cake – mamasbrush

Gluten Free Bridal Shower in Purple

A lavender party needs a purple dessert table, am I right?

Purple stacked cake with piped rosettes on top and smooth buttercream frosting were perfect at this purple bridal shower! Beautiful for any party or wedding.

Now… this bridal shower wasn’t actually mine. I usually do all the bridal showers in our church (frankly, everyone is thrilled that they don’t have to), but every once and a while I have to do the gracious thing and relinquish my beloved duty to a loving family member or friend of the bride.

This shower was one of those. The matron of honor so wanted to throw this shower, but she was traveling in from out of state (and has 7 little ones of her own), so, while she had a lot of things taken care of, she was thrilled when I offered help with the local stuff… and with the catering.

Purple macarons and meringue cookies were perfect at this purple bridal shower! Beautiful for any party or wedding.

This was super exciting because the food is the part of parties I enjoy the most and this allowed me the time to play and do some fun things. The macarons, for instance, while not hard to do in themselves, are hard to get right. I had to make several batches before one worked out. The meringues, on the other hand are super simple and beautiful! A must for any party!

And no one would have known that this cake was gluten free if I hadn’t told them (Wegman’s has an amazing gluten free cake mix, by the way… just don’t overcook it!) In fact, all these treats were gluten free so the bride and her guests could all enjoy!

You can find me gathering here.

How We Do Birthdays: An Owl Theme

In our home we do parties in a big way… and simple at the same time. What do I mean by that? Basically, we have some big impact things that go a long way toward making the day special, but we don’t go overboard, or expensive, or worry about perfection.

I always start with my chalkboard. Sometimes it’s elaborate, other times it’s not. It depends on my inspiration and abilities. I wasn’t feeling super inspired this time, but don’t tell my 7 year old… he thought it was great. You can build or buy one like this (husband made mine) or get a similar effect with Dollar Tree foam board (not an affiliate link) and some chalkboard paint.

Lately the kids have been asking for donuts for birthday breakfasts. We have a donut shop right down the road, so it works out. Husband takes the birthday kid with him to pick out donuts the morning of. I never know what will come home. 🙂 When they got home I had the kids pick their donuts out and I added Oreo eyes and candy corn beaks (this birthday was the day after Thanksgiving, so there is also a turkey donut in there.) Incorporating the theme in this way made something simple into something extra special!

Even simpler and more budget friendly: You could grab donuts from Walmart or the grocery store instead of getting them from a donut shop.?

Decorations were super simple. Crepe paper and ribbon with balloons around the room and some paper cut with my Cricut. An owl and “Whoooo’s turning 7?” on the wall.

Simple tip: Hand cut these if you don’t have a cutting machine.

I found this idea on Pinterest. Kids are always asking for fruit salad, and this looked like a way to make that “fruit salad” extra special! You’ll notice that the Pinterest version looks way better than mine, but perfection isn’t my goal. The birthday boy loved it and that’s enough for me! (Sometimes I have to tell the kids what something is… but I still get credit!)

The cake was the hardest part of the day, but it wasn’t that bad either. You can pick something else from my pinterest board that might be simplier… or more difficult.

For the cake, I started with a 2 layer cake with brown frosting all over. For the feathers I made dots of brown frosting from a pastry bag (the cut off corner of a ziplock bag would work too) in a line. After the bottom line of dots is there, I used the flat of a butter knife to squish and drag the dot up into a “feather”. Then make another row and do the same. I looked for a video to show this, but I can’t find the one I learned from forever ago. (Update: this pin shows what I’m talking about… and then you can try it on a Christmas tree cookie like they do! 🙂

A dinner he loves, gifts (including some that match the theme like an owl clock and a couple owl coloring books) and time together top off the day. Simple, but special! You can pull that off in so many ways… even with store bought cake and a purchased birthday banner. What matters most is that you take some extra steps to make the day special for your kid… it will be something remembered forever!

You can find me gathering here.

Simple Budget Friendly Party – Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Children’s parties don’t have to be expensive – or elaborate – to be special. I find that my children are delighted by any attempt I make to create a special birthday for them. I don’t even have to do a “Pinterest worthy” job to impress them.

This Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs party was no different. Here are some simple ideas to make the day special, without going over budget!

In our family, every birthday starts with my chalkboard. I position it just inside the kitchen for the kids to see on their way downstairs. Most of the time, this is how they find our their theme for the day.

I have a how to post about it coming in a few days.

Our decorations were pretty minimal for this party. We blew up a bunch of white balloons and tied them together into a big bunch and hung them from the ceiling above the kitchen table (clouds). Then I used white thread to hang all the felt food I could find in the house from the balloons and in the windows. It gave a fun effect of food falling from the sky.

