Crafty Moms Share: birthday

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DIY Minnie Mouse Napkin Rings for Party

Well, Hazel's half birthday is at the end of June. Because of school ending mid-June and some of her friends take off for the entire summer the day school is out, we are having her half birthday party in the beginning of June. (We decided to have a half birthday party for her since her birthday is in the middle of December holiday season.) She decided ages ago that the theme for this party will be Minnie Mouse. (Unfortunately there many more boys in her class than girls, but they will have to deal with lots of pink.) When she made the decision last summer, it happened to be when they were changing the Minnie Mouse theme party supplies and I was able to buy a bunch on clearance. We got the invitations and thank you notes, dinner plates, plastic cups, and a banner as well as treat bags. As we were looking at what we have and do not have, we decided we could use some of the other supplies we have and do some do-it-yourself projects. Today's is a simple one. I did not buy any of the napkins and decided not to buy special napkins. I did however have some bright pink napkins left over from her flamingo party (well actually I bought them for either party). Since this is her first child-focused birthday party, it is a lot of fun to plan.

As I was looking at ideas on line, I thought of making individual silverwear settings with a Minnie Mouse head on a napkin ring. I bought one of those Mickey Mouse head punches ages ago with a coupon and when I opened it yesterday, it did not work. Ugh!! Then the idea came to me to use pom poms. I searched for black pom poms last night and found three. I found some pinkish polka dot scrapbook paper and cut some strips. Then I glued the two smaller pom poms onto the bigger one and got a Mickey head. Then I glued the whole thing to the paper. (This was my first one and of course I had the head spinned in the wrong direction, but it was actually easy to spin after it dried.) I left it out to show Hazel and of course she asked if we could add a bow to make it a Minnie head. I explained I just didn't have the ribbon yet. Today I went to Michaels and bought two pacakges of black pom poms (small and the next size), some skinny pink ribbon and I found some cell phone charms shaped as bows in a clearance bin. I showed Hazel how to make the Mickey heads and she glued most of them for me though she did say it was boring. I poked the plastic charms through the paper to add the cell phone bows.

Then I wrapped a spoon and a fork in a napkin and wrapped the holder around it and sealed it with a piece of scotch tape. Didn't they come out cute?

If you do not have the cute bow cell phone charms, a small ribbon bow works great as well. The hardest part is tying the bow. Then you just glue them on. This is actually easier than the others since the others are a pain to poke through and get to stay in (I didn't want to glue them in case anyone actually wants a bow cell phone charm) and they break rather easily. I made a few of these as well since I only found ten of the charms (five packages of two at forty cents each).

Now we are set to have the tables set for the kids and possibly for the parents though I probably will need to make a few more. Since she wanted a Minnie and Daisy theme, I used lavender plasticware.

I think they look great with the Minnie plates. What do you think?

Looking for more Minnie Mouse ideas? There will be more coming between now and the party and you can also check out:

Flamingo Friday: Birthday Party Part 2: Food & More!

Last week I shared the first part of our Flamingo Birthday Party for Hazel's fifth birthday. That post was more about the decorations and activities as well as what we did on her actual birthday. Today I am going to share the food we had and one other extra for the party I did.
First our menu:
Appetizers
Chips and Salsa mixed with Sour Cream (it turns pinkish) and plain salsa
Vegetables and Dip (in particular carrots)
Shrimp
Edible Arrangement of Fruit

Lunch
Ginger Carrot Soup
Sandwiches (make your own ordered platters from grocery store)
Strawberry Avocado Spinach Salad with Raspberry Balsamic Vingarette

Dessert
Strawberry Birthday Cake
Pink Flamingo Rice Krispie Treats

Beverages
Pink Flamingo Punch
Spiced Warm Cranberry Apple Cider
Coffee
Bottled Water with diy labels

The appetizers were fairly easy. For the salsa mixed with sour cream, I did two parts salsa to one part sour cream. My goal was to make it pinkish. I bought a pre-cut vegetable platter that came with ranch dip, but added more vegetables and divided it all into two plates. I also found a red pepper dip that was pink, so we served that as well. My mother brought the shrimp and prepared them (Steve and I do not eat shrimp) and my mother-in-law brought the fruit. I was going to use my flamingo cookie cutter and cut out some flamingo watermelon to add to it, but the watermelon looked awful at the store the day of the party, so we skipped it. I made signs for all the food. The most intriguing ones were the shrimp and carrot items. This also gave me a way to mark the salad with the nuts. Shrimp is what turns flamingos pink and carrots have the same beta carotene (it makes the carrots orange).

