Ice cream cake again

It was birthday time again and somehow my daughter isn't a fan of cake and requested an ice cream cake again.  We used vanilla and chocolate ice cream with a cookie and magic shell base and middle.  I decided to try chocolate whipped cream frosting and used 1/4 cup of cocoa.  Instead of decorating with whipped cream, I used buttercream and it went very well and was easier than the stabilized whipped cream I used last year.

Princess Birthday Party

My soon to be 5 year old wanted to have a birthday party with her friends. She was clued into this concept earlier this year with a swimming party and a bounce house party. Finally she decided she would like a dress-up princess party. Initially she wanted to dress up and swim, but I suggested she chose one or the other.

Fortunately, there are many princess party ideas out there and I could just pick and choose.

We started with some princess crafts.

We made beaded wands with pipe cleaners and straws and princess wooden clothes pin dolls.

My older daughter had been gifted this awesome priness cookie cutter set and I made up a large batch of playdough with glitter to use at the party. I had aprons available for the girls to keep their dresses clean. 

After crafts, my older daughter, dressed as Belle, led the children in some games. We had snowman cup knock down and a princess castle bean bag toss. After taking turns playing those games, we also played freeze dance to princess music.

While the kids were playing games with my daughter along with other parents, I cleaned up the crafts and set the table for tea. I have had a few tea parties with just my daughter and used the china cups. She loves it.  We had six children and Belle and I felt that would be manageable with the china. I also made tea sandwiches and consulted the moms first about kids' favorites. Along with the PBJ, ham, and turkey sandwiches, we had cut pineapple and hulled strawberries. 

Some finger sandwiches I had eaten at an event were chicken salad sandwiches. I tried to make something similar and had them available to the adults.  I used a deluxe chicken salad recipe I found which seemed to have the same ingredients. I mainly remember cut grapes with the chicken. It's a great combination. I spooned the mixture on cut baguette and held everything together with toothpicks. 

After our snack, I asked the kids about the Cinderella story and when we got to the missing glass slipper, we brought the kids downstairs to find previously hiddle glass slippers. I added red tissue paper inside each 4" shoe to make it easier to find. 

Once all six slippers had been found, we came back up for Storytime. My daughter, dressed as Belle, read them the story, Do Princesses Wear Boots? 

Then we went back to the table for cupcakes and finished our party with the gifts. The kids were very attentive to the gift opening and eventually decided to have some playtime.  My daughter opened her new dolls as well and they had a nice time then
too. 

Finally it was time to go.  The party lasted about 3 hours and then they played for another thirty minutes or so if their moms had stayed. It was very helpful to have many of the moms stay. I had anticipated they would and knew I could have more complicated projects. 

I Spy Bean Bags

Another birthday party and another opportunity to make a gift. I considered a tote bag or a superhero cape, but I wanted to make something new.

I started thinking about bean bags, which I have made in the past, but with a twist. I liked the idea of making small bean bags with an I Spy window. After goggling I Spy bean bags, I was surprised to find many people making them.

My idea was to make a set of bean bags that would be fun to play I spy with, but also to play with as bean bags. 

I started out with a larger bag (6") and window (4") and ended up remaking them smaller. 

I used a 4.5" back, 2.5" window, and 1.75" strips to frame the window 

These bags went together quickly. I used my Teflon foot to glide easily along the plastic.

For the contents, I found different objects around my house and also from JoAnns.  For each bag, I collected ten different items. 

Super Hero Birthday

We have a friend who is turning four and is very much into super heroes. This theme has so much potential for gifting. I started brainstorming cape ideas and also offered to make a birthday "4" shirt.

From my stash I had this great Marvel print that was perfect for a birthday shirt. After looking at some other birthday shirts, I saw the idea of having a comic Pow! speech bubble behind the number.  I think it looks cool. I was going to use the Marvel font for the four, but it wasn't right. I ended up using a Super Mario Bros font. 

For the cape, I thought it would be cool to have the birthday boy's first initial on the back in batman colors. My husband suggested the batman shaped bottom edge. I had intended to follow a tutorial I had found earlier this week, but when I laid everything out, the dimensions seemed too small.  I loosely used a cape I had made my daughter last winter and used the plate tracing suggestions from the blog post. 

