Bridal Shower for a new Sister

A few weekends ago, we showered bride-to-be Charlotte with love, gifts, and words of encouragement.  It was a beautiful event to honor a wonderful person who I am proud to call my future sister-in-law.  Charlotte and Steve, my brother, will be getting married this fall and we are looking forward to continuing to welcome her into our family. 

When we began planning the shower, I offered to make the cake/cupcakes (surprise, surprise!).  We were focusing on windmills and tulips as the main theme.  The maid of honor, Claire, had great ideas for this shower and I wanted to make sure that the cake lined up with her vision.  Charlotte's family is from the Netherlands so Claire based the theme on that concept. 

I began to look for windmill inspirations for the cake and cupcakes.  I even practiced various styles of cakes to find “the one”.  

I settled on a simple cake with a windmill banner, which I made using blue and white pearl paper (and matching buttons) to match the color scheme, and then using tulip cupcake wrappers to provide the windmills and tulips: chocolate cake and vanilla bean cupcakes.  

  

I was beyond excited to work on this and provide them for Charlotte’s celebration.

The shower was absolutely beautiful. Claire did a wonderful job planning the event and it went off without a hitch.  

Earlier in the day, we met at the dress shop and tried on our dresses.  Charlotte is going to look simply gorgeous on her wedding day.  We are all looking forward to celebrating Steve and Charlotte’s wedding and watching them grow through their marriage.    

Welcome to our family Charlotte!

Birthday Party Cupcakes

Soon after making the wedding cupcakes for my in-laws' anniversary party, a friend of mine asked me to make cupcakes for a birthday party celebrating two of her precious little girls.  As much as I enjoy making and decorating cupcakes, I also enjoy eating cupcakes, meaning it doesn't take much to convince me to make them for any event (great or small).  My husband usually doesn't complain too much either.  

My friend did not have any specific requests for designs or decorations.  The only guidance I received was that one girl loves hot pink and the other loves bright blue.  Following our discussion, I felt the need (or maybe a strong desire) to roam the craft store for ideas.  I decided to create a cake stand using fabric that uses both colors (and a few others thrown in the mix) and then keep the cupcakes themselves simple.

I loved the idea of covering boxes in fabric and accenting them with ribbon.  The white ribbon really toned down the bright colors of the fabric while keeping brightness of the fabric true to its form.  I was extremely pleased with how this turned out!  Since the fabric that I picked (with some guidance from the girls) incorporates a number of vibrant colors, overdecorated cupcakes would be overwhelming. 

I found sprinkles that used the blue and the pink while matching the fabric for all the friends to enjoy.  For the birthday girls, I decorated their cupcakes with either blue or pink sprinkles topped with a white candle.  The girls loved the cupcakes decorated for them!  Needless to say, there were not many cupcakes left over after the party.  

I told my husband that I feel as though I have a new and successful hobby.  I am already lined up to make cupcakes for another event in the coming months and I will obviously have to do some taste testing prior to that event.  Now I just need to figure out what fun decoration to try next! Fondant, maybe??

Unlocking my Inner Party Planner

Last month we celebrated the 30th wedding anniversary of my wonderful In-Laws, Carl and Carol. It was a trying year for us all as a family so we needed to celebrate the love and joy that God blessed this family with for 30-plus years.  We needed to be reminded that through it all, God continually places people in our lives that love us and want to celebrate with us at every joyous occasion.

I am a planner. I love to plan out everything.  It is safe to say that sometimes I go a little over board with party planning, but once I get going, it  is hard for me to pull back.  Once the ideas started rolling on the anniversary party, I was all in. After months of planning, organizing, crafting, and creating, it was finally time for the big event. The theme was based around books and Scrabble - common interests between the two of them.  

A picture is worth a thousand words, so I wanted to make sure that Carol and Carl had plenty of pictures to not only look back on this specific day, but this life and this family that they enjoy. Not only did we go through pictures, but we collected memory cards from all of the guests to go in a scrapbook for them to read time and time again.

What I really enjoyed about planning this was deciding what to bake (in order to please my inner baker!).  I went through probably 50 different ideas before settling on these: scrabble tile cookies and two wedding cupcake cakes.  The cookies were pretty basic but I knew the cupcake cakes would be a challenge.

I found a great idea on .Life and other Projects via Pinterest for a wedding dress cupcake cake, which I immediately latched on to.  Before I considered this for the anniversary party, I spent a long time trying to find an excuse to make this cake.  Once I decided to make the cake for the party, naturally I needed a tuxedo cake; however, I couldn't find a tutorial for that one. I was on my own.  I spent time planning where the cupcakes should lie on the board in order to make the best looking dress and tux.  All in all, I baked 6 dozen cupcakes for the two cakes.  6 dozen.  That's a lot of cupcakes. To make it easier, all the cupcakes were a standard vanilla.  Here was the final product.  I am so proud of these!

The dress used a standard butter cream topped with crystal-type sprinkles in order to give it a shimmering look.  I used craft pearls and a broach for the decorations.  

 This cake was amazing!  I had a picture in my head of what it should look like but I was so nervous that when it was all said and done, the final result would be below my expectations.  However, this far exceeded every single expectation I could ever have for this cake.  I used a chocolate butter cream and a vanilla butter cream for the icing; chocolate chips are the buttons; the bow tie is made out of brown ribbon; and the boutonniere is from premade Wilton roses. After putting the final touches on the cake, I remember jumping up and down with excitement over these successful creations!



Everything was beautiful at the party. It was an honor to be a part of such an event.  What an amazing way to commemorate the beautiful marriage of two wonderful people.   I am honored to be a part of this family and am happy that I was able to find a way to show them that.