Elephant Diaper Cake

Next on the diaper cake list was for a baby boy and I found a cute idea for a Elephant on top of a diaper cake! I saw tons of pictures of this elephant design but NO steps on how to do. So I had to wing it, I typed up what I did I hope this makes sense.

What You need
98 Diapers (to make the whole cake)
Ribbon or Rubber-bands
Receiving blankets
Googly Eyes
Glue

Take a diaper and roll it length wise to make a long tube that will be your legs, use rubber-bands or ribbon to hold. You need two of these. I then took a receiving blanket and wrapped around the two legs to make the back and hold them together (see picture below). Then take a diaper and stick half under the receiving blanket, leave the other half out to make a face. I used a ribbon to make a point like a nose, you can also use a rubber-band. I added some googly eyes onto the front, I found the hot glue gun was the best to use. for the ears I used another receiving blanket and made the shape I wanted, I then tied on with ribbon to hold in place. I added an extra ribbon that matched the bottom of the cake to tie a ribbon on for the ear. 

Thanks for Stopping by!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE.

Baby Booty Diaper Cakes

I haven't done a lot of diaper cakes until these past 3 weeks I had 4 of them to do! Well I had 3 planned and one of Rick's co-worker's saw this baby booties I made and asked if she could have one made too. Which was great since I had a 2nd time to perfect the design. This cake I think is one of my favorites I've done in a while, it took me around 2 hours to make them.

I first found this design on Thom's Crafts and Treats Youtube Video, she is actually one of my favorite go to's for diaper cake designs.  I suggest watching her video to give you a better visual, I tried to type it all up.

What you Need:

84 Diapers (Size 1)

8 Receiving Blankets

2 Clip on  Flowers (or boy item)

1 roll of ribbon 1 1/2 inch

1 roll of ribbon 1 inch

Tape and Paper Clips (I used sewing pins)

To make the baby booty you will start with rolling around 30 diapers (like a cinnamon roll) then put a rubber-band on to keep it rolled. Line up the 30 diapers to make a oval shape. One very large rubber-band around all 30 and then push into a oval like a shoe shape. 

Then take around 18 diapers to make a round roll I use a round cake pan to make this shape, put a rubber-band around to hold this round shape. Take a receiving blanket folded around 3x to make the height of your round diaper shape. This is to cover the sides of the round (to make like the top of a high-top shoe). She uses tap to hold the blanket, I used sewing pins that are longer and have a pearl on top to be decorative and it holds better for me.

Then fold a receiving blanket three times to make the tongue of your shoe. Put in the back of oval just to the top of your diapers, attach with tape or pins. Then put the round on top of your oval towards the back. You then bring the receiving blanket up to cover the top of oval and front of the round. 

Then fold a receiving blanket in half or so to cover the outside of your oval. It will connect in the back where your back of the tongue blanket is up. Don't worry since it doesn't wrap all the way around the oval. 

Then fold your 4th blanket in half or so to come up the side of your cake. You need to fold in the front of the blanket so you can see the tongue.  

You wrap the 1 inch ribbon around the circle and this will hold your blankets. You can add a flower if a girl or you can do like I did and find things for a boy. I found a wooden mitt that I clipped to the ribbon in front. 

Then to finish off the bottom of the cake you wrap the 1 1/2 inch ribbon to be like the rubber of the shoe. 

It sounds very complicated but once you get going it's really easy but you have to watch the video to help get the picture. 

The first set I made I went to Target who was doing their inventory and didn't have 2 packs of matching blankets. So my booties didn't match, my second pair I hit Walmart and found matching blankets so my booties matched!

Diaper Cakes Done:

Thanks for Stopping by!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE.

What has been going on here ....

Work has been a bit crazy, I work for a financial advisor so the market activity has been making my calls go from busy to hold on to your seat busy ... LOL!  When I finally clock off I have been hitting the gym but I like to bake and create to calm down also. So a few things have been going on here! Recipes and tutorials to come in the coming weeks!

My bestie loves to post cookie recipes on FB!

I love to try to make them!

THEN take to her house so I won't eat any!!

Cole's best friend's mom brought over a Zucchini the size of my arm!

So I made 3 recipes using it (almost 12 cups of shredded zucchini used) 

Some Babies are coming!

Made a few diaper cakes!

The bottom Booty Diaper Cake is my 2nd attempt that I liked the best!

My first was done when Target doing inventory and they wouldn't bring out 2 matching sets of receiving blankets for me :(.

So there you have it busy all around!!

Have a GREAT Weekend!

Planning a CA Trip

Some tips I learned while planning and on our trip to San Diego!

First I looked all over for tickets and found that San Diego has a 3 park pass. I searched to find a good deal and found that Costco had the best deal.

Adult $189.99 (4 day pass includes all 3 places regular price $272)

Kids $162.99 (4 day pass includes all 3 places regular price $240)

Includes SeaWorld, SanDiego Zoo & Safari Park, LEGOLAND, Knott's Berry Farm, Tours, Museums and more! 

Right now they have an extra 10% off too if you want!  Buying through Costco this saved us $318.04!

San Diego Zoo bring in lot's of treats if you have kids they check bags but you really could get away with snacks etc and not have to worry about the crazy price of foods!

SeaWorld if you know someone that lives there that is a season pass bring them!!! Discount off food and drinks, I believe it was like 40% we got from Rick's friend using it. 

Buy the drink cup yes it's spendy BUT you get FREE refills ALL Day! Buy one and share with the whole family!

Buy All Day Dinning $34.99 - For an adult this could come in handy it's crazy spendy!

LEGOLAND buy the Reserve and Ride We found we spent the MOST time in line at this park. It's like $25 per person but it really could make it so you hit more of the rides and don't stand in line for hours.

Plan to pay parking here! $15 for a car

The Pasta & Pizza ALL you can eat! Was the best bang for your buck for the family to eat!

Right now after 4pm kids EAT FREE! Another good option if you stay for dinner!

Also bring a Lego Figure to trade at the park they have certain areas you go and can swap!

There are my tips I found the be the most money saving!

Turtle Cupcakes

I was asked to make 48 cupcakes for a baby shower the theme was sea and turtles. So on the hunt I went for turtle cupcakes and found a few easy ones all of the same design so I'll just give one I found the most. Wonderful DYI had a great step by step.

You’ll need:-Cupcakes
-Frosting
-Sour Peach Gummy ring candies
-Red and green gum drop candies
-Spearmint Leaves candies
-Mini chocolate chips
-Toothpick or kitchen skewer
-Oval fondant cutter

Instructions:1. Bake cupcakes and frost them

2. For the turtle shell: Place a gummy ring on each cupcake. Slice off the bottom half of a red gum drop and place the top half at the center of the gummy ring. Push the gum drop into the frosting so it will stick.

3. For fins, slice a Spearmint Leaves candy in half. Using a oval fondant cutter, cut each half into two pieces (shown far right). Use the curled pieces for the front fins and the thicker pieces for the hind fins.

4. For the head, poke a hole into the sides of a green gum drop using a toothpick or kitchen skewer. Push mini chocolate chips into the holes for the turtle’s eyes. Use a dab of frosting to hold the eyes in place. Place the head onto the cupcake and slightly push into the frosting so it will stick.

ALEXIS NOTES: I had a heck of a time finding some of the candy, I even went to Winco which has a HUGE bulk section. So I winged it and used a circle cookie cutter to cut out the legs and made them the best I could!

Thanks for Stopping by!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE.

Owl Cupcakes

Before school ended they had an event where they asked for cakes for the cupcake walk. The previous year I made a monkey cake this year they had a zoo theme again so I made Owl cupcakes. They gave out awards for best cupcakes / cakes, yes I'm competitive and a little upset when I did not win ... lol. Next year it is on! I saw several ways to make these but the one's I liked the best was on Family Circle.