The "V" is from a superman font and has a great look to it. The circle is from an 8" plate. 

I took a few picture to help me remember the sizing for next time. Also, the points I made along the lower edge ended up being sewn less pointy. The outside is black and the inside is blue.

  

I asked my daughter to try on the cape a couple times. She was mostly cooperative, but admitted she didn't like the colors much. I asked if she'd come outside and wear it for pictures. She had a ball running around with the big flowing cape on. I think the birthday boy will enjoy it too. In addition, she did put in a request for a pink cape. 

It's been a long time since I've had a little boy and it was fun sewing little boy things. 

Ice Cream Cake

While make your own ice cream sundaes are nice for friends, I wanted to have a cake ready for our upcoming family celebration of all the kids' birthdays.  My son has already requested a pumpkin pie, we have the Frozen cupcakes in the freezer, and just needed one more thing.

I have made mini ice cream cakes before, but never a big cake.  Part of the reason was I didn't have a springform pan.  But now I do and it was very easy to put together.

First I started with crushed chocolate wafer cookies and added magic shell.  I placed enough to cover the bottom of the springform pan and pressed the crushed cookies down.  The pan went into the freezer while I waited for the chocolate ice cream to melt.  As it was softening, I decided to mix it together with my standing mixer.  This allowed the melted parts to be incorporated with the ice cream and made it easier to spread.

I spread the first layer onto the crushed cookie and sent it back to the freezer.






The next step was more crushed cookie mixture, more freezer time, and finally the softened vanilla layer.  Again I used the standing mixer to prepare the ice cream.

We tried a couple stabilized whipped cream methods with no luck.  In the morning I tried one more time with gelatin.  I used cold water and gelatin, then used the microwave to dissolve it further in very small bursts.  It cooled as I whipped the cream.

After adding the gelatin, the whipped cream looked different for me, but tasted ok.  I placed it in the fridge while I took the cake out of the springform ring.  After releasing the ring, I took a spatula warmed in hot water and gently cut around the cake edge.

I could probably use any kind of whipped cream to cover the cake as it freezes almost immediately.  I wanted the use the stabilized whipped cream to pipe on the cake and it seemed to work pretty well.  Once I got going on the frosting, I did return it to the freezer between steps, but generally worked quickly.  I had to let the cake thaw a little in order to press the m&m's into the cake.  I wish I had spaced the m&m's a bit better, I'll know for next time.

I had enough whipped cream frosting to cover the cake with a thin layer and color some purple and decorate.  There's a bit of white saved for any cake mishaps too.

To preserve this cake for a week in the freezer, I needed some sort of box.  The base of my cake holder is too big to fit in my freezer.  What I ended up doing was placing the cake on a 10" cake board.  Then I put two pieces of aluminum foil spread out on a dinner plate.  I placed the cake on the plate, then put the cake holder cover on top.  The cover just fit over the bottom plate edge.  Then I took the excess foil and wrapped it over the cover edges.  Hopefully that will be protected well in the freezer until the party!

Frozen Cupcakes

When I asked what my younger daughter would like to do for her fourth birthday, she requested chocolate cupcakes.  After some more suggestions we also opted for a couple visits to the children's museum with a friend and her sister.

I used my favorite devil's cake mix and added an egg white, almost a cup of plain Greek yogurt, and a cup of cooled decaf coffee.  I filled up 12 cupcakes and saw I had less than half of the mixture left and filled some mini cupcakes too.  I used paper liners.  This mix really bakes up high and I could have filled the cupcakes much less, perhaps closer to half full.  Though they seem ok this way too.

We have certainly been enjoying the movie Frozen and the soundtrack and decided to go with a nice Frozen blue for the frosting.  I used a cream cheese frosting (8 oz low fat cream cheese, 1 stick butter, 1TB milk, 1 tsp vanilla, 3-4 cups powdered sugar) and added a small amount of sky blue gel.  The frosting didn't hold the swirls as well as I hoped.  The white pearls were a nice find at Wegmans.

These cupcakes we had on her birthday, the rest are in the freezer for our upcoming family party.

Birthday girl with her "4" shirt

10 year old birthday party

We decided on another small group party at home for my daughter's 10th birthday party.

