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!

Crab Shack 1st Birthday - {Sneak Peak}

Sneak Peak of one of the most adorable 1st birthday parties - Crab Shack theme! I had so much fun collaborating with the mom of the birthday boy to come up with the perfect red and blue crabby sweet's for little Cash's special day! More pictures and details to come soon, but for now enjoy this tiny peak into what just might be my new favorite party theme!

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

Chocolate Chips...a baking essential that you must always have on hand, am I right? Let me just warn you now that chocolate chips in cupcakes are just as addicting as chocolate chips in cookies! You can never eat just one, or two. I recently whipped up a batch of these Chocolate Chip Cupcakes for my June feature on The Cake Blog and I must say, they were a huge hit with my family (check out photos below), friends and neighbors. All you really need to do is take a basic white cake recipe and jazz it up with some chips in the batter and a few more sprinkled on top of vanilla buttercream and you've got one amazing cupcake! It was hard to stop after eating 3 in a row, but I had to save some for others!

This cupcake recipe should definitely be on the top of your summer baking, or cupcake list! I hope you enjoy them as much as we did!

Here are a few behind the scenes photos with Sam and his little curious eyes and hands entering the cupcake scene! I LOVE all of these expressions I captured in just a few seconds.

I think he was saying "mmmm" in this photos....look at those cheeks!

I can't get enough of those big blue eyes!

I love that little wisp of hair peeking out behind his ears. His hair is definitely starting to curl a little in the back. Daddy thinks it's time for the first haircut, but I'm trying to hold out a little bit longer!

I hope you enjoyed a few snapshots of my little guy! I can't believe he is 14.5 months old already!

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!