Cash's Crab Shack 1st Birthday

Happy Monday! Hope you all had a great weekend! Mine was filled with lots of baking and finally getting the chance to go through some of my favorite pictures from one adorable birthday party I recently had the pleasure of working on. I got an email from Brandi, the mom of the birthday boy shortly after she saw the party I did for my little guys Mustache & Bow Tie theme 1st birthday bash on The TomKat Studio in May. Brandi gave me so many sweet compliments on Sam's party and asked if I would be willing to help with a dessert table for her little guy Cash's upcoming 1st birthday since what do you know we live in the same city! Of course I immediately responded with a big YES and through many emails back and forth we coordinated the sweets I would make with the party printables and designs she had planned for his special day. I was super excited when I found out the theme was all about crabs! I have been dying to work on a crab themed party and this was the perfect opportunity, 1st birthdays are just soooo much fun!

Brandi had purchased the Preppy Crab party printable package from Dimple Prints. Super cute right! I love the red and blue colors with the polka dots and stripe patterns. Brandi really used the printables as her inspiration to carry the design throughout all the party decorations. She really went all out on every single detail from the ADORABLE hand painted sign in the front yard, the favor table with sand pails for all the kids, crab coloring pages, and assorted candy cans on all the tables. You can definitely tell this little boy is loved so much by his mama! She did such an amazing job with all the decorations and I was so honored to be asked to help with the sweets. She requested some cookies, cupcakes and an aqua ombre cake with a crab topper!

I hope you all get some inspiration from this Crab Shack themed 1st birthday party. Enjoy!

Polka Dot & Chevron - Pink & White Baby Shower Sweets

 

So it has officially been FOREVER since I have last posted! Let's just say the month of May was pretty hectic in my house. Traveling for work, weekend trips, the AC was out = too hot to bake, Sam got sick...so exhaustion set in and baking and blogging took the back seat for a little while! But I'm back today with some fun baby shower sweets I've been super excited to share with you! 

 

I recently did some cookies and a cake for a pink & white baby shower theme. I always love this color combo! I think onesie cookies are my all time favorites to decorate for some reason! They are just the sweetest little cookie and I've probably made close to a 1000 of them in the lifetime of this blog (here, here, here, here) so they are pretty easy to decorate by now. I always love the way they look in bags with coordinating ribbons! Such sweet favors for party guests.

When it came to the cake for this shower I wanted to incorporate the theme from the invitation which had both polka dots and chevron patterns. I've seen a bunch of amazing chevron cakes recently, but unfortunately my cake decorating skills are no where near the skill level of those amazing decorators so I opted for a more fun, playful, diy version to incorporate the chevron by using some cupcake liners I had on hand left over from when I made these Champagne & Raspberry Cupcakes.

I found a tutorial online from Icing Designs that was so super simple and produced beautiful results in no time. I will definitely be using this cupcake liner flower in the future!

I love the combo of the dark pink chevron and pale pink and white polka dot liners.

So what do you all think of the cupcake liner flowers...pretty cool right? I love the simplicity of this plain white cake with the wow factor of the flower liners on top!

I hope you were inspired by these pink and white baby shower sweets!

Happy 1st Birthday Sam! - It's Sneak Peak Party Week!

Today is such an exciting day! My little guy, Sam is 1 year old! This past year has gone by so fast and my little baby is growing up to be such a sweet little boy that makes us smile and laugh everyday! If you've been a long time follower of the blog then you've seen me post about Sam a few times over the last year and also post about his 1st birthday party plans! Well this is the big week, we are having his party on Saturday. Our family is flying and driving in town from 3 different states for the big celebration and we can't wait to see everyone.

I'm going to refer to this week on the blog as "Sneak Peak Party Week". I know I've been tempting you with bits and pieces of Sam's party theme for the past few months now. This week I'm going to show you a few peaks at how things are coming together. Then next week I will come back to share the full photos and all the details in probably one monster size post! I have had an absolute blast planning Sam's 1st birthday tie/bowtie/mustache party and I can't wait for you to see how everything turns out!

Here's a peak at the mini bow tie and #1 cookies I made for Sam to take to school today to share with his little buddies!
 
Happy birthday Sam! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!

Mardi Gras - Mask Cookies

I'm back again with another fun way to celebrate Mardi Gras...mask cookies! You may remember I made some mask cookies a few years ago. Back then I didn't have a mask cookie cutter so I found clip art online and hand traced all my cookies...boy was that a lot of work! This year since I'm planning Sam's 1st birthday and mustaches & ties are the theme I just so happen to have a mask cookie cutter because, well the mustache flipped around makes a mask! It's two for one, gotta love that!

So whip up a batch of masks using your favorite sugar cookie & royal icing recipes. This is my go to recipe! Tint your royal icing green, yellow and purple.

Then pipe the outline of the masks and the shapes of the eyes.

Then grab some sprinkles and get ready to decorate!

Flood your cookies. I always work in groups of 6 cookies at a time when flooding. So after you flood 6 stop and add the sprinkles! Then flood 6 more, sprinkle, and repeat until your are done with all your cookies.

Time for sprinkles, give a generous coating! This is one of my favorite and quickest ways to decorate cookies. You can hide any flaws from your flooding and you don't have to wait for the flooding to dry before you pipe on decorations! And as an extra bonus I love the crunch you get when you bite into a sprinkle covered cookie!

Tip: Allow your flooded & sprinkled cookies to dry for several hours. Then tip the cookie sideways and allow the extra sprinkles to fall off. Any sprinkles that get stuck inside the mask eye holes you can easily remove by gently scraping a toothpick in between.

Look at how they sparkle! I packaged these up this weekend and delivered to some of our friends with kids! They absolutely went crazy over them! I've got one more Mardi Gras recipe coming up on Friday! I've saved the best and yummiest for last so you won't want to miss it! Any guesses what it could be?

Gingerbread Reindeer Cookies

There's still time to squeeze in one more Christmas treat and these are so super cute and easy and something your kids will get a kick out of! These may look like your normal gingerbread men cookies...

but with the addition of a few candies...eyeballs, mini M&M's and candy canes...

and turning them upside down...Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer comes to life! I first saw the idea for these "upside down" gingerbread reindeer cookies when a friend posted a picture on her Facebook page. The picture she posted had the reindeer antlers and face created using all piped royal icing. Instead of recreating the same look from the picture I saw I thought it would be a lot easier to just use some simple candies, one of which I'm sure you all have on hand this time of the year, mini candy canes. You will need a little bit of royal icing to attach all the candy to the cookies.

Here's step-by-step photos to bring Rudolph to life.

Aren't these the cutest Reindeer you have ever seen!

I used Bridget of Bake @ 350 Gingerbread Cookie recipe out of her new book Decorating Cookies: 60+ Designs for Holidays, Celebrations & Everyday. This recipe is delicious, and produces a thick and chewy cookie! I'm a long time follower of Bridget's blog and was so excited to get my hands on her new cookie book! Her cookie recipes are delicious and her decorating skills are beautiful. Her book is packed full of some amazing and unique cookie decorating ideas. One of the best parts is that her book shows step-by-step photos for decorating all her cookies. She really helps guide you through the decorating process from start to finish so you can create some beautiful cookies.

I packaged up these cookies and passed them out to all the kids at a local preschool I was volunteering at for their holiday party! If you are still looking for the perfect last minute treat to make with your kids this Christmas, these Gingerbread Reindeer Cookies are perfect!

 

Wishing you and your family a Wonderful Christmas!