august and september have both sped by and dragged on with so much going on. back to school, deadlines, computer crashes, more deadlines, committee meetings, still more deadlines. you get the idea! but if it wasn't busy, i guess it would be boring, right? i had to say no to a few cake requests because of my work load and other timing issues, but finally this past weekend, things worked out and i was able to take a small housewarming cake order. the client wasn't sure what she wanted, so i googled houswarming cakes and presented a few of ideas to her, including frogs on a new pad, which caught her eye immediately. 

in addition to the congrats phrase, she wanted me to add "yayy!" in honor of her friend, the homeowner. so after looking at a few frog cakes for ideas, i settled on the simple design above based on a couple of cakes in my search, adding my own flair in the details of the lily pad, flower, frogs, and phrase placement. the flower frustrated me - i originally wanted a more spiky flower, but my free cutting wasn't working, so i switched to the flower cutters i had plus a little extra snipped and rolled piece in the middle - and i love the end result. of course, the frogs are my favorite - i was so excited to have some wilton candy eyeballs on hand! perfect, right? ribbit!!

:) lexi

suit up & zoom on over!

it's been a while since i posted an invitation. i have so many to share! but i like to wait until after the party, and by then, i'm usually on to the next thing. this one has been sitting in the stack for a while - 2 years! i finally photographed it for superhero day last month, but then was too busy getting product out the door to post that week and now here we are! the request was for a girl superhero party. birthday bea specifically wanted a superhero party because she wanted to dress up in a batgirl or supergirl costume. my original plan was to draw my own versions of batgirl and supergirl on top of the building. as usual, i started with google to refresh my memory, look at costumes, colors, etc. and i came across mike maihack's batgirl & supergirl fan comics. i love his take on colors and costume details, but, best of all, in the first frame i came across, supergirl spoke my little friend's sentiments exactly! he said it was ok that i use the image and the invite was complete, with a billboard instead of the characters themselves.

the billboard idea worked perfectly on the matching cake as well...

double sided, sitting on top of the cake, with a city skyline to match the invite all the way around. boom! pow! super sweet! i'm with supergirl. it really is all about the costumes!!

:) lexi

flashback friday :: purple nail polish

edible purple nail polish! this is the cake i was making yesterday when i remembered that i hadn't posted the iphone cake yet. it's an almost identical take two of the nail polish cake i made a while back, hence the flashback. that birthday girl was turning 10 so spelling ten worked for the 3 letter logo. eleven is too long, so i decided to use the girl's monogram initials for that part and incorporate eleven into the color name, "purple-heaven-eleven" and i love the result. the birthday girl and mom were happy too. although, i'm still dying to do this cake in another color!! ok, locals, who's next?!

:) lexi

original post: november 8, 2011

iphone 5c

the c is for cake, of course! if you follow me on instagram or twitter, you might have seen this a few weeks ago. i was so happy with it that i instagrammed it immediately. but it's the kind of cake that deserves a full blog post, so here it is again. i was really excited to get the request for an iphone cake. i'm a big apple geek - why have i not created one yet?! but when the day came, i was a little intimidated by all those app icons. once i started though, they fell into place - especially thanks to apple's simple graphics.

i didn't think i would be able to create the photos icon, but a brainstorm hit and i cut into small circles to make petals - not overlapping like the real thing and fewer colors, but really close. and then that inspired my daughter to create the game center icon - again super close and recognizable! my favorite details are the birthday stats - addie's name across the top, her birthday on the calendar app, and 14 waiting texts for her age. i also love the camera, the weather, the envelope. and the buttons on the side. ok, i just love all the details, period. and pretty much anything apple, too!

:) lexi

flashback friday :: happy meal

like yesterday's post, my flashback friday this week was prompted by a fellow blogger's post earlier this week. audrey of pink ink originals shared her version of these mini hamburgers and it brought back so many memories! i learned about these sweet little treats from a fellow teacher in my early preschool teaching days and they quickly became one of my annual "cooking" projects. i created step by step picture cards that my little students would follow around the table until they had a finished cookie burger, all wrapped up, complete with french fries to go with. you know, those canned potato sticks? perfect scale! it was definitely a favorite activity. and as with all of my classroom faves, i couldn't wait to create them with my girls as soon as they were old enough.

my younger daughter loved them so much that she requested them for a school birthday treat when she was in pre-k (she just turned 12 last month!), which is what these photos are from. my preschool teaching days were also pre-stamping, so for packaging then, i would go to mcdonald's and ask for a few unused burger wrappers and cut them into smaller squares. but by the time colleen was in pre-k, stamping was a part of my everyday life, so of course i had to stamp the packaging to mimic the real deal. these stamps are mainly from an old stampin' up! set (bbq fun?), with the exception of the atomic star, which is from hot potatoes - one of my oldest and dearest! of course, there are many new stamps out there today that would be great for this project. a cookie burger & potato sticks alone are pretty cool, but supercute packaging is what really makes it the happiest of happy meals!

