Angry Birds Birthday Party! Part 4

I can't believe this is taking me four posts!  Anyway, the kids had a blast with the games (covered in post 3) and the edible Angry Birds game (covered in post 2).  I don't think I have ever put so much effort into a birthday party before.

I didn't get any pictures of the food set up (I was just so busy working on everything that day).  But here was the line-up:

• Chicken Tenders (we were going to do Chicken Wings, but figured those would have been too messy)
• Boiled Eggs (I was going to deviled eggs, but glad I didn't.  The kids loved the eggs!)
• Pigs in a Blanket
• Bird Poop dip (recipe here) with graham crackers
• Bird Food (gummy worms and cheese puff balls)
• Veggie Tray 
• Bird Bath Punch (orange sherbet, Hawaiian punch, and ginger ale)

 For party favors, I used a few ideas I found online to create my own bags and favors:

• Solid colored bags using printable faces found online (printables found here)
• Golden Egg (plastic eggs on Oriental Trading Company)
• Filled with a few Angry Birds stickers (found sheets of them at Walmart and cut out individual birds and pigs to fit in the eggs)
• Scroll of Angry Birds cutouts (found here) with an egg shaped label with instructions
• To find the download link on the site linked above, just above the first picture is the following line: Download your very own Paper Angry Birds.  But Download is in a color that matches the background.  Hover your cursor over the blank spot where the word download should be and click.
• Good luck bird and pig made of pom poms, glass beads, wiggly eyes and felt
• Inspired by this blog
• Difference: I glue them on glass beads.  Years back I made good luck bugs for elementary students at a school I worked at.  By putting the glass bead on their bottoms, you can toss the bug any which way and they always landed on their "feet"  I took that concept and used it with the birds and pigs.

 

 Overall, Tristan's birthday was a success!  He was quite pleased with everything.

Angry Birds Birthday Party! Part 3

The cakes were a hit (covered in part 1 and part 2).
Even better were the games we had lined up.

I found a few ideas using boxes and Angry Birds plushes or bouncy balls painted to look like birds and pigs.  These items were then turned into a playable, life-size Angry Birds game.  Unfortunately, my son's birthday is in December.  So, we really couldn't plan on going outside to play.  Our weather is so screwy, that we never know if it is going to be super sunny and beautiful outside, or cold, windy, and snowy.

Anyway, we scaled down the playable game by using the smaller plushes (5"), cereal boxes and the like-sized boxes, and instead of a slingshot, we let the kids have at it.

 

They definitely went after those pigs!

Because my week was super busy, my husband offered to help.  So, I had him do the pinata.  This was his first time doing paper mache.  While it didn't turn out the way we had liked, it still was a big hit!

 We didn't think it would hold up to the traditional pinata beating, so we opted for a more close-to-theme approach.  The pummeled the pig with an Angry Birds ball that we bought at Walmart.

Let's just say the kids love it!  Forget tradition!  This was even better.  It was like playing dodge ball with a very easy-to-hit target.  

Of course the pinata held up to the beating pretty well.  So, to end the pummeling craze, Scott took the pinata in one hand, a plush black bird in the other, and asked the kids "What does the black bird do?"

The kids screamed "It blows up!"
Scott: "That's right! It goes....."

"BOOM!"

We also loaded up Melayna's room with a bunch of green balloons (no helium) and put a sign outside her door that said "Melayna's Pig Pen"

In Tristan's room, we loaded up a bunch of different colored punch balloons and put a sign that said "Tristan's Bird Cage"

And outside our bedroom door, to discourage stray kids, we put a sign that says "Might Eagle's Cave" "Do Not Enter"

We also had a tin can game like this one, but ours didn't look as good.  I ran out of time and was painting these just hours before the party.  We had colored whiffle balls (those light, plastic balls that look like swiss cheese) for the kids to throw at the pig cans.

Up next: Angry Birds Birthday Party! Part 4 (food & favors)

Angry Birds Birthday Party! Part 2

I finished all of the fondant birds and pigs the week before Tristan's birthday party (see part one here).  The days following were super filled with an event I helped put together at work and prepping for Tristan's party.

The night before his party, I was up until 2am making the cake and working on other party stuff.  Not to mention that I hadn't gotten to bed before midnight every night in the past week.

I wanted to make a regular cake using the birds and pigs and an edible Angry Birds game (I saw a few ideas online via Pinterest and thought it would be cool to do the same).

Scott assisted me with making the boxes, eggs, and wooden boards.  I stacked the boards to look like the number six (this was Tristan's 6th birthday, after all!).  I went with a basic design.  I wish my wooden tier didn't look as dark and that my green tier looked darker.  Oh well!

The edible game was a bit more tricky, but that is because the spice cake was not holding up like I wanted it to.  Darn super moist cake mixes!  One of the ideas I saw indicated using regular spice cake mix from the box.  I think it might be the altitude.

Also, I had to use a ton of sugar cubes to keep the wafer sticks from falling over.  We had a few fall before we let the kids have at it.

 We used the launcher that came with the Angry Birds board game to send our birds flying!

And they did fly!

The aftermath of launched birds and sugar hungry kids!

Next up: Angry Birds Birthday Party! Part 3 (the games).