On the agenda was to play in a photo booth, eat pizza, make lip balm, watch a movie, and make ice cream sundaes.

First we set up the photo booth.  I used a small part of a room and hung a rope with small pvc tubing over it.  On the tubing we hung crepe paper and paper decorations.  I did end up placing an old navy curtain behind the crepe paper for better coverage.  We had a table of hats, glasses, and boas for dressing up.  My camera was on a tripod and my husband set up a photobooth software on his computer and connected the camera.  The kids could then see each other on the laptop screen and it counted down for a series of four pictures.  They had the option to print right away and see their pictures again.  It was lots of fun!  All the five guests and my two girls could all fit in the frame for group shots too.  Another thing we had was two mini chalk boards for writing messages in the pictures.  They were also used in some shots.

Testing out the photo booth - sisters

The next activity was making lip balm.  I had given the process a lot of thought and wanted to make sure the girls could be active participants.  Finally I found this small glass pots at Hobby Lobby on sale for $1 each and thought they would work perfectly in my fondue pot.  It worked well.  Each girl measured out 1 tsp of coconut oil, 1/2 tsp of shea butter, and 1 tsp of grated beeswax.  I had a 1/2 tsp and 1/4tsp spoons so that they just needed two of each thing.  Some had more heaping teaspoons than others. For a couple girls they didn't have enough and needed to add another one or two more scoops of everything.

We tried labeling the pots with rubber bands, but they popped off in the heat.

After the first three ingredients had melted well, I had unsweetened cocoa, beet root powder, peppermint oil, and flavoring oils (cotton candy, pink lemonade, and cherry).  The girls mixed different things together after pouring the warm liquid into their little tins.  We used 1/8 tsp of the powders and 5 drops of the oils.  Each girl ended up with two small tins of different balms.  We also decorated the lids with Sharpies.

The girls went off to watch their movie and I cleaned up the lip balm area to prepare for ice cream sundaes.  My daughter prefers ice cream to cake and loved the idea of making their own sundaes.  We had done this activity for my son's birthday before and it seems to always be a hit.  I provide small bowls of different requested toppings and of course whipped cream.  While the kids really seemed to overdo their sundaes, I was happy to see they didn't eat it all!

The happy birthday girl

Firetruck Birthday Shirt

We have a young friend who will be turning three soon. He has been really into firetrucks for some time. A basic number shirt didn't seem like it would be enough. While thinking about this shirt, I thought a shiny red truck would be cool. Fortunately red pleather goes on sale right about now for costume making time. Though I did have concerns about how it would sew and wash.

I used felt for all the other details and glued them on before stitching. Then I satin stitched most parts before placing the truck on the shirt.  Finally I added some heat and bond and very carefully ironed the truck to the shirt. Using some batting in between didn't damage the pleather, but also didn't really adhere the truck. Finally I flipped the shirt inside out and ironed through the back, which worked pretty well. 

Using the new Teflon foot may have helped in some instances, but I wonder if it slipped too much when I was sewing on mainly felt. There were a couple places where the satin stitches looked less than perfect. 

I am thinking the birthday boy will just see a firetruck with a yellow number three.

Firetruck Birthday Shirt

11 Minnie Mouse Birthday Shirt

I was asked to make a birthday shirt for a soon to be 11 year old. She will be visiting Disney World for her birthday, how cool is that?

Minnie Mouse Birthday Shirt

My almost 3 year old is more into Disney than my other kids ever were. A Minnie Mouse themed birthday shirt seemed like the right choice for her. I found the Minnie Mouse print first, but cutting out a three, not much of Minnie would show. Small prints work best with the number shirts.

A red polka dot was a better choice for a three. I considered adding a Minnie Mouse ruffle to the shirt and a pair of pants. My little one loves dresses and skirts and I had just the right amount of Minnie Mouse fabric for a full skirt. I added more red polka dot on the bottom edge and some black ribbon on the seam.

Now we are all set for 3!

9 Year Old Birthday Party

"9" Birthday Shirt

My daughter's ninth birthday was rapidly approaching. I sat down with her to plan out a party. Her first choice was a sleepover party, but I decided we all are not quite ready for that. Sydney suggested make your own pizzas, doing their nails and some crafts. I added decorating cupcakes. We took a trip to JoAnns to get ideas for crafts. She chose a felt sewing kit as an idea and making personalized name bracelets.