Dinner was homemade giant pizza. I made pizzas just like normal, but instead of shaping the dough into rounds, I stretched them into ovals and then cut the edges off after they were cooked to make giant slices. That’s my nine year old holding the biggest pan we can fit in our oven.

The cake was super fun to make. I started with a normal 2 layer cake and frosted it green. Then I added chocolate frosting to outline doors and windows around the edge to make it look like a building.

The “spaghetti” on top of the cake was made using white frosting with a small round tip. I just squirted it all over and let it fall all over. The pancake was more cake batter cooked in a pan, but it was a little dry. I made it in a 10 inch cast iron skillet to get the size and shape right. Pancake batter might have worked better. Let me know if you try it. 🙂

The giant ice cream cones were made with large cake balls covered in thin frosting so that it would pool a bit. Before the frosting dried I stuck the cones on to finish the effect.

It took time, but you could totally do this!

Some other details to take the day over the top:
– breakfast was donuts (easy!)
– I read the book to the kids during breakfast
– some of her gifts were based on the theme (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs coloring book for one)
-after cake and presents that evening, we watched the movie as a family to finish the day.

That night as we were going to bed, Husband and I climbed in bed saying, “Well… another successful birthday!” And it was!

You can find me gathering here.

Farmhouse Bridal Shower

This is one of three bridal showers I did last spring for ladies in our church. This bride is the one I designed wedding invitations for (I shared those here.)

The bride is one of the adopted daughters of our pastor and his wife and I was delighted to have the opportunity to do something special for her. She loves farmhouse decor (as do I, so it was perfect!), so it just seemed natural to use that as her theme.

The invitation was designed to be emailed to the church. (I’ve changed all names and numbers to protect privacy.)

Would anyone be interested if I were to list invitations in my Etsy store? Let me know and I’ll see what I can do!

I used my trusty chalkboard (love this thing!) and a pennant banner my oldest daughter and I made for her 11th birthday (several years ago now). I just love using it when I get the chance!

The center pieces were fun. I ordered a bunch of mini rolling pins (I’d wanted them forever and found a great place to buy them on Etsy!) for this event and my own use. For the party, I used fabric to cover them and taped it on. This was a great way to temporarily dress them up, but leave them for me to do something else with later. I also decoupaged and added vinyl we cut on my cricut to the wood wood pieces for fast and easy signs.

The jars were painted with chalk paint. We made three of them and I gifted one to the bride. I took the idea right off her registry. She had registered for one exactly like it, so I just DIY’d it for her. (Thanks mom for your help in that project! We all know you did all the work!)

No two tables were exactly the same. Many other elements used for the center pieces were taken directly from my house. That’s my cake plate, my cute blue truck from Hobby Lobby, my “abide” wood block (part of my home spring decor), and those beads were something I wanted to make for myself anyway… just used the party to get it done. 🙂

Oh, and that’s my cute little tiered plate piece. (More beads I made for myself… these were part of my Valentine’s decor.) I keep the church party budget down by using decor and making decor that I want for myself anyway. 🙂

These pallets really make this dessert table, if you ask me. They are painted grey and fit perfectly with the pink. Of course more of our pennant garland to finish it off.

The tiered tray is from home also, as well as all the decor on it. My son made the “LOVE” blocks for me years ago (it actually spells “SNOW” on the other side. The little houses, the cupcake stand, the Rae Dunn mug I styled re-styled myself in this fashion, the mason jar plate and all the hydrangeas were right out of my kitchen.

All the little details were so fun to pull together, right down to the gingham ribbon on the rice krispie treats and the “R” I placed on the drink table as a nod to her new last name.

Was the event perfect? No. No event ever comes together just as it is in my head, but we enjoyed a time of fellowship, ate some goodies, watched the bride and her fiance open gifts, and bowed in a time of prayer for the couple and their coming marriage. The couple and their families felt the love of God poured through the church family… that makes the event a success.

Gathering here.

Monster Theme Birthday Party on a Budget

One of the many parties I’ve had the pleasure of planning since Covid appeared and I disappeared was this fun Monster Theme Birthday Party. Inexpensive and super fun!

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It was a casual at home family party, shutdown style, but the little details made it special to the little monster we were celebrating. I tied together balloons into great bunches and incorporated white ones into the mix as eyes, with black “pupils” colored with sharpie. Black circles of paper would also work.

I used my Cricut to cut out the number 5 and letters of his name. If you don’t have a Cricut, scissors and scrapbook paper (or any paper for that matter) would work just as well.

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I love my trusty chalkboard. I get so much use out of it! If you have one, this was a super simple thing to draw. Just make a bubbly, lumpy shape with the side of your chalk, coloring it all the way in. Then with the tip, trace around the outside. I used a q-tip to clean away the shape of the mouth, added white teeth, and the eyes. This chalkboard is the first thing the kids see when they come downstairs. It is usually the way they figure out the surprise theme for the day.

