Pink Shabby Chic Princess Party for Lilli's 8th Birthday

Lilli just had her 8th birthday party and she decided on a sweet princess party with a color scheme of pink, gold and white.

Sweet, Bubble and Charlie.....Photo by Alyce Holzberger

EDIT UPDATE: Here is a link to the princess dress Bubble is wearing and a couple of others they have:

I am pretty sure our recent trip to Disneyland and the number of people telling her she looked like Cinderella had no part whatsoever to play in her decision :)

Candy jars from 2 Garnish

Regardless of the reasoning I was more than happy to oblige. I've mentioned before that my tastes run towards pastel and pretty and Princess is totally a theme within my comfort zone.

The party had a bit of a shabby chic feel and a touch of glittery glitz to reflect Lilli's sweet, fun and vibrant personalty.

photograph by Alyce Holzberger

I was lucky enough to be able to borrow the ruffled tablecloth from my SIL. It is linen with a white ruffle layer in the middle and was a great background for the pink white and gold food.

photograph by Alyce Holzberger

I modified it with some pink muslin fabric and a scattering of handmade shabby chic fabric flowers.

We used the same flowers in pink frames behind the table to add a bit of texture and interest on the plain white walls. The same effect could be achieved with paper poms.

I hung a handful of paper pom poms in light pink, tan and white from Ah-Tissue to continue the ruffle theme.

photograph by Alyce Holzberger

Of course we did have to have a princess themed cake and I decided to make a ruffle cake (which we still love at the moment in this household). The tiara is totally edible made from fondant, edible jelly jewels and painted with gold lustre dust. More photo's of the cake and what I used to make the tiara can be found in my previous blog post CLICK HERE.

Royal sugar cookies with edible jelly jewels, gold luster dust and ruffles

Royal cookies were an assortment of cookies in gold, pink and white that were a little bit more mature than the cookies we generally make for the kids parties. My little girl is growing up and the treats while still fun are more reflective of her tastes. They are fondant covered sugar cookies (recipe from Sweets on a Stick) decorated with rolled fondant, royal icing (recipe from Sweets on a Stick) and edible jelly jewels. The white cookies with the jewel and gold royal icing piping were her favorite. Mine were the ruffled cookies.

To keep in with the pink and gold royal theme I made the macarons in pink and gold with hand piped and painted decorations on the pink batch.

Princess delights were round choux pastry puffs with raspberry pastry cream, fondant and raspberries.

To dress up a packet of simple marshmallows I popped them on a stick, dipped them in pink chocolate/ candy coating, added a jelly jewel, piped a 'royal' decoration which was painted with gold edible paint.

Candy consisted of 4 different flavors of bon bons and twisted rope marshmallow cut into shorter pieces.

I picked up the princess printables from Polkadot Prints (who are one of my favorite designers with a fun blog as well) and did a bit of glittering.

photograph by Alyce Holzberger

Cardboard cake boxes are from Robert Gorden, I picked them up at 2 garnish, they come flat pack with double sided tape already in place. Seriously I was so behind in my preparations the Friday before the party I took them along to the kids swimming classes and put them together in the viewing areas. I was folding and sticking those boxes in between waving at the kids and giving them thumbs up signs through the glass barrier.

We like to have the parties at our house and this year the timing was not great as we are having some minor renovations. The painters packed up at about 2pm on the Friday ready to return bright and early Monday morning which did not leave a lot of time for me to bake and decorate for the event.

photograph by Alyce Holzberger

Knowing this in advance, I arranged for an entertainer to come and manage the kids which took some of the pressure off as I had no need to think up party games, or buy prizes and I could focus on what I love which is the food.

Tiara by Terri Vandermeer photograph by Alyce Holzberger

I booked in Super Steph - and she truly was super.

The kids adored her magic show, they were totally enthralled, and as a result the mums and dads adored not having to worry about looking after the kids at all.

We also had a princess pit stop with dress ups, tiaras, and jewels, which was actually just the kids Ikea  storage unit repurposed with a bit of 'satin' from the craft store.

Fabric tiara by Terri Vandermeer

I made up the ruffled party bags myself CLICK HERE for a tutorial on how to DIY.

photo by Alyce Holzeberger

It was all worth it.....after the party Lilli gave me a big hug and said 'Thank you for my Party I loved it".

photo by Alyce Holzeberger

Cakes, macarons, cookies, marshmallows, choux puffs by  Bubble and Sweet
Photography Alyce Holzberg Photography
Entertainer (magic, balloons, party games) Super Steph
Printables PolkaDot Prints
Paper Pom Poms Ah Tissue
Pink Ceramic Cake Stand Clara French
Cake boxes and candy jars from 2 Garnish
Edible Jelly Jewels from Culpitt purchased at Party Animal
Fabric Shabby Chic Flowers  Karen McCubbin

photo by Alyce Holzeberger

Special thanks to Terri Vandermeer for her styling assistance and help Xx

 

Here are some pictures of the kids enjoying themselves at the party. Thanks everyone for sharing Lilli's special day.