We scheduled the party for a Sunday afternoon through dinner time. As the four guests arrived, we started with the cupcake decorating. My daughter and I had prepared buttercream frosting and mixed a few colors. We set up purple for frosting and a few decorating bags. Some girls spent a long time decorating while others stuck to more simple designs. I set the cupcakes aside on a tray for later.

Next we made pizzas. Each girl received a mini pizza shell on a dinner plate. I had many toppings and tomato sauce. The majority just wanted cheese so that was easy.

While we waited for dinner, it was time to make bracelets. Each girl got a wire about twice as long as needed. We had letter beads and many different colored glass beads. A small paper plate kept beads from rolling everywhere.  Once they were done, they headed to the basement to play Just Dance while I attached the clasps.

Then it was time for pizza!  The girls enjoyed their custom pizzas and chatted about what to do next.  We still had nails to do and another project.  Sydney explained the choices.  It was decided that nails were next!

We have a decent collection of polish and nail art accessories.  Some girls felt very comfortable doing their own nails, while others wanted some help.  My daughter and another asked for leopard spots, so I did those.  Another wanted black polka dots, I helped with that too.

After the nails were dry, they played a bit more, then we had the cupcakes.

Finally, we moved onto opening presents and nearby we had the last craft project set up.  These nine and eleven year old girls were quite self sufficient.  We had felt, printed felt, embroidery floss, ribbon, and jewel stickers.  My daughter planned to make little layered squares with her initial on it.  I also made up an example of a tiny tote bag with a ribbon handle.  Most of the girls made the little totes.  It was also nice to see the experienced sewers helping the less experienced.


Our party was three and a half hours long and it was just right.  I wasn't sure if we had too many sit down activities, but for this group, it was the perfect party.  The two little breaks when they went in the basement and had some free time seemed to balance it all out.

All About the Birthdays

We had our birthday shirts ready, then we needed birthday cupcakes!  I cheated and made these cupcakes earlier in the month with my Greek yogurt and pumpkin substitutions.  They froze and defrosted very well.

I used some fondant, colored small batches, rolled, cut out and voile:  birthday cupcakes for my three kids and family.

I had purchased alphabet and number mini cutters.  They worked pretty well, but I had a hard time with the "8".  There must be a trick that I haven't learned yet.  I saw something about utilizing the freezer, but that was after the fact.

The cupcakes went over very well, especially the spice cake with pumpkin.  Definitely worth trying out if you like pumpkin and all those good spices!

New Birthday Shirts

Every year since my son turned four years old, I have been making birthday shirts.  In the last few years I have even made some as gifts.  I've looked around at what other people are doing with birthday shirts from time to time.  One really cute idea I liked was to put pictures along with the number.  When the birthdays are a seventh, eighth, or ninth, I wasn't sure I wanted to do that.  But when the birthday is a second one, two little pictures is easy!

This year my youngest is turning two!  She seems to really like owls and more recently elephants.  I like making owls too, so we were all set.  A big number two for Kessa and two little owls.

Once my son hit about nine years old, he no longer wanted birthday shirts.  But last year when I had kids turning 1, 7, and 11, I knew I wanted something for him.  I did a quick search for "11 shirt" and found this cool vintage military 11th Airborne shirt.  It was a perfect fit.  

This year, we are again doing a joint 2, 8, 12 party and I searched again for a shirt:  "12 shirt."  I found many!  And one design had significance for us.  It's from the Hunger Games, district 12.  Perfect again!  

The eight year old is still into birthday shirts and choose a nice peace symbol print this year.

Our Most Favorite Banana Muffins

Early on when I had a kitchen of my own, I discovered a love for making muffins. They are very easy to make, don't take too long to bake, and can be fairly nutritious with the right ingredients.

This recipe I adapted from a low-fat banana muffin recipe from the Joy of Cooking. I added spices, some whole wheat flour and chocolate chips. They are our all time favorite muffins and my children all love them. A variation of the word muffin has been a part of each of their early language.