What you Need:

Cupcakes frosted with brown icing (I made chocolate cupcakes also)

Oreo's

Brown Candy (or Modeling Chocolate like I used)

Orange Candy (or Modeling Chocolate like I used)

First, frost the cupcakes with chocolate frosting. Next, untwist two cookies and carefully push two brown candies onto the white part of the cookies. Place the cookie eyes onto the cupcake. Then put an orange candy on its side in between the eyes to make the owl beak. Swirl some owl eyebrows at the top if you’d like.

Alexis Notes: Now I had some modeling chocolate on hand from a previous cupcake so I used what I had instead of running to the store. Might be why I didn't win my cupcakes were a bit rushed since I forgot about doing them until hours before they had to be delivered .. lol. I also skipped doing the eyebrows out of frosting and made them out of Oreo's I halved (with the white cream taken off). 

Last Years and This Years Creations .. Thank You Time Hop!

Thanks for Stopping by!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE.

TMNT Birthday .. Inside Pizza Box Favors

And we finally end the TMNT party with the party favors for the guest who attended the party. We had a great turn out for Caden's party, thankfully I made 20 favors and we had just enough this year (previous year we had about 15 kids show up that didn't RSVP and I ran out of the minion bags).

What you Need:

TMNT Stickers (Dollar Tree 10pk $1)

TMNT Crayons (Dollar Tree 3pk $1)

TMNT Pencils (Dollar Tree 6pk $1)

TMNT Temp Tattoos (Dollar Tree 24pk $1)

TMNT Fruit Roll Ups (Grocery Store 10pk $2.50)

TMNT Fruit Snacks (Grocery Store 10pk $2.50)

TMNT Paper Mask (Amazon 8pk $3.99)

TMNT Ooze (Click link for my tutorial to make)

TMNT Perler Beads (Click link for my tutorial to make)

Other Idea's for food and other tips are:

Put Pizza out with a sign: Radical Pizza

Make Green Jello in the mini cups and put a sign Toxic Slime 

Don't want greasy cupcake bottoms put rice in pan before you put in liner!

Thanks for Stopping by!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE.

Surprise Vacation ... SeaWorld Adventure

So I've talked about our trip so far to the San Diego Zoo and Legoland. Today ends our adventure at the parks with SeaWorld. Rick use to work there when he lived in San Diego and wanted us to go and experience it. It was so amazing, the animals were beautiful. The shows were breath taking and they even had a few rides. 

Rick even planned a special dinner with Shamu, we surprised the kids when it was time for dinner and walked to the private seating.

Seaworld thankfully didn't have a lot of rides which made mom happy but boys of course could have taken more. I'm not a roller coaster person or a water person as you learned in previous post, so I had to sike myself up to get onto the Atlantis ride. Of course we got buckled in and Caden a freak out and I had to get us off the ride.

A big Thank you for Rick for planning this amazing vacation!

Family Trip ... LEGOLAND

Slowly I'm getting all my post up on this surprise vacation my husband planned for the kids. Our 2 adventure was to LEGOLAND, having boys and over abundance of of lego's in the house. As I love to call them DAMN torture things I step on in the middle of the night heading to the restroom. 

I must say LEGOLAND was pretty amazing with over 200 million lego bricks building things like people, animals and buildings. It really was breath taking, my favorite was the small works where they had iconic buildings and cities built from Lego's. 

The boys of course loved the Lego's but the rides where what they loved the most! NOW those who know me know I'm NOT a fan of rides or water. YES you guessed it that is what they had. I tried to be a good sport but let's say when a bystander with a water cannon thinks your the amazing target of the day you become a little less happy .. lol

The engineers at Lego are pretty amazing with all the character's they create also! I was in photo haven, as you can see my youngest is in most pictures. My oldest is at that faze where mom and a camera is like the plague ... lol. We even had a chance to take pictures with the characters that walked around. One was a cop and it was her first time in the suit her manager asked if Rick was a joker and would be up for a photo op. She really picked Rick as the right person, So Rick got arrested by a lego cop! CAN you say Christmas Card!!!