For the ginger carrot soup, I combined recipes I found at Fine Cooking and Simply Recipes. I tripled the recipe and used 3 pounds of carrots. I liked the Roasted Carrot Soup recipe since it also had celery in it. I thought the portions were better in the other one. I used vegetable broth so it would be a vegetarian option. My mother is now eating vegetarian mostly, so I wanted her to have options. It turned out fine, but was not the best ginger carrot soup I have ever had. The main meal I order a deli platter and roll platters from the grocery store that is five minutes from our house. The Rite Aid is next door and the manager always gives Hazel balloons for her party as a gift. It makes it all easy to pick up and much easier to put together. Then I adapted the recipe I found on Closet Cooking for the salad. I liked that it has avocado in it. I did not put the bacon in and since I do not like blue cheese, I used goat cheese. My mother helped me make the salad. I had made the dressing the day before using frozen raspberries.

Hazel and I had big plans to make pink rice krispie treats. We used brown krisped rice instead of the Kellogg's brand. I added some red food coloring to the melted marshmallows. Then we let it sit while we went out. Then I tried to cut the flamingos out of them with the cookie cutter. I put pink frosting (which I bought) on them and pink sugar to make them sparkle. Since Hazel was sick (she has been since Christmas night), I did this by myself. I also made the cake myself even though she talked about making it with me all year.

For the cake, I adapted the recipe I found on Confections of a Foodie Bride. Since we used the same recipe last year, I knew how it turned out. I roughly doubled the strawberry puree used in the cake. I also added some red food coloring since Hazel wanted the cake to be pink like a flamingo. I made it into a 9" by 11" sheet cake so it could be the water the flamingo (lollipops) live on. I used store bought blue frosting and then used a sparkle frosting gel to write on it. Hazel shares her birthday with a good friend of ours and she wanted her name on the cake as well to honor her. Then I used the flamingo lollipops I got from Oriental Trading to finish our cake.

For our beverages, I peeled the labels of a pack of 24 water bottles and printed out my own with something about Hazel's party and flamingos on it. For the pink flamingo punch, I was inspired by the recipe I found on Kathryn's Kloset. When I went to buy pink lemonade I found strawberry lemonade that was bright pink and used that. The punch was a huge hit and was finished at the party. I left the short plastic cups for the punch but also had tall thin ones for the kids to use with the flamingo straws and had the covered ones with straws (Hefty Zoo Pals) for the younger kids. For the Spiced Cranberry Apple Cider I used the recipe I found at Betty Crocker to cook it in my slow cooker. I did not look at it carefully and did not get whole allspice. I used about a teaspoon of ground though. It was delicious!! Steve or his mother made the coffee. Since I don't drink it, I don't make it well.

The final personal touches were Flamingo Trivia at the various tables and in the bathroom. (You can get a copy without the Hazel line on it.) Then I took some of our leftover wedding favors (votive candles in glass holders) and replaced the wedding stickers with flamingo birthday stickers. I wrapped them in pink tulle and tied a pink feather to them. I left them on a table in Hazel's bedroom where we were putting coats with a sign telling people to take one when they got their coats to leave.

For more ideas for flamingo parties, check out my Pinterest Board! For more on flamingos (books, crafts and info) check out all of our Flamingo Fridays!

Flamingo Birthday Party

We finally had our flamingo birthday party!! Hazel is now officially five! It was a blast even though she now has her second ear infection since Christmas and is on her second round of antibiotics. Yes, it has been a tough Christmas break. But onto our happy time! A few weeks ago, I shared our printed invitation as well as some of the terrific products we reviewed from Oriental Trading.

Thank you to everyone who shared last week and who visited last week's posts. The party is still open because of the holidays!! So today I am going to feature a few from last week and continue the party!! So plenty of time to go visit all the great posts shared and get inspired this week!! This week's features are in three themes: New Year's, my life (math, birthday, and Jamaican food) and winter. I hope you will stop by and visit them and some of the other blogs who share with us!