Angry Birds Birthday Party! Part 1

Tristan wanted a Spiderman party.  Then he wanted a dragon party.  One day he was watching me browse Pinterest for birthday party ideas when I came across some Angry Birds birthday party stuff.  That's when he changed his mind again and for the last time.

And I was excited!  I immediately began pinning anything Angry Birds to my party ideas board on Pinterest.  I am so addicted to that site!



First was the invitation.  I designed it on my computer and printed them on card stock.  I compiled a few ideas I found online.

The inside says "Come crash the party!" at the top and has general who, what, where, information in the blue area.

 

Anyhow, the week before the party, I began working on the fondant birds and pigs.

I started with the body shapes with indentations for the ears and tail feathers.  I let these sit overnight to harden.

I spent a good part of my Sunday working on the details.  Okay, I spent almost all of my Sunday working on the details.  I started at about 9:30 am and worked until about 4:00pm.  Yikes!

But I am quite happy with the results.

The pigs were not too difficult.  Here is how each element was made:

Ears

The ears started as a tear drop shape, then slightly flattened at the base of the drop.  I then indented the inside of the ear a bit and folded the edges slightly inwards.  Using a brush, I wet the inside of the holes I made earlier and then I inserted the tip of the ears inside the hole.  

Nose

The nose started as a small bean shaped bit of fondant, flattened and adhered to the pig body with a bit of water.  The nostrils varied by pig.  For nearly all pigs, I just roughly rolled small pieces of black fondant into spheres and flattened them without caring too much about getting a perfect circle and closer to slight oval shapes.  Also, I tried to let each nostril on each pig slightly vary in size.  For the mustache pigs they had a bit of a kidney shape to them so I rolled out a small bean shaped piece before flattening.

Mouth/Mustache

The mouth was cut from a piece of flattened fondant in the shape of a circle.  I used an exacto knife to cut the piece just below the point of being a half circle.  The mustache was used out of fondant died in orange, red, and a small tint of brown (you don't need too much of any of these colors).  I flattened out the fondant and used an exacto knife to cut out my desired shape.  Ultimately, it is a triangle that has the top point cut off with slits cut across the bottom.  The middle slit is wider (upside down v-shape).

Eyes

The eyes are basic circles.  If you're lucky enough, you can use icing tips to cut out your circles.  I'm not sure about the numbers, but depending on how big you make your pigs, the tip size can vary as well.  Otherwise, form your fondant into spheres and flattened.  Position the black circles in varying positions form each other (see pictures as a guide).

Eyebrows

Take a small piece of black fondant (or white for the mustache pig) and rolled it out to a very thin "snake" but keep the ends thin as you roll it out. Using and exacto knife, cut both ends off at about the length of the radius of the eyes.  You'll have a tapered look to them (see the king pig below for a good example of this).  

Special props

I created a helmet, which is just some dark gray fondant shaped like a bowl and some small strips of brown fondant adhered below the gray bowl so it looks like it is sticking out from underneath.

The crown is yellow fondant rolled out and using an exacto knife, I cut out the shape of the crown (a rectangle where one long end had spikes [skinny, tall triangles] sticking out of it).  I rolled it together so the short ends met and stuck them together slightly with my finger.  I used the barrel of the exacto knife to wrap the crown around to keep a round shape (a pencil or pen barrel would work too).  I then used a small round decorating tip to cut out blue circles to adhere to the crown.

 

 

 

The birds were more intense than the pigs, I think.  I used this awesome tutorial to figure these guys out.  After creating the black and red birds from the tutorial, I used the same concepts to create the blue, yellow,  and white birds.  To make sure I was getting them right, though, I found pictures of others' creations as a visual guide.  

 

 

 

Up next: Angry Birds Birthday Party! Part 2 (the cakes)

Cupcakes & More

So, I have really been enjoying making special treats for my kids' birthdays and such.  I really want to learn more and become much better at cake decorating.  Anyway, I had my first commission from a friend at work, as well as a request to make special cupcakes for a coworker's birthday.


Here are the Mickey Mouse cupcakes!  I used fondant died in black, red, and yellow. 

Here is the coffin cake I was commissioned to make.  They were celebrating two relatives' milestone birthdays: 40 and 50.  So, I was asked to make a coffin cake.  I made a brown marble fondant for the coffin, scored the surface, and used a vodka/brown food color mixture to paint the wood stain. 

These were super fun to make and I can't wait for other opportunities to try new things!

Recap

So, I stopped posting in October.  Why? Well, I started getting very sick.  I went to the ER to be told that I was constipated.  About three weeks later, I'm in emergency surgery having my gallbladder removed.  Yikes!  I feel much better now.  Massive pain attacks in my stomach no longer happen. 

Now, it is the day after Christmas and so much has happened.  So much that I missed out on posting!

So, I'm posting a bunch of pictures to recap.

Scarring our daughter for life!  She is afraid of Halloween stores.

Spider Girl and Venom (Halloween 2011)

 

 Venom!

I got a haircut!

Kids and Santa Claus

Tristan turned 6!

And of course, Christmas!

I will do some individual posts on some of these events and add links at a later time.

In the meantime, I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!