Other balloons were used independently around the room, stuck to walls or resting in containers. I added a wiggly eye and a little smile or other shaped mouth and, poof, a monster was born.

This was an empty jar I had laying around. I bunched up some dark blue fabric inside and added some eyes and a mouth with water-based paint pens (note: make sure they are water-based. The oil-based paint pens may not come off.) Easy, quick, and cheap party decoration! 🙂

I love to use those water-based paint pens to add a touch of birthday to the bathroom mirror too. These monsters were simple to draw. I just scribbled a random shape and added eyes and other details to make them into monsters. One of them even has little toes (just lines people… you can do this!)

Breakfast was regular donuts picked from our local donut shop. To them I added candy eyes (those candy eyes are the maker of monsters!) Easy peasy! Just as easy with donuts from Walmart or even toast and jam for a more frugal option!

The Monster cake is my favorite part of the day. I started with a plain two layer cake and frosted it with the orange. Then I added the candy eyes in various sizes all over. On top are 6 cupcakes that I frosted with the blue using the star tip. Those eyes are simply mini cupcakes stuck on paper straws. I frosted them in the same blue and added large candy eyes. So simple to make, but such a great impact!

Are there any little monster details you plan to try on your next party? Let me know how it goes! 🙂

Blessings,
Babychaser

You can find me gathering here.

Simple (and cheap) Chocolate Theme Birthday Party

It’s a chocolate themed birthday party! Super inexpensive, simple and fun. The kids loved it and so did my mom (the birthday girl).

Mole Chicken - Chocolate Theme Birthday Party

So, a couple weeks ago we celebrated my mom’s birthday with a chocolate theme. We often go out for dinner on her birthday, but there is chocolate in Mole sauce and she LOVES her Mole. No question… I would be cooking. (We got our all-you-can-eat sushi a few days later!)

I kept the decorations pretty simple. I spent August trying to recover and catch up from the unexpected 10 days we spent in the hospital with my daughter in July. Only now am I starting to feel we’re back to normal.

I made the Hershey Kisses by wrapping foil over upside down bowls of various sizes. The paper is just printer paper I cut into strips and put messages on. Are they perfect? No. But they were well received and did their job. The little ones in the next picture (on my shelves) can also use the top of a water bottle instead of a little bowl, but I forgot to keep the ones we had. If you do that, you can fill them with candy and give them as party favors too. Since it’s always just us at these parties, we didn’t need the candy or the favors. 🙂

The Chocolate Tuffles and Cupcake cards could have been framed, but I didn’t get to the store for the frames, so they were cute on their own. My mom has since framed them and hung them in her chocolate themed bathroom. They doubled as gifts.

The chalkboard frame is just a cheap white frame (my go to frame for all my artwork because of it’s simplicity) from Walmart with a black sheet of paper in it. I used a white water based paint pen to do the illustration of a mug and hand lettered “just add chocolate and cream please” on the side. I love that frame! Silly that it took me so long to pull it together!

Chalkboard - Chocolate Theme Birthday Party

As you know if you’ve been around for a while, I decorate my large (husband made) chalkboard for birthdays and events too. Everyone has come to look forward to it and uses it to help determine the theme for the day when I keep it a secret. This one says “birthday wishes and chocolate kisses.”

Brownie Cake - Chocolate Theme Birthday Party

This brownie cake on the back of a Ghirardelli Brownie box mix was the inspiration for the theme. This past spring, my mom saw the picture of that Ombre Brownie Cake on the box and declared that she wanted to try that. I decided that day that we would do it for her birthday.

I’ve never made ganache before and as you can see, my cake doesn’t look exactly like the picture. It was a good first run though, and I hope to do it again because it was yummy!

Note: Not all (or any) of your plans have to work out just right. The person or people you are celebrating will still feel loved that you tried to make their day a big deal! Don’t let fear of failure (or failure itself in my case so often) keep you from going all out!

Gathering here.

Something Sweet – Chocolate Frosted Cupcake in Watercolor

This week I spent some time painting sweet things. Chocolate, to be specific. And all for my mom’s birthday.

Sometimes birthday presents don’t need to be wrapped. Don’t get me wrong, there should be some presents to unwrap! But they don’t ALL have to be, do they?

I painted this one for my mom’s birthday this past weekend. Her bathroom is decorated in chocolate. That’s right. Chocolate. No, it’s not dirty fingerprints from over indulgent children. It’s been done on purpose. From a poster on the wall about it’s history, to candles shaped like truffles, and everything in between… chocolate!

I thought a chocolate frosted cupcake with a pink liner would match her bathroom perfectly! But it also matched her birthday theme… so instead of wrapping it, I set it out to decorate! 🙂 Double duty!

Gathering here.

