-
SuperChic’s Super Pink Barbie Birthday Party
This past weekend my niece SuperChic turned seven. In true SuperChic fashion she chose a pink Barbie-themed birthday party. I think visiting Barbie’s mansion this past March made a real impression on her. Or she’s just a typical pink-loving girly-foo-foo sort of girl. Which she is.
However my sister-in-law and I are not really typical pink-loving girly-foo-foo sorts so we planned a pink and black vintage-Barbie-inspired party instead. It was a lot of fun. I have to say even I caught the pink fever (again).
My mom sewed her famous flags in pink and black polka-dots (I wish I had a better photo of them) to match the black polka-dot table cloth she already had. There was finger food and pink drinks in fancy plastic flutes that CC found at the last minute. Pink fun-fur (and one blue) boas for everyone and Red-Vines for sippy straws. The divas in the house gave it their seal of approval.
Just kidding Bethany. You are not a diva.
CC made pink S cookies (SuperChic’s real name starts with S) and Bethany baked some impromptu chocolate cupcakes so I could have my Barbie cake toppers stuck in their frosted skirts.
Let me just take a moment to share something about Bethany. I know I’ve mentioned before that all it takes to get her to bake something is to casually mention that you’ve been hankering for this or that sweet. Well, we’ve taken this game to the next level. It’s taken on Dinner Impossible proportions. Now all I have to do is challenge her to any baking task and she’s off banging cookie sheets before I can say, “I was just kidding!”
Seriously, this girl cannot be stopped. So here was this weekend’s feat: I challenged Bethany to bake something in my mother’s teeny-tiny mobile home kitchen. This is no easy task. First imagine the kitchen: It is small. Maybe three feet across and six feet long with a door on one end and one of those impossibly low and stupid dining counters on the other. There is not one speck of counter space. If you want to mix, cut or work on anything you must do it over the sink, the stove or the trash can.
Next imagine an oven that is half the size of a normal oven. It’s about two steps up from an Easy-Bake oven with an inconsistent thermostat to boot. Then imagine that small oven stuffed with about five cookie sheets that are just stored there because there is nowhere else to keep them. That right there is enough to deter me from baking.
Anyway, before I completely hijack my niece’s birthday post with ramblings about my mom’s Mickey-Mouse sized kitchen I would like to present to you this:
It is a vanilla cake. Made from scratch. I like to call it “Trailer Park Cake” even though my mom does not really live in a trailer park. She just lives in a small mobile home on a cul-de-sac on the somewhat nicer side of the sticks. It’s not a bad place, and the neighbors are nice. One of them loaned us baking powder for this cake, in fact.
Anyway, the cake was delicious.
Perfectly moist, not too sweet with a light glaze on top. Bethany is going to be the end of me and my healthy diet. Phooey! But really? How can I not challenge her like this? This nuance in her personality just boggles and amazes me to no end. Next up I’m going to see if she can make brownies over a campfire.
Back to the birthday party. The reason Bethany baked some chocolate cupcakes is because I had my heart set on using these little vintage-inspired Barbie-doll cupcake toppers. As Bethany is to baking, I am to crafting and graphic design. (Though I’m not claiming to be as masterful as Bethany, just as dedicated.)
I think I thought this cupcake-topper idea up long before the Barbie party was even in planning stages and I may have slightly manipulated the whole event around my vision of little paper Barbie bodices stuck into cupcake skirts. So when the party preparation got underway and it looked like the cupcakes were going to fall by the wayside due to time and budget constraints, you can imagine that I was a little crestfallen. And that is why my dear friend Bethany came to the rescue.
Anyway! Contrary to popular belief, this party is not about me. No small children were harmed during my obsession with a party theme being carried out to the smallest detail! This party was about SuperChic turning seven smashingly. I think she had a blast.
We all did
-
Fairy Wings and Toadstool Cupcakes
I’ve had this idea of making cardboard fairy wings with cut-out windows filled with tissue paper for the longest time. I probably thought it up when I was little but never was allowed to use a sharp knife or didn’t have the right supplies or something. So now that I’m a grown up, I’m making all my little-kid dreams come true. I love this part of being a grown up.
When I was down at Bethany‘s the other day, Annalie was kind enough to let me cut up her cardboard house that I made for her several weeks ago. We cut out a few sets of wings (utilizing the folding seam of the box for the fold where the wings would flutter) and got busy with some cheap craft paint.
You know what I love about visiting Bethany besides the fact that we’re really good friends and we stay up all night talking? I love it that I can whip up any old craft any old time and she NEVER complains about the mess. Maybe she secretly does when I’m gone but I’m thinking she doesn’t. [Editor’s note: I really don’t.] Plus it occupies the kids and that’s always worth something.
We painted, glittered and pretty much made Bethany’s patio into a sparkling wonderland of mess. I was a big fat happy grown-up princess in the middle of it. Of course the kids got bored of all the crafting way before I did and they wandered off to play fairies or something without the fancy wings I was making them. But that’s okay.
I’ve been thinking lately, as I do all these craft days with kids, that I need to have an adult crafting class. I try and try to cater my craft ideas to kids’ attention spans but that is a tricky, tricky business. It’s impossible, really. Maybe I could buy a bounce house or something and then finally have a satisfactory crafting session with adults that lasts more than an hour without someone wandering off. Just a thought.
The tissue turned out exactly like I wanted it to. I didn’t try too hard to make the cut-outs symmetrical or anything, because as you know I’m not a perfectionist.
Then we packed up our pretty wings and headed off to Jora‘s house to do our Alpha+Mom craft that I cannot reveal at this time. But yes, it does have something to do with fairies, gnomes and toadstools. I think this woodsy fairy kick might last a while.
The kids seemed to enjoy modeling the wings, which totally made my day. Bethany snapped most these photos because I was up to my eyeballs in the other craft that I cannot talk about right now. You’re going to love it. Stay tuned for that one. (Last Thursday of the month, like usual.)
We finished our magical fairy-filled day with something sweet: toadstool cupcakes! I don’t know if I’ve written this about Bethany before, and I’m sorry if I have (I don’t mean this to be a Bethany lovefest), BUT all you have to do to get Bethany to bake or cook for you is say something like, “Wouldn’t it be cool to make cupcakes that look like little toadstools?” and whoosh! She’s gone into the kitchen.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been focused on something when suddenly I hear her mixer going or some pots and pans banging. I’ll look up and say, “Oh, you’re cooking. What are you making?” and she’ll reply, “Well you said you wanted bruleed lemon bars/almond cherry scones/eggs benedict/croque monsieurs…so I thought I’d whip some up.” Seriously. Just dream up something and she’ll make it happen. No wonder I spend so much time visiting there.
p.s. I know somebody is going to want the toadstool cupcake recipe. It’s here, with lemon glaze frosting. All that is Bethany. I can take no credit.