let's eat!
:) lexi

original post: miscellaneous stamped stuff photo album

ease on down the road!

yesterday's sweet card inspiration reminded me that i had not yet shared the cake i made for my daughter's big eighth grade play cast party. i've done theme cakes for the last couple of eighth grade classes. a castle for beauty and the beast, dice for guys & dolls. and now, the yellow brick road to the emerald city for the wiz.

i knew it was basically the wizard of oz, but i wanted the cake to fit with their vision. i thought about creating the house on top of the witch's legs, but i was told that wasn't a big moment in the play. i didn't know much about the scenery, except that they'd created gouache paintings that were being projected as the backdrops, but i hadn't seen them. so when mignon described the painting she did of the poppy field with the emerald city in the background, i finally had my inspiration.

she said their drawings of the emerald city were like upside down test tubes - thankfully easy enough to create in edible clay. for the yellow brick road, i found a texture mat with the brick pattern which was so much easier than my original plan of trying to "draw" it myself - my dad thought i had, but i fessed up! it's hard to see in the picture, but i added a little gold shimmer powder to the road and city. and the board is covered in black glitter paper covered in cellophane for even more sparkle. the shoes were taken from a muses mardi gras bracelet - silver as they were in the play. i had very limited time to put this cake together with all that was going on that week (and forgetting some of the supplies at the cash register at michael's - yikes!), so i was very happy when mignon said i nailed it! we made it to school in time to help set up, the performance was fantastic (one of the best, says this biased mom!), and everyone else loved the cake, too. yellow on the bottom, chocolate on top. many enjoyed it at the cast party along with all of the other party food, but i heard it was really demolished at the student lock in that followed.

sweet!
:) lexi

flashback friday :: bunny twins

it's been a while since i posted a flashback friday, but i came across these cakes from last year in my photo files - perfect timing! they're actually take two of a pair of bunny cakes from a few years ago, both times for the same twins. every few years their birthday falls on or very close to easter and twin bunnies works well! i think i cut the ears a little differently the second time around, but they're pretty much the same bunnies otherwise - two small round layers for the face, shaped ears from a 9 x 13 cake cut in half, candy & pretzel features. easy and cute if you find yourself needing a cake for easter...

hippity, hoppity!!
:) lexi

original post: april 12, 2009

starlight movie night

after sharing last weekend's backyard party yesterday, i realized that i never posted the one from last year. our eleventh hour brainstorm then was to rent an inflatable movie screen and have a movie party under the stars. for the invitation i designed a drive in movie style logo on a big screen, complete with retro frame details, stars, and concessions characters - "let's all go to concessions! let's all go to concessions!" i couldn't resist! i even included a few vertical static lines. remember those?!

the invitation design also lent itself well to creating some fun signage. in addition to the welcome sign above, i created others for concessions, the game room, the restroom, enter this way, and thank you for coming. like the banners yesterday, it was an easy element that helped set the scene and personalize the party. ferris bueller's day off was our special feature that night - the kids would stop and watch parts of it here and there, but it really ended up being background noise to the seventh graders more than anything else. although the two fifth graders watched it from start to finish despite the noise and flying objects - boys will throw anything!

you can't have a movie party without popcorn and candy, right? the movie screen company also had popcorn machines available to rent, so it was fresh and hot. as always the candy was a hit. gotta love the bulk choices at sam's - the display boxes they came in were perfect for the movie theater feel. other concessions included quesidillas made to order at the grill - yum!

and last, but not least, i created a popcorn cake. this is a remake of one i've made a couple of times before. it was silly to try to come up with something new. it's such a fun design - and easy, too! i love the added touch of using real popcorn with melted marshmallow to "fill" the container and have a couple of spilled pieces. so there you have it - another take on the back yard bash! and i'm finally sharing things from the very high "to post" pile...

goodnight!
:) lexi

surprise crawfish boil

sunday was my older daughter's 14th birthday, and like almost every year, it was a soccer tournament weekend and we had to wait for her game schedule to be released before making any birthday decisions. it didn't turn out to be a very good schedule, which left her unsure about what she wanted to do, if anything. so, while she was busy being disappointed and indecisive, i secretly took it out of her control and set about planning a last minute surprise back yard bash for saturday night after her game. i knew she'd be hungry and she loves crawfish, so a crawfish boil became my theme. i created the invites as a pic to be texted and sent it off to one of her friends to circulate. then i printed a few variations of it for decorations...

to set a crawfish table, all you really need is newspaper, which was the basis of my invite design. a few full legal copies of it were the perfect addition to our crawfish table for a fun personal touch!

half page print outs cut into flags, alternating with blue cardstock flags, made for a cute banner - and another perfect personal touch. a few uncut ones taped around in different places let the birthday girl see the complete invite she'd missed. don't you love that blue and red washi tape?

a party like this definitely needed a photo booth with fun props. i added another flag banner to my set up and used elements of the invite along with the same fonts and colors to create a logo style caption for the pics. i highly recommend sparkbooth for party photo booths. i love the personalization possibilities and how easy it is to set up and use. kids (and many adults) always have fun when i bring this out!

and last, but definitely not least, i even figured out how to perform surgery on swedish fish to make candy crawfish to embellish the cake (!!), with yet another little piece of the invite, in flag form, flying above. over all, the decorations, mainly created from the invite, really pulled everything together. plus, they were easy to hide and quick to assemble, so the birthday girl was very surprised even though i did it all right under her nose - yay!!

