Sunday, June 10, 2012

Charlotte's Birthday...a LO and some decor!

A few weeks ago was my little girls' 3rd birthday. Her actual birth day was on a Wednesday, and we had a party on Saturday with some of her friends. I asked her what kind of party she wanted, and to my surprise, she said "Elmo". She is a huge Thomas and Dora fan, so the Elmo choice was out of the norm. I asked her another day and she said the same, so we went with it!


On her birthday we went to the playground with some friends from our playgroup and she wanted cupcakes and balloons...simple enough!



I made her an orange and red ruffled tulle skirt and a red t-shirt with an orange "3" on it. She loves wearing ruffle "princess" skirts and was so happy that mommy made this one for her! It was so sweet to watch how happy a simple bunch of balloons made her. She ran around the park with them and just watched them blow in the wind behind her.






I made this page with one of my favorite photos from the day based on a sketch at Let's Capture Our Memories. Everything is from the Amy Tan Sketchbook line.




I fussy cut the flowers and splattered them with some blue paint. I also fussy cut some of the white patterned circles to layer underneath as well.


I lightly stamped through a stencil using distress ink in antique linen and then did some random zig zag machine stitching in white thread.



I wanted her to feel special on her actual birthday, so I decorated the kitchen with some tissue paper pom poms and some Sesame Street friends that I printed on 12 x12 paper. The triangle banner is made from fabric scraps from her skirt that I made!






I made a birthday banner on my Cricut and strung it together with baker's twine. I used Sure Cuts A Lot and have a .scut file if anyone would like it! Just email me and I can send it to you.




Birthday girl wearing her Elmo get up and still playing with her balloons!


On her birthday we needed to have cake (cause we were doing cupcakes for her friends party) and I also needed to practice making "Elmos". I made a chocolate mayonnaise cake (my fav!) and just a plain butter cream frosting. I colored some of it dark red and used a decorating tip made for "hair or grass". I had a picture of elmo and I just drew it on the white frosting with a toothpick first and then filled it in with colored frosting. The eyes are actually white chocolate disks used in candy making. And I bought some black icing for the eyes and mouth.




 Now onto her party! First of all, the invites! I found an Elmo svg file online printed out the card and elmo head. Hubby glued all the pieces together for me! I typed up some party info and glued it inside, but I also made some big "3" and letter "C" to put inside like big confetti. The end of the invite said "brought to you by the letter "C" and the number "3". They came out super cute.



I also made a Sesame Street type sign but replaced it with Charlotte's name. I did a bit of research and found that the name of the font used in the Sesame Street sign is called "Interstate". I found it for free online, and also found the Sesame Street sign as an svg file. I then played around in Sure Cuts A Lot to create my sign.




We had a pool party and the kids played outside most of the time. The only time we came in was for cupcakes!!! I am so happy with the way these came out! I again used white candy chocolate disks for the eyes, half an oreo for the mouth, and a pretzel M&M for the nose. I used a black gel icing for the eyeballs.





The only thing I can say is that I had to use so much red coloring that it made the icing taste so "fake", and I know nothing about baking and cake decorating, so I don't know how to fix this. But that didn't stop everyone from eating them right up!







 Happy Happy birthday sweet girl!!!!

11 comments:

Christa said...

Wow Audrey! So many great ideas. I too am an Elmo fan! :o) Your layout is a fav though with it's paisley and stitching. Wonderful!

Unknown said...

Hey Audrey -I just saw this post -- so adorable! Her party and details looked awesome! I also saw you said something about red food coloring for the frosting ... I don't know if you just used regular food coloring ... but I think it's called gel food coloring (they sell it at baking stores and ac moore) may work better. I haven't tried it as I also used regular food coloring, but someone recommended it to me ages ago.

Cathy said...

Awww, I love Elmo! She is so cute, the layout and all your ideas are so adorable!

danni reid. said...

oh my how cuuuuuute♥

Diana Fisher said...

I knew you would do something amazing with those balloon pictures! Great layout and amazing birthday party, too!

My mom did that with blue icing for a Smurf's cake for my brother when he was little. Still remember that it looked amazing, even though it tasted like we were eating crayons. LOL!

Anonymous said...

she is so adorable!!!! love your LO too :)

Unknown said...

Super fab party!!! Fantastic layout of course!

Jenny Evans said...

Amazing job with the party!! Absolutely love the balloon photos, so cute!! And, your layout is gorgeous!! :)

Unknown said...

so stinkin cute love the layout too!

Diana Waite said...

I LOVE these sweet pictures of your girl! Looks like a FUN time--GREAt layout too!

benilhalk said...

The orange and red ruffled tulle skirt looks beautiful. Its my daughter birthday in next week and we are planning everything in budget. Booked home studios NYC for photoshoot and after that it will be a small party. All my guests will be arrived there on time. Hopefully everything will go well.