Hulk Birthday Party Invite

My oldest son is turning ten this week and he wants an Incredible Hulk birthday party. I'm not planning anything too elaborate, but I did make this birthday party invite last night (after my show: An Ideal Husband at the Echo Theatre--I'm Lady Basildon, a small but very, very fun part).

Here's to awesome super heroes and fun graphic design and birthday parties and theater and staying up way too late!

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Joint Birthday Party! Cake Pictures Abound

Last Saturday, we celebrated Aubriana's and Graham's birthdays. I'm thinking celebrating them together is going to be a common occurance, with my nephew Graham's birthday being just two days before Aubrey's. I was hoping he would be born on her birthday (also my parents' anniversary), but nope.

Aubriana turned three and Graham was turning one. Melissa and I spent all of Friday doing their cakes together. Melissa is fantastic at baking. Seriously, she is so talented. She baked this delicious Devil's Food cake. Let me tell you, it was almost like brownies, it was so rich. It wouldn't come out of the pan though. It also didn't shape well. It was a delicious pain in the rear end, but we made it work.

I had been wanting to do a purse cake for Aubrey, but we sort of wanted the cakes to coordinate. David suggested the tool box for Graham, and it was perfect! Melissa wanted a smash cake for him, so we made it much smaller than the purse cake which was to feed everyone. She baked the cakes, made the frosting, helped me stack them, frosted them, and then she had to leave, just when we were finally ready to go the fondant part, so I ended up finishing all that up on my own.

This post is loaded with pictures of them, so beware.

Ok, here we have a shot of them together. Remember the cake that was being so difficult? That is part of the reason Graham's cake is the leaning tower of toolbox.

The hammer and all the other parts are fondant. We have a great little cake shop in town, which is where I bought the food-safe silver paint. Actually, I didn't buy it. David bought it. *Love*. That man is so nice to me.

I knew I wasn't going to have room to pipe "Happy Birthday" so I made the cute little flags. I love how they turned out.

Graham's has little hinges in the back.

Aubrey's cake was so fun. I went a little crazy with it. I wish I had done the handles a bit differently, but I think they still turned out all right. I did all the little stitching with a knife, and then later, a fondue skewer.

It's complete with a zipper on the top.

I rolled fondant to make her name, then decorated it with little flowers I cut out with a cookie cutter. For some reason, I didn't notice the drifting flower that's supposed to be on the A. I moved it for the party, but alas, the cake has been eaten, so no more picture opportunities, so the rouge flower is in the permanent cake record.

When Aubrey woke up, we told her happy birthday. She stumbled around for a second and then wished us both a happy birthday. Later in the day, when we told her happy birthday, she would respond, "Happy Birthday, Aubrey." By the party, she was saying thank you.

The party was great. I love having people over. I made bbq beef for sandwiches for dinner.

We sang to Aubrey and she blew out her candles.

Graham was a different story. We sang to him seperately.

Here, Melissa approaches with the cake. He looks apprehensive, but interested.

Oh, look, he likes it.

. . .

Oh look. He doesn't like it.

He was too upset after that to really eat it. I think it was the combination of everyone looking at him and singing. Poor little guy. He does the most pity-inducing lower lip stick out/quiver.

Then we ate cake. Aubrey stuffed most of the butterfly into her mouth.

She also got a ton of presents. I did three days of sewing for her. I'm planning a bunch of posts over the next few weeks to show you everything I did. She was completely spoiled.

Also, a huge shout out to my parents, who also celebrated 30 years of marriage on Saturday. They have always been a wonderful example of love and how to make a marriage work. They went for a hike together on Saturday, and look what they made. So so cute!

Linking Up Here:

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Share-A-Craft: Cinderella's Castle

Share-A-Craft is just as much fun as a tilt-a-whirl, but with less stomach upset and possible vomiting. Every Monday, I post a project of any type that I've recently or not so recently done. If you want to share right back, I'd love to see what you've been making.


I mentioned in my Open House Wedding Cake post that my mom had done an incredible mural for the open house. If you're wondering where I get the patience and propensity for huge projects, you can stop wondering. It's all from my mom. We never do things by halves.

This is truly stunning. It's huge. I would guess it's 10 feet tall and 6 feet wide. You can see in this picture, how it rises up above the door. It's on a frame of PVC pipe. She projected a black line drawing on a transparency to trace the basic lines on a piece of white on white fabric. She then went over it with a sharpie marker (or rather, a series of sharpie markers). To color it, she used chalk pastels. She had a lot of fun adding details to it, like little crystals to jazz it up.

Of course, we will probably be using it at every opportunity. It's set up in the gym of our church, for my niece Maddy's 5th birthday party. So, while I'm at it, happy birthday, Maddy!