On to the recipe. I have doubled and tripled the recipe, made them as mini muffins, extra large muffins, and even a special one year old birthday treat frosted with cream cheese. They are especially good with chocolate chips, but very tasty without. I've used egg substitute and a variety of different flours. They always turn out great. I think all the bananas make it a very forgiving recipe. These could probably be made with very little sugar and still be good, but we haven't tried that.

The Best Banana Muffins

Low Fat Banana Muffins
1 large egg
1 1/3 cup mashed ripe banana (3-4)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
3/4 cup brown sugar (loosely packed) or less
1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups flour: 1 1/2 wheat, 1/2 cup white
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
Optional: 3/4 cup (or less) chocolate chips

Yields 12 muffins
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together first five ingredients. Mix in flour mixture with a few light strokes just until the dry ingredients are moistened. Do not over mix; the batter should not be smooth. Fold in chocolate chips (or nuts). Divide the batter into sprayed muffin cups. Bake until a toothpick inserted comes out clean, about 20-25 minutes. Let cool for 2-3 minutes before removing from the pan. Serve as soon as possible, preferably the day they are baked.
Mini muffins bake about 11-14 minutes.

When the kids are younger, I double the recipe and spoon out half into a mini muffin pan, then add chocolate chips to the remaining batter and make regular sized muffins. They freeze exceptionally well too. We hope you enjoy them. My family calls them the best banana muffins!

Birthday Shirts

The idea for a birthday shirt originated back in 2004. It was Kyle's fourth birthday and Sydney was just five weeks old. I hadn't made any special plans for his birthday yet and asked him what he'd like to do. He said he'd like to go to the children's museum with a couple friends. I called the friends and one could come, it was a date.

For some reason, Sydney slept a little longer that morning. It is during these times that I seem to be most inspired! I have the gift of time I did not count on. I asked Kyle how he would like to have a shirt that had a big number "4" on it. It would show everyone that it was his birthday. He loved the idea.

We found a nice plain orange shirt in his drawer and a cute printed fabric in my stash. I drew out a "4" and sewed it on. All with a sleeping baby! It was not perfect, but it worked and he felt special all day.

The next year I made him a 5 and continued on until he was no longer interested. During that time I started making them for my daughter too. I learned some new techniques, remembered to change the needle tension, and even tried out some stabilizers.

This year I even offered to make some as gifts. And Kessa got her first one beginning the tradition anew.

Mini Ice Cream Cakes

When I asked my soon to be eleven year old what kind of cake he wanted, he said ice cream. I had planned on making a cake or cupcakes, but nothing too elaborate. But an ice cream cake I had not planned on making.

I did some research and learned all there was to know about ice cream cakes. I even found a recipe for the chocolatey goodness inside Carvel ice cream cakes. Ice cream cakes work best with pans that have straight sides. That threw out my cup cake pan idea.

I was running out of time and needed to make some decisions. I went to Target and found a straight-walled mini square cake pan. It was like a cupcake pan, except all the cakes were mini squares. I was ready to try it.

I bought strawberry ice cream and chocolate ice cream, I made the chocolatey goodness which is just chocolate wafer cookies crumbled, then covered in magic shell topping.

I let the ice cream soften, worked quickly, then back to the freezer and repeat. It was a messy job and my fingers got really cold! But they were coming along.

My research indicated that whipped cream makes a perfect frosting for ice cream cakes. It worked well, but again I had to work quickly with trips to the freezer.

Overall they were cute, but far from professional. They were delicious and the birthday boy loved them.

Birthday Chair Cover

I am not always together when school is ending. So many moms have carefully chosen or created gifts for their teachers. I am generally not one of those moms. The end of the year seems so crazy.

One year I asked the teacher what she might need for her classroom and offered my sewing talents to her. She did say that often they do have more than one birthday to celebrate on a given day and that she only had one special birthday chair cover.

That sounded like a fun project! But the cover she already had, had "Happy Birthday" spelled out in big block letters. I wasn't really interested in cutting many tiny letters, so I thought of other options. Back to JoAnns and I found some cute birthday themed fabric: balloons, candles, and confetti! I wondered how I could incorporate all the neat fabrics. I decided on a quilt like idea. Came together perfectly! I liked it so much, I made one for my family too. What a fun tradition!