Take a Hike – How I Made a Sloped Birthday Cake

Turns out I had to come up with my own plan for this hiking theme cake. I searched and searched for ideas. I have some on my Hiking Party Board, but nothing was going to work with the time available and I didn’t need 30 people worth of cake. In addition to that, I made a camping theme cake several years ago for the same kid, so I wanted it to be different. (aka no tents)

Hiking Trail Cake -- Easy Hiking Theme Birthday on a Budget

As I mentioned earlier this week, the end of July we spent with our oldest daughter in the hospital, leaving very little time for preparing for this birthday. I made the cake (from a box mix) the night before, but I set the temperature wrong and it turned out dry. This set me behind. Usually I freeze the cakes before assembling and frosting them, but after our birthday breakfast we made a new cake (thankfully we had a back up box of cake mix!) and set it to cool on the counter.

First of all, I baked the cake with these even-bake strips from Wilton. They help the cake to rise more evenly. After lunch I was ready to begin frosting the cake. I leveled my cake layers like this (a great video about leveling and frosting cake layers.) I set the tops off to the side to be used later (I had to guard them well as there were several children floating around looking for scraps. )

Frosting the layers was little trickier since they weren’t frozen, but it worked. I did something different for me this time and used a piping bag to pipe the frosting between the layers. (Here is another great video about frosting cakes.) Piping it on helped greatly since the cake wasn’t frozen and was apt to fall apart as I spread. I’m still not great at all the techniques of cake decorating, but I’m having fun learning with each new birthday. 🙂

The Layers

[Ack! There are no pictures of the process. Time was short and I was working as fast as I could to get done in time for an early dinner and celebration. But I’ve drawn pictures for you… I hope they help!]

One of the cakes was falling apart on one side (whether this happened coming out of the pan or with the help of one of my smaller children is undecided). It worked out though, because I used that spot, after the second layer was on, to cut and shape a slope out of that layer down to toward the first layer(see diagram… these are not to scale!!).

Then I frosted only part of the top in a semi-circular way. Then I placed one of the cake tops (saved from before) on top of the frosting and trimmed away the cake that went over the side.

I then added frosting to that layer and repeated with the second cake top saved from before, but I offset it even further (see diagram… still not to scale!!). Then I trimmed away the rest of the cake top and handed out scraps to the hovering children.

This is what it looked like from the side when all the layers were ready.

I then applied the crumb coat and stuck it in the freezer for 20-30 minutes to harden so that I could finish the decorations (and make more frosting.)

I frosted the whole thing with a light green buttercream frosting I made from scratch.

the Creek

On top of that I used blue cookie frosting we already had on hand. I don’t recommend this particular icing, though, because it took a long time to set and ended up sagging down the slope after the pictures were taken. I can already tell in this photo that it had begun. I picked a random place on the cake for the creek and worked a line across the cake and down to the cake plate. Then I just did that several more times to make it thicker . The lines of it melded together nicely.

The Path

I mixed in some white buttercream with chocolate frosting I had in the freezer, left over from another birthday, and it made for a nice “path” color. I piped that onto the cake, making sure to cross the creek, and ended it in a larger area at the top. The kids decided that the picnic tables would go there (the imaginary ones). 🙂 My oldest son figured out how to cut a pretzel so that we could use it for the bridge. Good luck with that, mine kept breaking! 🙂

How I made a Sloped Cake for a Hiking Themed Birthday

The trees

For the trees on the cake I used left over Cupcake Icing we had from another birthday and used the star tip that came with it. I don’t know what color it was because I used the last of it and threw it away, but it was super handy for a quick decorating job. You could do the same thing, though, by making your own frosting and using a star tip. It worked a lot like “spray cheese.” I made both the trees on top of the cake and the ones on the tall side of the cake. Then I put “bushes” around the cake on both sides of the creek until I ran out. The trunks on the back trees are the chocolate frosting I had kept back before adding the buttercream to make the lighter brown for the path.

A few hints on tree placement:

1. I put several “trees/bushes” close together at the start of the creek to give the illusion that it started there in a hidden spring under the trees.
2. I put a tree in the crook of the path to give a reason for the sharp bend in the path.
3. I put several trees at the top around the “eating area” of “path” frosting to mimic a shady picnic area.

Do you have an event coming up that could use a sloped mountain or hiking cake?? Pin it for later. 🙂

Gathering here.

Category: cake

Gluten Free Bridal Shower in Purple

How We Do Birthdays: An Owl Theme

Simple Budget Friendly Party – Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Farmhouse Bridal Shower

Monster Theme Birthday Party on a Budget

Simple (and cheap) Chocolate Theme Birthday Party

Recommended Reading:

Something Sweet – Chocolate Frosted Cupcake in Watercolor

Recommended Reading:

Take a Hike – How I Made a Sloped Birthday Cake

The Layers

the Creek

The Path

The trees

A few hints on tree placement:

Recommended Reading: