Magical Medieval Birthday Bash (The Pre-party Set-up)!

Finally, the posts I have been procrastinating to post for months (actually, it has been almost a year, but "months" just sounds less cruel.. hehe..). Every year, we throw one huge birthday party for our three children, whose birthdays are very close to each other. In fact, our oldest and youngest two children share a birthday (it was not done on purpose!), and our middle child's birthday is almost exactly one month later. The party before this one (in 2011), we threw a pirate themed birthday party, which is great for both boys and girls. This year, we went all medieval on them, and had our version of a Magical Medieval Birthday Bash! This post is the set-up post, with photos of the invites, decor, etc. I decided to post it separately, because together, it would have been too large of a post to read, and you probably would have given up before you got to the good part--the party! For our medieval theme, we had a hard time finding decorations for it (go figure..), the same way we had trouble finding pirate decorations the year before. But of course, NOW I see medieval decor literally everywhere.. *shaking my head*..

For the invitations, I used parchment left over from the pirate party invitations. I decided to turn them into scrolls with a traditional wax seal. I bought the wax stamper (not sure what it's really called!) at Michael's Craft Store, along with the Martha Stewart brand gold "wax" tubes, made to use with a glue gun. The Pam was to spray the seal with, so it doesn't stick.

The actual wording of the invitations was as follows:

 Hear ye, Hear ye!

The Kingdom of West, requests the presence of all Knights & Fair Maidens

At a Magical-Medieval Birthday Party for..

Lady Harley, Lady Cheyenne & Sir Riley!

Where: The Kingdom of West Family Home

When: Saturday, September 22^nd

From: 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Guide your noble steed & wagon to:

*Insert Address*

Festivities include: a Feast Fit for a King, Dragon Egg Hunt, Storm the Castle (moon bounce & slide), Slay the Dragon & Raid the Kingdom (piñatas), Splash of the Kingdoms (water balloon fight), & more!

 

(Parents: Turn over for more information!)

And here is the little poem I wrote for this special occasion:

In a place where dragons soar up high

And fairies flutter in the sky

Unicorns prance all over the ground

And knights sit at a table that is round

Kings and queens rule all the land

And fair maidens wait in castles so grand

Gypsies tell fortunes of treasure and gold

And wizards cast magic for all to behold

What mysteries await when you step back in time?

Come see what mystical land you will find..

~Jessica D. West

And of course, no invitation is complete without the fine print on the back:

Join us in celebrating Harley’s 6^th, Cheyenne’s 5^th, and Riley’s 2nd Birthday!

§  Party will last 3 hours. Siblings up to age 7 are welcome to attend. We will not have activities for children over 7.

§  Potty trained children may be dropped off, after leaving your name and telephone number at the door.

§  Parents are welcome to stay. There will be seating inside & out.

§  Party will mostly be outside. Please apply sunscreen and dress lightly.

§  We will have activities & games for older children (4-7 yrs.) and younger children (1-3 yrs.), some separate and some together.

§  Older children will get wet during the last 30 minutes of the party as we participate in the water balloon fight. Please bring a towel.

§  Costumes are not required but highly recommended to get into the medieval mood! We will provide flower head wreaths for the Maidens, and inflatable swords for the Knights.

§  Please RSVP by September 15th. You are welcome to email me (Jessica) at ********@yahoo.com or call ***-***-**** & leave a message with names of children attending and ages so we may plan accordingly.

I wrapped the printed parchment up and tied with rubber bands to get it nice and round, then I started to seal them. Unfortunately, the glitter in the glue sticks stopped up the glue gun and broke it. I tried everything to get the glitter out, to no avail. So I had to compromise...

And went medieval style and used a, wait for it.. candle! Yay... (look closely and you can see all of the tools I tried to stick in the glue gun to get it unstuck..

And viola!

After the whole invitations fiasco, I decided to start on painting the "stone" entrance. I picked up some large moving boxes from the curb of a house down the street and used duck tape to get it large enough to draw and cut out a rounded entrance. Then, I used gray for the base, a ruler and black paint for the outline, and a small foam paint brush to get the rough-looking rock details. I bought an Easter wreath from Michael's on clearance and removed the Easter ribbon to have a nice spring colored wreath for the front door. I also used a few sprigs of faux ivy for the top corners.