Headwear by Karen McCubbin

EDIT UPDATE I found some similar kids dress up racks here over at Amazon as quite a few people have asked about them:

Above photo's by Alyce Holzeberger

Linda Vandermeer is a blogger, baker, maker and author of the cookbook ' Sweets on a Stick': More than 150 kid friendly recipes for cakes, candies, cookies and pies on the go!. Published in the US the book is available at most online book stores:

Or here at fishpond (Aus/NZ)

Build a Boat - sail boat and pirate ship cookies for Kids to decorate themselves

Build a boat cookies with edible fondant cut outs like a jigsaw that the kids can decorate themselves.They are so simple to make. If you can roll out fondant and use a cookie cutter pretty much you'll have these down pat.

My just turned 3 year old completely decorated this cookie below on his own. OK, granted that's not the normal spot for an anchor or flag, but I'm no ship building engineer so perhaps this design would totally work in real life ;)

Look how serious he is about it. He had already watched the girls make their cookies so he knew exactly what was going on.

and don't even think about trying to help him squeeze out the icing.

Yup all on his own and so proud of it - I think it made the cookie taste even better to him.

These boats were the cookies I made for the boys to decorate at Sophie's birthday party. In case you didn't see the previous post the girls got cookie paper dolls with edible fondant clothing so they could dress up the dolls for real.

Instructions

Make the fondant 'build a boat' pieces a couple of days in advance to allow time to set hard so that it will be easy for the kids to pick up.Roll out the fondant on a workbench dusted with cornflour (cornstarch), until a couple of millimeters (1/8") thick.

 Use the boat cookie cutter to cut out a boat shape and then use a sharp knife to cut out sails and the boat hull so you end up with 3 pieces. I used my knife to draw a couple of shallow lines in the hull to look like wood and then a toothpick to pop in some nail marks.

Once you have the sails and hull sorted you can cut some triangles from the fondant offcuts to make little flags. Place fondant boat pieces on a tray covered with parchment paper to set for at least one day or more if the weather is humid.

I also made some little boat decorations by hand, I shaped some yellow fondant to make little anchors by pinching the fondant into shape and some life buoys by rolling white and red fondant together and shaping it into a little O.

To make the pirate flag I cut out a rectangle and shaped little teensy skull and crossbones.....but while I was doing it I was thinking it might be easier to cut out a white flag and draw a black skull and crossbones on with edible pen.

Once you have the fondant boat pieces ready and they have set for a day or so bake up a batch of boat cookies and allow to cool.

Mix up some royal icing and put into piping bags or ziplock bags with a tiny hole cut from the corner.

and then finally allow kids to squeeze royal icing onto the cookie boat and then stick on boat sections to decorate as they like.

We also added some blue and white sugar confetti to the boat hulls in some to look like little portholes.

- if you haven't already seen the pics you must have a look at the paper doll dress up cookies I created for the girls they were a huge hit. Click Here for the link.

Pink Paper Doll Princess Party - Sophie's 5th Birthday Party

When I asked Sophie what type of party she wanted this year she told me Barbie......then the next week it was Zhu Zhu pet, and then the next week it was Barbie AND Zhu Zhu pet. I racked my brain which was spinning from all the changes wondering what I was going to be able to come up when I realised that Sophie didn't really want a Barbie party or a Zhu Zhu party, what Sophie wanted was presents....lots and lots of Barbie and Zhu Zhu presents. Really she was kinda relaxed about the whole thing as long as there were friends, presents and cake ;)

Photo of Sophie by Naomi V Photography for Princess Ratbag

Phew, ok with that little issue sorted I still needed a theme. I was looking at some photo's of Sophie where the stylist Candice from Princess Ratbag had pinned up her super long hair and made her look like a little vintage doll and then I remembered a cookie idea that I had floating around for over a year and the theme just worked itself out.

Paper Doll Sugar Cookie

Decorating the Sophie Paper Doll Cookies - see the clothes are stiff and easy to handle

Yup that's right I wanted to make sugar cookies and then fondant clothes that the kids REALLY dressed up the dolls with using royal icing to adhere the edible fondant clothes to the sugar cookie doll. If you follow my blog you might have already seen the photo's of the cookies - the kids had a super time. The tutorial on how to make these super sweet cookies is HERE. Sophie can spend hours dressing up her dolls and I thought it could be a theme we would both love.