AMAZING Place I suggest going to visit it at least once!

TMNT Ooze (Make Slime / Gak Recipe)

And of course a party full of boys you need Slime Right??? When I was young Nickelodeon had a show with Marc Summers (He's now a producer on Food Network) called Double Dare, the kids would get this green slime thing all over them. I've been seeing several post on Pinterest on how to make Slime / Gak and I thought how perfect for a TMNT themed party. I was not alone in this thought and found a TON of people had this same idea. I used One Artsy Mama's Recipe. Now I needed about 20 little containers so I tripled the recipe, I wish I did about 4 or maybe 5 times the recipe to give the kids more but it can get a bit spendy.

What you Need:

Elmer’s Glue – either two small 4 oz bottles, or one large 7 oz
1 Teaspoon of Borax – found in the laundry section
Green Food Coloring (I used AmeriColor Food Gel)
1/2 Cup Warm Water
Large Mixing Bowl and Spoon
Air-tight Container (I picked up little jello shot containers at Dollar Tree)
Sticker paper or adhesive labels (I used paper and glued on)

Step 1: Dump your glue bottles into the large mixing bowl.  

Step 2: Fill the empty glue bottles with water, swish it around, and pour into the bowl with the glue.

Step 3: Stir well and add food coloring to create desired color. 

Step 4: In a separate container, spoon 1 tsp of borax into 1/2 cup warm water and stir. 

Step 5: SLOWLY start to add the water to the glue mixture-make sure none of the borax granules get into the mixture. Add a little, mix with your hands, add a little, mix with your hands. It starts to form quickly, so don’t add a lot of water all at once. Keep mixing with your hands until it isn’t sticky anymore.

Step 6: Package 

Step 7: Add label. I found my label for free but now I can't find the link (here is the link of the ones that look like what I used). I printed on copy paper and then used my circle cutter to cut them out. I put a dab of glue on the back and added to the top of the container.

Thanks for Stopping by!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE.

TMNT Perler Beads

As you know I'm a little obsessed with themed parties and of course on this quest of themed parties I came across perler beads! I have done it now for the last few parties, they take a LOT of time to make them but I just love them! Thankfully my boys could be a little OCD like me and at times they will sit and make these for me for the party goers. I did a google search and found SEVERAL ideas on different ways to do the TMNT Characters, the logo and food. I just googled and then blew up the photos. The boys and I then counted the rows and made our designs. Sorry no real step by step to make these, I would suggest doing like I did printing the picture and then copying on your perler board.

What you Need:

Perler Beads (Colors needed for the character etc)

Perler Board

Perler Paper (like a wax paper)

Hot Iron

I use a medium board and map out what I'm making. This time I made a few different heads (4 characters), Pizza and TMNT logo. I did find a sewer lid also but it was too large for the board I had. We put one character and a logo or pizza in each pizza box favor that each kid got to take home.

Once you get the design you like, you put the perler paper on top. I have got it down when I set the iron on top of the paper I set a timer on my phone for 90 seconds. If I do longer it melts too much and the board gets messed up. I have found that you can warp the board if you heat it up too much. I make so many of these each party that I have to by new boards each time. Thankfully they are not too expensive.

Here is a step by step if you have not done a perler bead before:

1. Working on a flat surface, create your design by placing beads one by one on a Perler peg board.
2. Preheat a dry household iron to the medium setting. When carrying the bead design to the iron, be careful not to tip or bump the beads from the peg board! Cover the beads with the ironing paper. Keeping the iron level, gently iron the beads in a circular motion for about 10 seconds** to fuse the beads evenly. When ironed properly, the beads will still have an open center. If you are working on a 3-D project, DO NOT OVER-IRON the beads as it will make the centers of the beads close and can make assembly more challenging.
3. Once the design is cool, peel off the ironing paper. Lift your design from the peg board and flip the design over onto your ironing surface. Cover it with the ironing paper and iron the other side to fuse it evenly. Your peg board and ironing paper are reusable.