This year I broke my one rule about birthday cake. Normally, I refuse to bake my own cake and we go to the fancy bakery to buy one. Since I am trying a very reduced gluten diet, I didn't want a normal cake sitting around for a few days, so I decided to try making a gluten-free one with Hazel. Hazel really wanted to make strawberry cake. I found this recipe on Gluten-Free Makeovers.

Since I had planned on making a yellow cake recipe I found that used all purpose gluten-free flour, that is what I had, so I used that. This is the first time I did gluten-free baking, but with a bit of research it was not a problem. Here is how I adjusted the recipe from Gluten-Free Makeovers.

1 12 ounce bag of frozen unsweetened organic whole strawberries
1 3/4 cups all purpose gluten-free flour
1/2 cup cornstarch
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoons xanthan gum (needed whenever baking gluten-free)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
12 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), at room temperature
1 1/2 cup sugar
3 eggs, room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 tablespoons soy milk, at room temperature

Since I did not plan ahead, my frozen strawberries were not very defrosted. I put them in the food processor and let Hazel push the button until they ground up. I did not drain them or strain them.

Next we mixed the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, xanthan gum, salt and baking soda together in a bowl and set it aside.

Then we creamed the butter and sugar together in the mixer. Then we added the three eggs and vanilla and beat it some more. We then added the milk since I had not read the recipe again. Next we added the dry ingredients and mixed them in. Then we mixed in 3/4 of a cup of the strawberries. (Save the rest for the frosting).

We spooned it into two 9-inch cake pans that had been sprayed with non-stick spray and had some of the all purpose gluten-free flour spread in them. Then we baked at 350 for 30 minutes. We kept them in the pans for 10 more minutes out of the oven and then cooled them on wire racks.

The next day we made the frosting. I tried to follow the recipe, but found the frosting was too watery, so here is how I would adjust it. This recipe was with the cake recipe at Gluten-Free Makeovers.

1 8 ounce package of light cream cheese
1 stick of butter softened
Leftover strawberries from above
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 to 5 cups of confectioners sugar

We creamed the cream cheese and butter together. Next we added the sugar one cup at a time until we got the consistency we wanted. Then we added the strawberries and vanilla and beat it. Again, I checked the consistency and added more sugar if necessary. You can add milk if it is too thick as well.

Hazel loved helping frost the cake and then she went to town decorating. I think I need to restock our sprinkle supply. I wrote the words for her.

At this point the plumber came to fix our leaking garbage disposal. He told Hazel to stop making it so well or might take it. (The best gift was finally getting this fixed since it had been almost a week of dealing with it and trying to find a plumber.)

After she finished it, we put it in the refrigerator. This was a mistake as it made the Skittles very hard and chewy. We will not be decorating with them again if we want to refrigerate the cake. Then my mother-in-law came and we went out to the Wenham Tea House and the Wenham Museum.

We enjoyed the cake at dinner with Daddy! Hazel called my sister to get her to sing "Happy Birthday" with her since Steve doesn't like to sing. We lit the two candles. Hazel told me I didn't need too many candles--just two or three. Here is a view of the inside of the cake. We all loved it (except the extra hard and chewy Skittles).

It was a lovely birthday!

A Waldorf Birthday Celebration

Today we had the pleasure of joining Hazel's class in her birthday celebration. Steve took the day off so he could join us. He and I needed to arrive at 9:45. We spent a few minutes in the hall waiting for the class to be ready and then we joined them for a story written for Hazel about crossing the rainbow bridge and then for snack with the added part of cake and fruit. We brought the fruit. Hazel picked strawberries to bring. It was truly wonderful.

Tonight I made a quick needle felted picture of the story Hazel's teacher told. It started with a star child playing with her star children friends in a beautiful garden. They were playing hide-and-seek and she hid under a large green leaf that was as big as an umbrella. While hiding she noticed for the first time a small hole. The closer she looked the more she saw in the distance and was fascinated with it. She saw a cozy home where a man and woman came out and asked her to stay. She was shy and went back to play with her friends but continued to visit this new place each day. Until she got brave enough to find her angel and ask to go live with this new couple in this new world. The angel was happy for her and took her to see Father Sun who gave her courage. Then they saw Lady Moon who gave her wisdom. Then they went to see the stars who gave her joy. Then her angel put her in a boat to cross the rainbow bridge. Before leaving the star child asked where the angel would be since she would miss him and the angel told her he would always be near watching over her even if she could not see him. Then he covered her with a blanket and she took the ride to cross the rainbow bridge. When she arrived on the other side hands helped her out of her boat and there were the man and woman. The name of the star child was Hazel.