Some examples of the cookies the girls made up

I had a custom picture drawn up of the birthday girl made to look like a paper doll by Karen McCubbin. Isn't it the most adorable thing - Sophie LOVED that it was a picture especially of her! By taking a copy of the hand drawn picture I was able to use it as a template for the cookies.

Custom Paper Doll and clothes of the Birthday Girl by Karen McCubbin (details below)

Jordan from Polkadot Prints made up the sweetest pink and white polka dot invitations using the hand drawn picture of Sophie, and then cause she's super talented she made up matching thank you tags and dessert table labels as well!

Invitation by Polkadot Prints

The custom picture was great as I used it for quite a few other things. Each guest received a copy as take home favors and I also used the paper doll clothes to make a DIY bunting garland to top the buttercream pink ombre cake.

Homemade Paper Doll Dress up cake garland

The pink ombre (graduated pink) cake was frosted with Italian Meringue Buttercream. Inside the cake was strawberry butter cake with white chocolate mud cake polka dots which was inspired by an amazing cake on snowy bliss ( click here).... mine needs a little work as the mudcake balls are quite heavy I think they need to be popped in over a layer of batter.

Pink Polka Dot Cake

 I have already posted a tutorial on how  I did the ombre frosting on the outside Click Here

Pink Ombre frosted cake

We also had princess sprinkle macarons and polka dot milk. I tried to come up with fun names for all the party treats to work in with the theme.

The rim around the top of my the polka dot milk was inspired by a picture on pintrest of dark chocolate dipped rim in hundreds and thousands (rainbow non pariels). I just changed the idea to work in with my color theme. Then it was just strawberry milk with floating marshmallows 'polka dots'.

Oh and of course we had lollies (candy)....pink musk sticks, pink and white M&M's and Pink Princess Delight (strawberry bon bons from Sharnel Dollar Designs)

and Ah Tissue made up these Ah-mazing ombre tissue paper pom poms.

Apart from the cookie decorating we also had musical statues, bubble blowing and my kids always ask for pass the parcel. I'm not a huge fan of wrapping up layers and layers of paper 'cause we always stick some kind of prize in each layer and at the end it is huge, then it's just a big 'ole ball of paper to throw away. This time instead of wrapping up layers of paper for pass the parcel, I popped gifts into brown paper bags and wrote a task for each child to perform onto the front of the bag. When the music stopped the child reached into the basket pulled out a bag and had to perform the task to get the gift. I made sure they were age appropriate tasks like singing a song or doing the hokey pokey, the kids thought it was lots of fun.

and a special thank you to my lovely friend Jo who came over earlier in the day to hang all the poms for me as I couldn't reach up due to my recent surgery. Thanks so much Jo Xx

Party Menu

Pink Polka Dot Cake (click here for frosting tutorial)
Princess Sprinkle Macarons
Sophie Doll Cookies (click here for the tutorial)
Fresh Strawberries

Sherbert Icecreams
Musk Sticks
Strawberry Bon Bons
Pink and White M&M's

Fabulous Party Suppliers

The party sweets were made by me Bubble and Sweet  ( http://bubbleandsweet.blogspot.com/ )
Party invitations, thank you cards and dessert labels by Polkadot Prints ( http://www.polkadotprints.com.au/store/pc/home.asp )
Tissue Pom Poms by Ah Tissue ( http://www.ah-tissue.com.au/ )
Cake and bon bon Stands, polka dot straws and strawberry bon bons (princess delights) Sharnel Dollar Designs ( http://www.sharneldollardesigns.com.au/store/pc/home.asp )
Custom Paper Doll drawing by Karen McCubbin ( darkar1(at)optusnet(dot)com(dot)au)
Party Inspiration photo of Sophie by Naomi V Photography ( http://www.naomivphotography.com.au/ ) for Princess Ratbag ( http://www.princessratbag.com/store/pc/home.asp )
Pink and White polka dot treat boxes from Mon Tresor
Flowers from Perrotts florist Brisbane ( http://www.perrotts.com.au/ )
Most of the party pictures are by Terri Vandermeer

Flowers from Perrotts,  bon bon stand from Sharnel Dollar Designs

Just in case you haven't heard I have a book coming out in December called Sweets on a Stick - it's full of fun and easy recipes to make with your kids. Here's a link to Sweets on a Stick on Amazon.