Ties & Bow Ties - {Sneak Peak Party Week}

 

It's the last day of Sneak Peak Party Week and I've saved the best for last! Let's just say I hit the jackpot when I found these absolutely adorable fabric ties and bow ties in the $1 bin...yes the $1 bin at Target about a month ago! I literally caught a glimpse of these out of the corner of my eye on Sunday as I ran in after church to grab a can of formula! The bin had already been picked over but I was able to grab a few blue and yellow of each and the rest were all red. So I immediately called my mom and sister all the way in KY to have them race to the nearest Target and scoop up as many of these as possible! Two Targets later and they had secured about 25 of these ties and bow ties for Sam's party that they would bring down with them when they came. I had already decided on Sam's bow tie/tie/mustache party theme months before seeing these in Target. So you can only imagine how excited I got when not only did I find such a cute party addition but that they were even in the right colors I had been planning for the party! I definitely jumped up and down, screamed and paraded around the house in pure joy for the rest of the day after this discovery! So thank you Target for helping make Sam's 1st birthday extra special! And for those of you that read this post and head to Target looking for these ties and bow ties, I'm sorry but you will probably be out of luck because these have been long gone at our Target in Mobile! I was literally in the right place at the right time to snag these for such a deal!

I hope you've enjoyed the bits and pieces of Sam's 1st birthday party I've featured during Sneak Peak Party Week! Tomorrow is the big shin dig so we will be celebrating with lots of family and friends and of course an abundance of sugary sweets! I can't wait to share all the details and more photos with you soon!

Hope you all have a great Easter weekend!

Confetti - {Sneak Peak Party Week}

 

It's day 4 of Sneak Peak Party Week! I'm keeping this one short and sweet.

Colored Paper + Circle Punch = Lots of Confetti

Any guesses as to how these will be used at Sam's party?

Dessert Table & Sam - {Sneak Peak Party Week}

It's day 3 of Sneak Peak Party Week and I've decided to give you a teeny tiny glimpse of the dessert table. If you look closely behind the white chair's and "Sam is 1" blocks you can see the hints of aqua, lime and yellow serving pieces that will be used to display all the sweets! I know it's quite a tease, but you didn't think I was going to reveal the whole dessert table spread before the big party did you?

So instead I've included a few of my favorite photos from Sam's actual birthday on Monday. We started the day off right with a mini cupcake in bed at 7:00AM topped with a candle and the singing of Happy Birthday! Sam dove right in and loved every bite of his cupcake! Guess he'll be taking after me with his love of sweets and eating cupcakes for breakfast! I can't wait to see how he acts with his smash cake on Saturday!

For Sam's birthday we decided to give him a sandbox! He absolutely loves the beach. He has been to beaches in 3 different states so we decided to bring a piece of the beach to our backyard! I found the cutest Crab Sandbox at Amazon.com and just had to get this for Sam! Afterall, his nursery does have a touch of crab decor and his daddy loves to go crabbing in the Mobile Bay so it was a perfect fit for our little guy! As soon as we took the top off he was ready to play! I love all of his facial expressions in these pictures! Hope you enjoy!

Mustache & Bow Tie Cupcake Toppers - {Sneak Peak Party Week}

It's day 2 of Sneak Peak Party Week. I'm counting down the days until Sam's 1st birthday and sharing with your behind the scenes photos of what's been going on for party preparations! Today's feature is all about the cupcakes! In addition to cake and an assortment of other sweets at the party I'm going to be making some chocolate cupcakes topped with adorable mustache and bow tie toppers! These are so super simple to make and only require a few materials but will certainly add to the cute factor and "tie" in perfectly with the mustache and tie/bowtie theme! The pictures below show you step-by-step what you need and how to make each topper.

Mustache Cupcake Toppers:

-toothpicks
-double stick tape
-black paper
-mustache paper punch

How stinkin cute are this little guys!

Bow Tie Cupcake Toppers:
-toothpicks
-fabric scissors
-fabric

I love these little polka dot bow ties!

I can't wait to use these for Sam's party this weekend! Stay tuned for sneak peak #3 coming up tomorrow!

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!

Spring Flower & Bumble Bee Cupcakes

Happy 1st day of Spring! Oh how I love this time of year! I am so ready for the warm weather to be here to stay. I just wanted to buzz in real quick to share an old favorite recipe of mine and get you in the mood for spring. You may remember my Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes originally posted on The Cake Blog back in July 2011. Well to this day they are still one of my all time favorites. I absolutely love everything about them from their bright colors of yellow and pink and the tartness of the lemonade to the sweetness of the strawberry buttercream. If you check out the original recipe you will remember I made them in mason jars, which is still such a fun trend and such a great way to display, serve and transport your sweets!