If you lift the leaf, you can see the star child hiding and the black hole she noticed.

It was so interesting to see the class in action since I hear stories about the children. It was a bit disappointing that three were absent, so the class was very small today (only four children). However, we really enjoyed the snack and the cake. The snack ended up being my lunch since it was vegetable soup and I had two bowls. After the celebration, Steve and I went to Starbucks and then came back to pick her up. What an amazing way to celebrate such an important event. I truly love the Waldorf story of the star children crossing the rainbow bridge and that they customize it to match the child's personality and interests.

Happy Family Times #39--Build-a-Bear

Have you done something fun with your family this week? Kelly at Happy Whimsical Hearts and I are collecting fun ideas so we can all have more fun family adventures. Please share yours below.

Decorated Bedroom Door

Well we had a lot of family time this week since we celebrated Hazel's birthday. However I already shared her birthday party pictures. On her actual birthday, we had planned on having a small gathering of her grandparents and us, however my father got a bad cold, so they could not travel. We did some special things in the morning. I had decorated her door before going to bed. She loved it! She opened her gifts right away and we had to dress all her dolls. Only Pocahontas had to get an older outfit. Even Ducky got a new outfit. Sarah is still sick, but she got new pajamas and was put back in bed.

Steve's mother came over and wanted to take her to Build-a-Bear. We had done Build-a-Bear when she was two and she really was too young. Now at four she is a perfect age. And Nonni let her get whatever she wanted. We all went to the mall.

It was hard to choose, but she decided on the rainbow bear. Then she picked the Brahm's Lullaby to go in the paw. Next she picked outfits. Oh, so hard to choose from all the choices. I think she ended up with a First Communion Dress, but she really liked it because of the cross necklace.

And Nonni got the bear a pink purse and brush and Hazel a carrier.

Yes, Hazel walked around the mall carrying her new bear, Princess Teddy. We stopped in the Disney Store and they gave her a crown and pin for her birthday. Then we headed over to the rides they have in this mall. While Nonni and Hazel played on the rides Steve and I did our other errands. Then we came home for lunch and a cake of course. Overall it was a great birthday.

Now it is your turn to share how your family has spent some quality time lately.

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Hazel's Princess Birthday Party

Sharing Saturday is still open! Please come share your child-oriented crafts, activities, ideas and inspire us all!!

Today was Hazel's birthday party. I am happy to say it was a success. I shared our invitation and what we will be giving her on her actual birthday this past week. She announced to me about a week after last year's party that she wanted a princess theme. Now I knew a princess party would happen sooner or later, so I have been buying princess things when I seem them on clearance. I also went to a couple of stores and got boxes. I made this cut out castle that you saw when you walked in and decorated it with crepe paper/streamers and star shaped lights. Then we bought some princess balloons and the manager at Rite Aid (who was not able to come to the party) blew up our balloons and gave us the mylar ones (one for inside and one for the mailbox). Not that you can tell, but the latex balloons have the Disney princesses on them.

I also made a photo arch and covered it in sparkly snowflake paper. (Sorry I blocked out faces of other children so you could see the decorations but not the kids.)

Hazel really wanted a pinata as well, so we found a princess one. I cut the bottom so we would not break it open or hang it since it was an indoor party. We also made a beeswax castle which I saw in some magazine but have not been able to find since. I bought this jasmine plant so we put it in the castle and used it as a centerpiece.

Oh, and Hazel had her hair done at the hairdresser this morning and of course wore her princess dress from Halloween. She also wore a rhinestone necklace of mine that I wore in some wedding.

We still have a large mixed age party, so we had several crafts. There were crowns and tiaras to decorate. The tiaras were foam crowns I found on clearance a couple of years ago hot glued onto headbands I bought at the Dollar Tree. There were wands to make. I cut paper stars out and gave them lollipop sticks (8 inch long) and ribbons and glue. There were shields to decorate. Steve cut up shirt boxes in the shield shape and then stapled a strip on the back for a handle. There were also beads and stretchy string to make bracelets and coloring books and markers and crayons. I have to say the older children, teenagers and some adults really had fun at the craft table. Hazel did a couple after the majority of the people had left.

