Princess Party!

My little princes B turned four at the end of September but we had to delay the party until the first of October. B loves all things princess: dressing up, castles, horses, unicorns, and of course, pink!  My area is fairly rural and has lots of horse stables around, but after several weeks of unsuccessfully trying to schedule pony rides, I ended up doing full out princess! So it was a princess-palooza(with one Prince) :)

Her cake was an evolution from one with castles and unicorn cut outs to this final result...

She saw the sparkly B online when I was shopping for cake supplies and decided that was the ultimate. After that, she decided she wanted flower cupcakes but since it was the fourth design change, the compromise was cupcakes for friends with a special top cake...I wasn't sure any other three or four year old would appreciate fondant anyway. :) Since we had parents there for her preschool friends, it was a great way to make both "white" and chocolate cupcakes as well as a cake.

For simple cakes like this I am a box mix person, since I see no value in reinventing the wheel. So two mixes and done! Lesson learned however, I had decided to try a shortcut and used a can of chocolate frosting for this cake. It was horrible. Homemade chocolate ganache icing is the best to work with and tastes fabulous so no more can for us! (Um for chocolate anyway)

From my experience, the pre-made type stays the same consistency instead of starting out soft and then getting firmer so it wasn't as easy to spread and get smooth. I torted the layers to just over one inch to get extra icing in the cake as per my DH request. With four layers it was so hard to work with. It slipped all over as I was icing it and couldn't get it smooth so the fondant tore as I was putting it on...maybe 1:00AM isn't the best time to work with fondant? The cricut cake made some good roses using the Art Philosophy cartridge but I made these  by hand using a strip of gumpaste, rolled and pinched. Fast and pretty good.

Can icing is really good for cupcakes though! The whipped white takes color so well it was a dream come true for quick cupcakes. Well, not that you can tell from my cupcakes....they looked a bit funny since I couldn't find my large coupler and after several unsuccessful attempts at trying the tip in a ziplock bag, I just snipped the end off the bag and went for it...not really flowers but not too bad? They tasted good at least. Silver sparkles make everything better too....

The smile makes it worthwhile!

The one on the right has one of the extra gumpaste flowers.

Of course we had to have lots of pink and sparkly decorations....

Hmmm can't see how sparkly the tulle is...pink white and green.

BC, before kids

The girls were very excited about the tulle that was tied up in swags from the chandelier to the corners of the tray ceiling...stole that idea from my friend Joy who had a beautiful princess party for her granddaughter, but she had lights in her tulle. Then with the extra tulle I created little "skirts" for the girls which were also the chair decorations. (I got lost in Pintrest and can't remember who had this. A mom from a link from Living Lucarto's blog? Probably everyone else knew about this before me as usual.)

Of course our little prince got his own "sheild" made with my cricut expression and cut from the Blackletter solutions cartridge. At each place there was a silver covered cake board for a place mat, plates and a special crown. My daughter K created some paper "roses" with the green napkins and I made special juice box holders. Not sure they worked as well as hoped for but I liked them ;)  For each person I created a paper box and put scalloped circles on for "handles " so there wouldn't be any squeeze accidents...well that was the idea at least.

Check out the satin ribbon.....to die for from Papermart.com

Printed out using a graphics set from LetteringDelights.com and made into a box.

One game we played was pass the frog. This was a sort of "hot potato" game where when the music stopped, the kids had to do something silly. It was a bit hard for the 3-4's but they were good sports. We also played pin the horn on the unicorn. Again my trusty Cricut expression and the Paisley cartridge gave me a unicorn and a set of horns...

I think B peeked and the others were a bit confused but they didn't mind...there were cupcakes. :) That makes just about anything worthwhile right?

The goodie bags were pretty simple again, some fabulous ribbon and some white bags which is becoming my signature by now I bet. LOL.  The stars poked out from the top making it a bit more princess-ly, but The Prince had green ribbon and a slinky instead.

So do I tell you now all the ideas I had and didn't make? Nah, I'll save it for next time. ;) Thanks for stopping in to share this with me.

Holiday Magic!

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