Then I repeated the same paint method on two large pieces of plywood for the castle walls the kids would hide behind during the "Splash of the Kingdoms" water balloon fight!

For the inside, I used cardboard and different colors of scrapbook paper to make door signs for more of a "castle" feel. I used my Silhouette to cut out the letters. We put the Royal Chambers sign on my husband and my bedroom door (so no one would mistake it for the bathroom).

 For my workroom, I labeled it the Bakehouse.

For the back door and bathroom, we labeled them the Courtyard and Privy. We also made some extras to put on the laundry room and closet doors. I love the Dungeon sign. Hehehe..

 For a couple months before the party, I started trolling the local thrift stores for gold, silver, and pewter colored platters and dishes for the medieval feast. I scored big! Check out the awesome sword I found for $13! Yes, you read that right. $13 bucks!

I also lucked out and found my son's knight costume for $7.50!

For one of our party favors, we had inflatable swords (from Oriental Trading), and plastic shields & armor (from the Dollar Tree) for the knights. For the girls, I made these flower headbands. We had them hanging up by the front door, so each fair maiden could pick out their favorite, then have their photo taken! Here are a few of the headbands I made..

And that is all for the set-up post. There were plenty other details, but I don't remember some of them. Stay tuned for the next post with photos from the party!

We Love Repeat Customers!!

Since we opened for business 2 years ago, we have had several repeat customers. We absolutely LOVE our repeat customers! If a customer comes back, time after time, it must mean we are doing something right! Here are a few of the creations we've made for two them:

You may remember this welcome home cake we made for a customer's husband returning from deployment..

 Here is the ruffle birthday cake made later for the wife...

 and and here is a baby dino themed birthday cake for one of their little ones!

The mini dessert table cake below was made for a customer's daughter's baby shower. We matched the baby's nursery theme, which was being used as the theme for the shower as well. They put the cake on their gorgeous dessert table, then shared photos!

Then a short time later, they came back for a cute little snowman cake!

Sailboat Cookies & Two Weddings!

These sailboat cookies were made for a baby shower of the same theme. We matched the sailboats to the invitations and cupcake wrappers! The first photo was prior to adding the "birds".

The first cake was for a couple who came to me after moving up their wedding at the last minute due to military obligations. I love the "fishing" topper they chose! The groom was gracious enough to share the following recently on our Facebook page:

"Our anniversary cake was still amazing a year later. Thanks again for making such a amazing cake for our wedding."

This wedding cake was for a couple getting married and having their reception at the amazingly beautiful Botanical Gardens. We did a 3-tier, offset (tiers are not aligned), with fresh roses and a his & hers ring topper. The bride gave me a small ring for the "hers" and I used photos of the groom's ring to replicate and intertwine "his" ring.

Oh, baby!

We have made several baby shower cakes in the past year. Here are a few of them:

This butterfly mini tiered baby shower cake was made for a our customer's dessert table. The design is inspired by the baby's nursery theme!

Rubber ducky baby shower cake for twins!

Baby sneakers shower cake for my nephew, Cameron!

Baby booties & calla lilies cake.

CoCaLo Jacana in lavendar inspired baby shower cake.

Baby booties and daisies cake!

Jennifer & Tom's Wedding!!

I had the absolute pleasure of making the journey down to Charlotte, North Carolina last May to watch one of my best friends marry her soul mate! Traveling with a wedding cake is no easy feat, so the entire thing was assembled and decorated there. I had a blast at her wedding and am so thankful to her photographer, Tracy Brewer Photography for these fantastic photos of the cake & the couple! Enjoy!

Just so you can see how amazing professional photos are, here is the photo I took with my camera. I think it's safe to say, I am no professional.. LOL

Chocolate Covered Oreos & Chocolate Pops!

We have done a few different designs in chocolate covered Oreos, like:

Footballs, with football shaped Oreos

Happy Birthday Oreos, with Birthday Oreo cookies. Yum!

And we made these for a table at our church consignment sale.

We have also made a few different chocolate pops, like these pirate hooks. Perfect for a pirate party favor!

And these Halloween themed chocolate pops!