:) lexi

nothing but net

and cake! this one is from a few weeks ago, and it's a redo. but i like to share those too. when i create a ball cake (golf, basketball, bowling), i bake the two halves of the ball in an aluminum bowl to get the shape. there are cake pans made specifically for balls now, but this has worked for me for years, and it's a little bigger than the ball mold i've seen, so i keep using it. the bottom half is yellow cake, the top, chocolate, just for the birthday boy. with two flavors, there's a little something for everyone. score!

:) lexi

chugga chugga choo choo

an animal train is coming through! this is one of several things that kept me busy over the weekend. the request: to create a train cake for a birthday boy who loves animals. i loosely copied the engine from the invitation, added other cars in the bright colors that they were using for the favor bags, and made room for animals to take a to ride. most of the details are fondant - it's hard to beat it when you need crisp lines or molded shapes. but i also threw in a few grasshopper cookies and pretzels for the wheels, and smooshed marshmallows for puffs of smoke. i was a little nervous putting it all together, especially shaping the animals, but the result was exactly what they wanted. yay!

:) lexi

feeling lucky?

roll the dice! these cakes were for the cast party of our eighth grade production of guys & dolls. the parent in charge asked for something simple to go with the gambling theme of the play, including something fun on the board. dice and poker chips came to mind immediately and were also easy to create. one yellow, one chocolate, too. gotta love that!

:) lexi

let the fun begin...

i had so much fun with this little ensemble from the weekend that it gets to jump ahead of the stack! one of my return customers wanted to throw some kind of game night party for her daughter and i showed her mignon's 9th birhtday post for some inspiration. we had turned our family room into a "mini arcade," focusing on the new dance dance revolution for the wii that we had gotten for christmas that year, and borrowing several other games. the biggest hit was scoring a claw machine for the night. it turned out to be just the inspiration my client was looking for. so after she found a place to rent a claw machine, i created a paper one for the invite. i love fun drawing jobs like this!

we carried claw bits and pieces over to the favor bag sticker and a cd sticker for the birthday girl's party mix. "game on" from the invite is changed to "game over" for the favors!

and of course, a claw machine cake was necessary. i think i duplicated the paper one pretty nicely. and judging from the birthday girl's big smile when i delivered it, she thought so too!!

game on!
:) lexi

flashback friday :: first communion

now that easter is over and people aren't searching for the peeps stickers as much (although some still are!), i can see what else visitors are looking for - and just like this time last year, communion cakes & decorations are at the top of the stats list.  i flashed back to my younger daughter's bible cake then, so this year i decided to show big sister's rainbow cross cake.  both posts are linked below, with all the details, including invitations.

happy weekend!
:) lexi

original posts: may 6, 2007 and may 3, 2009

bounce! bounce! tumble, flop!

surprise it's not just another cake!  but it's not just an invitation either - it's an invitation with a cake to match!!  the request was for a gymnastics invitaton for twins, followed by a cake for the event a couple weeks later.  the invite is an oldie but goodie, perfect for twins since there are two kids on it.  and it turned out to be great inspiration for the cake...

so many little pieces of fondant to cut out, but the end result was worth it!  the boys loved it and i heard from several attendees that it was yummy too!

:) lexi

monster cakes

my internet kept going out last night, but i'm happy to back tonight with more cake!  actually, today's post is mostly about a cupcake party activity - monster cakes.  but first, the birthday girl needed to have a candle cake, so i made a mini 6 inch round monster cake with candle hair.  sure, you could put a candle in one of the cupcakes, but if you have enough batter, a mini cake just for candles is a fun bonus!

for the cupcake activity, i prepared the cupcakes and icing, purchased a variety of fun candies, and printed some examples.  this was a halloween themed birthday, so we chose orange, purple, and green for our monster icing, which i divided into pastry bags and tied closed.  when it was time to decorate the cupcakes at the party, i snipped off the points and squeezed each guest's choice on their cupcake for them to spread and stick candy into to create faces.  kids playing with icing and candy - of course it was a hit!  and before you think you have to wait until next year to make monster cakes, maybe you should consider a monsters, inc. movie party or read go away, big green monster! by ed emberly to your child's class and create cupcakes afterwards.  you could even incorporate them into a candy themed birthday.  monsters are definitely not just for halloween!

:) lexi