This past weekend I made them again for a baby shower to celebrate my friend Katie and her little girl Macie that is on the way in early April! The invitation sent out said "Have you heard the buzz?" so of course there is nothing more appropriate than a little bumble bee topper to fit the theme. All the decorations were pink and yellow so these cupcakes were an absolutely perfect fit for such a sweet occasion!

To create the flowered look of the buttercream I used Wilton piping tip #104 and just went around in a circle 3 times layering the icing on top of each other. You can get all the instructions from this post about my Ombre Ruffle Cupcakes. The only difference is for the Strawberry Lemonade cupcakes we aren't using 3 shades of icing, it's all the same color.

To create the bumble bee all you need are 3 things: sliced almonds, yellow jelly beans and black royal icing. Pipe three stripes of icing across the jelly bean and gently place the almonds on each side. Add two dots of icing for the eyes and that is it! Allow the bees to set up overnight and then place on top of the cupcakes!

These cupcakes are absolutely perfect for spring, summer or even Easter which is just right around the corner!

Hope you all have a happy spring!

Baking Organization - {Part 2}

One thing I've been working really hard on this year is getting all my baking things organized, as you may remember from this post. If you ask my husband he will quickly tell you that almost every single room of our house and all of our cabinets and pantry are overflowing with something related to baking! So to keep my baking hobby under control and eliminate the chaos throughout our house I decided it was time to give everything a place. I've gathered bins and baskets and have re-purposed a book shelf to create my central baking hub in my office. Here you will find a lot of the props that frequently show up in my blog posts such as ribbon, cupcake wrappers, fabric, napkins, etc.

Using an open wall storage system and clear bins with labels and baskets provides both a great visual for things that I have on hand and also provides a lot of color to brighten up my office and make it a fun place to work!

So here's the behind the scenes pictures of one of my central blog & baking related spaces in our house! The baking organization doesn't stop here though, I've got more to show you in my kitchen so check back soon for fun ways to organize your cookie cutters, sprinkles and cupcake wrappers!

Easy Banana Cupcakes

I'd like to introduce you to one of the simplest and tastiest cupcakes I have ever made! I will admit I did cheat a little bit with this recipe and started with a box mix (everything can't be from scratch these days with an 11 month old on the go), but throw in some bananas, sour cream and vanilla and you can't even tell this cakes not from scratch! I was inspired to do banana cupcakes for two reasons...I was cleaning out/organizing my bazillion cupcake liners and discovered these adorable yellow and green polka dot ones and immediately thought..bananas, and since Sam is a banana lover these days, well we've always got a bunch laying around that get pretty ripe before we can eat them all up!

I'm sharing all the details and recipe for these super easy Banana and Cream Cheese Cupcakes over on Half Baked-The Cake Blog! So head on over and check them out! And while you are there you have got to see Carrie's amazingly beautiful Speckled Egg Cake. It is absolutely the most perfect spring or Easter cake to create for your family this year! She shares step-by-step instructions and photos on how using a bit of cocoa powder can turn your robin's egg blue cake into a speckled masterpiece in no time! It really looks like a fun technique and one I'm excited to try! So I hope you will give these banana cupcakes and Speckled Egg Cake a try!

Happy Baking!

Cora's 1st Birthday

I recently had the opportunity to help with the sweets for my friend Jennifer's little girls' 1st birthday party! Miss Cora sure is one special little girl, and also Sam's girlfriend so I wanted to go all out for her party!  Jennifer had the vision to decorate with shades of light and dark pink and lime green with both polka dot and stripe patterns. She coordinated all the party decorations and together we brainstormed on the sweets for the dessert table. We decided on cake balls, cookies and cupcakes, and of course a smash cake for Cora. I tried to carry the polka dot theme through the sweets as much as possible using pink and white polka dot cupcake wrappers, white cake balls with pink sprinkles, and #1 cookies with pale pink polka dots. We used some lime green polka dot wrapping paper as the table runner to balance out all the pink and add an extra pop of color to the table. Jennifer came up with the theme "year of firsts" from the invitation she chose so I used this idea to create a few special cupcakes with toppers displaying some of Cora's memorable "firsts". Jennifer really did an amazing job with all the party details and I was so honored to be able to help in the sweets department! Hope you enjoy the pictures from this sweet pink 1st birthday party! 

Just wait until you see Cora and her smash cake...not so sure she is a huge fan of icing just yet!