A closer shot:

I colored in a few of the turrets and helped with the sky. The cloud behind the tower is all mine. I also did the bushes, although my mom ended up touching them up a bit. I'm still claiming them.

The castle has a very subtle glitter finish. I tried to get a picture of it, and I think this is the best one. She also used gold metallic paint for some of the details.

A shot of the crystals my mom put in the sky for stars:

If I had to guess, I would think she has 30+ hours in it. I helped her for some of those hours. It was a huge hit at the party. It really almost glows with a light on it.

Aubrey, hanging out at the castle:

The rest of the party was totally cute! I was so impressed with my sister, because usually birthdays are really low-key in our family, but this party was decked out! Balloons and super cute cupcake cake and cupcakes, which were absolutely delicious. I could have easily eaten five or six, but I limited myself to two.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Aubrey's Birthday and My First Knit Sewing Project. . .

Ok, so Aubriana is two today. I'm trying not to dwell on my last and only baby girl being two, so instead of me whining about how she is growing up, I'm going to post a few pictures from her party and leave it at that.
To distract me from the birthday, I made her a shirt. I love this longer style and she can wear it with pants or leggings.I created this pattern, which is always a challenge. I had a bunch of problems. First of all, I made everything too big, which resulted in fixing it with the gathers across the front. That actually turned out really cute. Serendipity isn't my favorite word for nothin'. I was picturing the straps turning out differently. Silly me, I had in my mind that I was going to construct them one way, then as I was sewing, realized that I knew a better way, but didn't realize it was going to result in things being bigger (used less of a seam allowance) and changing the shape of the sleeve slightly. I'm still very much the amateur pattern drafter, but I'm learning. Most of what I do wrong, I'm too lazy to fix. So, then I end up making something a little different than my original design. I guess I subscribe to the Tim Gunn "make it work" style of sewing. I actually have enough fabric that I will probably attempt this again. Also ran into problems sewing knit fabric. I think the white had a little too much stretch and was too thin for what I wanted to do with it. I may try to find a studier fabric. Plus, it is really, really hard to sew knit without stretching, which makes the edges ruffle. Sometimes that's a good thing, not so much in this case.

Anyway, another photo, this one of her checking out her new shirt. I put it on her and got a cheerful, "Thank you, Mommy."
And this one because she has 'tude.And this one, even though it doesn't show the shirt, just because it's adorable and possibly my new favorite photo. I like how she seems to think you smell with your lips.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Small update on us

That's the craft I did for Xander's kindy class last Friday. They loved it. I cut only 8 pink ones. That was not good. They were all gone by the second round. Pink is very popular with 5 and 6 year old girls. I love those huge paper clips. I got them from Walmart.

Maxton also had his birthday. I ended up not making his cake. I'm a bit burned out and I didn't want to resent having to make a cake. He was pretty stoked about this Costco cake with dinosaur toys on the top. So, it worked out well. Here he is gazing adoringly at 5 pounds of chocolate:


He also loved his presents! He has such good reactions. He got binoculars, a Power ranger, Kung Fu Panda, and shoes from our family. He got a yellow Power Ranger from Melissa's family and from Grandma and Grandpa he's getting a quilt. He's wanted one from Grandma for a long time and he is super excited.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Another Cake Post

Yep, tons of fall birthdays in our family. Melissa asked me to do a pumpkin cake for Miles' first birthday and she wanted a small one for his smash cake, but it wouldn't be right to do only two, so I made a medium one as well. The cake inside is lemon with lemon frosting. Everything is marshmallow fondant, except the words, which are piped.

I'm so happy with the way it turned out and it is actually one of my faster cakes. I think I spent maybe 6 hours on it. I can't wait for him to dig into it tomorrow at his party!

The lettering: Close up of the stem. I love the stem. Another view, slightly from the top.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Photos from Griffin's PAR-TAY!

We had Griffin's party last Saturday, but I'm just now getting around to uploading photos. It was pretty fun. Here he is opening a Power Ranger's movie:Now for his cake antitics. Sometimes I wish I could see inside that boy's head. I have not a clue what he was thinking.

Covering the eyes:
Sticking his tongue in his cheek:
Trying to blow out the candles:
Daddy finally steps in a pretends to help and we finally get them blown out:
The party people. Miles and Aubriana were sleeping. Or maybe Miles was up, but not in the picture (Hyrum, Maddy, Griffin, Xander and Maxton):
For his birthday, he got two Power Ranger movies, two Power Rangers action figures, a Cars puzzle, Legos, and the Leapfrog fridge letter magnets.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.