Yellow cake

We had planned a couple of games, but they did not happen. It was a bit too hectic with the 30+ people. We were expecting close to possibly 60, but the kids all went straight for the family room and toys and played. Many did not break for food until the cake time. Speaking of cake, Hazel insisted on having a strawberry cake and a vanilla (well we did yellow) cake. So we made two cakes. Since a couple of her friends have nut allergies, we made the cakes from scratch. The yellow cake was made in a crown pan that I bought on clearance or at Christmas Tree Shoppe. We used this recipe from Allrecipes. It was very good and we do not have much left.

Strawberry Castle Cake

The strawberry cake was a castle. I saw the idea at Betty Crocker . I also added two princesses near the castle. I used this recipe from Confections of a Foodie Bride. I tried a recipe for strawberry frosting, but it never quite formed and was more of a glaze. I made the recipe twice, but did not have success and was out of powdered sugar so I went with the glaze. The neat thing about it was it was a pink cake and pink frosting and I did not use food coloring. The wafer cookies however fell apart over night so the doors and windows were a bit broken. Overall everyone liked the cakes though.

Oh, did I mention I pulled out my wedding tiara for the day. The hairdresser pinned it in for me this morning as well. Now I am glad it is over. I still need to pull together Hazel's gift and wrap it and wrap the one from my sister, but her actual birthday is still a few days away. She has already decided what next year's theme will be. I'll see if she sticks with it. It will be easy if she does. She is thinking snow fairy.

Now to get some sleep!! Have a good night!!

Hazel's birthday is coming up fast!

Now that Christmas is over I need to focus on Hazel's fourth birthday! One of the major problems of having a birthday so close to Christmas is the change in focus so quickly. We decided to try having her birthday on Saturday instead of New Year's Day. I don't know what I was thinking in giving myself less time to prepare. Oh, well. Hazel asked for a princess theme. Here is the invitation that I emailed to family and friends who live further away. The wording on our homemade ones were the same, but we used glittery paper and decorated it with stickers and stamps.

Now I need to do all the preparation of our royal castle. More posts on that soon!

I made most of her gift. She has been so into her baby dolls lately so I decided to make her a changing station play set. I saw this idea somewhere (my guess is Little Wonders' Days), but I cannot seem to find it and for some reason did not pin it.

I made her some flannel wipes and used an old wipe case. I used fleece and PUL for the pad and made her three cloth diapers (more to come) from PUL and flannel. I made two different sizes for her dolls. Many are smaller than most of the clothes you can buy so I also made a few outfits for her dolls and on for Ducky.

I think she will love them! What do you think?

Happy Family Times #20-- Birthday Celebration

Have you done something fun with your family this week? Help us inspire others by sharing here! Kelly over at Happy Whimsical Hearts and I are collecting everyone's family times so we can all be inspired to have more family time! Please join us below!

This past week I celebrated my birthday. Hazel was so excited and wanted to have a party. So we made decorations. Well actually Hazel made most of them with some help from one of her babysitters. I helped hang them and provided supplies for them. The morning of my birthday Hazel had a dentist appointment and swimming lessons. Now she is a bit afraid of the dentist and usually cries whenever we go. I told her if she was a big girl and didn't cry and did what they asked I would get her a balloon for the party. She behaved and for the first time did not shed one tear and even sat in the dentist chair without me. So I went to the Dollar Tree and bought her two princess balloons and a a balloon holder. Now the trick is making sure they are somewhere the cats cannot get their ribbons.

I also picked up some "Happy Birthday" streamers and some horns and birthday hats.

My birthday cake is the only one I do not bake, so Hazel and I went to the local bakery/caterers and ordered it the previous week. We put it under Steve's name so he could pick it up. He also picked up some dinner while there (Chicken Parmigiana).

Hazel was so excited to give me my surprises which they had wrapped. She picked each one out herself. Steve warned me that they may not be what I wanted but they truly came from her. He helped her wrap them.

I opened them while dinner was in the oven heating up. Hazel could not wait for the party to start.

Even Ducky wore a party hat.

We had a nice dinner and then we had the birthday cake. Spinelli's always makes a delicious cake!

They even sang "Happy Birthday" or I should say we sang since Steve is not much of a singer and Hazel needs help. Then I made my wish and Hazel and I blew out the candles. How does your family celebrate birthdays?

Don't forget to go read what Kelly and her family have been up to this week!

Now it is your turn to share how your family has spent some quality time lately.