This is how I do it I print out and then plan out my boards.

The boys like it this way to they can see the picture and duplicate.

Last years Perler Beads and this years

Thanks for Stopping by!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE.

TMNT Pizza Box Favors

I have a thing about giving crap gifts from dollar stores that people throw out or a bunch of candy. I hate buying things that just get thrown out or just hype kids up. I love to find fun ways to give gifts for kids to take away with them. 

For Caden's TMNT party I wanted to do something different then I have done before. I saw plenty of ideas on bags to make on Pinterest then I was on Etsy and found several idea's for Pizza Boxes! I called around to Pizza place to buy boxes and almost died at the cost, at $1.50 a box for the 20 I needed it would be $30.00. It cost me LESS to buy a huge pack on Amazon and store the later for something instead of buying one at a time at a Pizza place.

I went onto Etsy and found a ton of Pizza Box ideas a LOT of them looked a bit childish and since Caden was turning 8 I didn't want to go that way. I found this Pizza Box on Bailey Bunch Invites. They printed as a PDF for a 7x7 pizza box she has the instant download for $9.99. NOW this are NON-personalized. I paid and downloaded the PDF and Saved as PDF I saved in Word and then using TMNT FREE Font I downloaded I added Wording Caden's 8th Bday in the banner. You don't have to do that or you can pay the $12.99 or so for a personalized one, i'm cheap and find ways to do it myself ;).

What you Need:

Pizza Boxes 8x8 $17.81 Pack of 100 $17.81

Printer

Craft Glue

Scissors

White Paper (Regular is fine you could do Card Stock but a waste of money I think)

Image Printed

After I doctored up the wording and printed on plan copy paper since I figured most would throw away I didn't want to waste the money on card stock paper. I added the top with the wording I added. In the download you get 3 sides for your pizza box (1 front and 2 sides). I attached with craft glue and bam done! I have to say the faces on the kids when they got this was priceless NOW not as big as when they got the nun-chuck pool noodles but still they thought this was so cool!!!  

I was so excited this was my favorite Favor Box as to date!

It was a little time consuming making 20 of these BUT not as long as some of the other's I've made in the past. Like last year's minion Bags those took a lot of time cutting out and gluing. 

Thanks for Stopping by!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE.

San Diego Surprise Trip ... San Diego Zoo

More on our the surprise visit my husband planned for the kids. Our first full day was a trip to The San Diego Zoo!  The zoo I think was the one place I was the most excited to go see. I love our zoo's here but after you have gone several times you've seen it all. 

The San Diego Zoo was amazing and so big. We started with the double Decker bus tour so we could see all the grounds. We were able to make a plan on what we wanted to see plus we were able to see some of the animals and learn some fun trivia about them also.

After the bus tour we got some lunch, which was really spendy but no food in means your at the misery of the park. We ended walking around for like 5 hours checking it all out. They have a fun kangaroo bus that has several stops around the park if you want to give you feet a rest and head to different animals.

I had so much fun here, the boys of course thought it was ok. No rides and boys just think things are ok .. lol. A big thank you to my husband Rick for planning this amazing trip!

TMNT Party ... Water Bottle Wraps

Next on the party list was an easy way to make water bottle's part of theme. I like to do this with all parties. I like to have an option beside punch and water bottles are so inexpensive and adding a wrap is so easy. I went on a google search and found these Free Printables on Hale Grafx. They have several different ones you can pick from.

What you need:

Water bottles

White Paper

Scissors

Hot glue gun

I don't waste the card stock for these since I usually have them chilling in ice and they get wet. You can if you keep them in a fridge but I think plain paper does just as nice. Print out the template, you can either use scissors or a paper cutter. I was in a hurry so I used scissors. I removed the water bottle wrapper that it came with. I then added a dot of hot glue to  my TMNT label and attached to the water bottle.

Thanks for Stopping by!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE.