Beach Bingo ... Beach Themed Cupcakes (Coconut Drink & Beach Ball Toppers)

And we wrap with the last two cupcake themes I made for the party.  These last two ideas came from Party Pinching and a post featuring beach themed cupcakes on a budget!  These again are so easy and cheap (oh yes you know my motto cheap and ahhh dropping).  

If you missed yesterday's post. I started with making 2 batches of cupcakes using my favorite homemade yellow cake mix and 2 batches of my favorite sturdy buttercream frosting.

This post will feature:

The first to show off (or technically the third if you're reading this after yesterdays post) is the super easy and I think the coolest looking one Coconut Drink Topper.  Don't we all want a fruit drink while sitting on the beach?  Why not have a cupcake that will give you that same feeling with out the alcohol since I was serving kids!

What you Need:

Frosted Cupcakes

Whoppers

Icing

Twizzler Pull Aparts

Sprinklers (I used little stars)

Umbrella's (optional but I thought it added character)

Take a sharp knife and cut of just 1/8 of the top of a whopper (mostly just the chocolate part of the top).  Add a little swirl of icing to the part that you just cut off, I made it look kind of like what a drink looks like.  Cut a little strip of Twizzler pull-apart for your straw.  I added a star as a little fun topper, I've seen some with regular sprinkles but I wanted something fun. I then added to a frosted cupcake (I had some Peanut Butter Sturdy Buttercream left over from another recipe (post to come) so that is why this frosting looking brown vs. white).  I topped with an umbrella because it felt like they needed something.

And last on my list to do was the easiest one to make, Cole actually put these together for me.  Yes Control FREAK mom actually handed this cupcake over!  These are to look like a beachball with an umbrella.

What you Need:

Frosted Cupcakes

Gumballs

Paper Umbrella's

YUP easy frost a cupcake plop a gumball on and top with a paper umbrella.  OH yes I told you it was simple but they were so stinking cute!

And was a quick add on I made this super quick umbrella centerpiece.  I wish I would have had two boxes of the umbrella's but my dollar store only had 2 and I used the other for the cupcakes.

What you Need:

Foam Circle / or Floral Circle

Paper Umbrella's 

Open up umbrella's be careful not to break them, I gave them a little loosing up and then let Caden open up the umbrella's and we stuck them around the floral circle we picked up at the dollar store also.  Would have been nicer to have it fuller but it was perfect and CHEAP for the theme!

We had a great time and everyone had such nice things to say about the food and the cupcakes.

A BIG thanks to my helper Cole who bagged & tied them for me.

As I keep saying the idea to put the cupcakes in a plastic cup, a clear bag and tie with a ribbon has been the most used and AWESOME idea I have ever come across on Pinterest.  Whoever thought of this needs to win the award of most awesome person and helper to mom party planners.

Have a Beach tastic Day!!  Hope you give one of these a try!

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

Beach Bingo ... Beach Themed Cupcakes (Fondant Beach Balls & Popsicle Sticks)

Now onto the cupcakes made for the party!  NOW don't shake your head I didn't go totally nuts this time around I ONLY made 4 different types of cupcakes.  I'll feature two here today and then two tomorrow not to overwhelm you or make one heck of a long post.

While searching the internet for pool themed food I came across Party Pinching and a post featuring beach themed cupcakes on a budget!  I narrowed down my list to only four to make, well three they featured and one I made up on my own.

I started with making 2 batches of cupcakes using my favorite homemade yellow cake mix and 2 batches of my favorite sturdy buttercream frosting.

First on the list to do is Fondant Beach Ball Cupcake Toppers.

As you know I'm now in LOVE with this rolled buttercream fondant, that is super simple to make.  Click the name and it will take you to recipe, trying not to repeat the same thing over and over and have you all do an eye roll on me.

I wanted to do something fun and this fondant is so easy why not make beach balls with 3 colors!  I took my fondant made 3 balls, I then dyed each a color of the beach ball I wanted using Wilton Food Icing Color.  I then rolled out 1" strips of each color and pressed them together with my pamper chef roller.  It came out perfect, I then took what I think is a whiskey glass to make perfect circles (yes you can laugh we got them for our wedding & of course what do I use them for baking ... lol). I would try to get 3 balls out each time and then I would change the color line up. (blue, yellow and then green.  Next time Yellow, Green and Blue and so on).

I frosted each cupcake and then my helper topped them with a fondant Beach Ball.  We then put them in plastic cupcakes, a plastic bag and tied with ribbon.  

What you Need:

Baked Cupcake

Frosting

Fondant (3 Balls)

Wilton Icing Color

Wilton Cut and Roll Mat (or any mat)

Circle Cutter or Glass

Next on my list was the easiest cupcake ever!!  I made little Popsicle toppers to go on top of cupcakes.

What you Need:

Baked Cupcake

Frosting

Mike & Ikes

Toothpick

Break toothpick in half, take the broken half and shove into the fatter side of the Mike and Ike (one side is thin like a top of a Popsicle and other end fat like the bottom).  And your done!  I added two of the same color to the top of a frosted cupcake.  Again we then added cupcakes to a clear cup, clear bag and tied with a ribbon.

I must say serving cupcakes this way has been the BEST idea I have ever used off pinterest.  When the people left the party they were able to take a cupcake home with out worrying about it getting everywhere.  And since NO one RSVP's these days I had no clue how many would show so I made 36 cupcakes to be on the safe side.  LET's just say parents and kids each took a cupcake home that day!

Have a Beach tastic Day!!  Hope you give one of these a try!

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

Beach Bingo ... End of School Year Swim Party Food

A few weeks back I posted an invite I made for a end of year swim party for the boys and their classmates.  It was originally scheduled for this Saturday but due to a change of Rick's schedule we had to bump the party up to last weekend.  We had a few kids show but it was a lot of fun and really when compared to other parties I do this was VERY low key.  I made a few cupcakes and found food that went with the theme.  We were so blessed one of the dad's actually maned the BBQ and cooked up all the hot dogs, while Rick gave all the kids rides on the Jet Ski and I played life guard watching the kids in the water.

Here is a quick glimpse of the food that we did, the following two days I'll show the cupcakes I made in the theme.  Food was really simple and the food labels were a FREE printable on Hostess with the Mostess.  She was so sweet and had it in a PDF or  JPEG file.  I used the JPEG file and copied into a word document that I then added a text box and added the fun wording.

Cole Helping me get the labels together:

Here is how the table looked:

Food to Munch on:

Cupcake Station:

Hot Dog Station

Veggie Dip

Gummy Circles

 Gum Drops 

Pool Noodles

Gummy Life Savers

Beach Themed Cookies I bought

Cut Fruit

Tiki Punch

If you're looking for the invites I did here is the post.  I'll include a picture of the invites I sent out.

My little munch kin enjoying the day:


And my trial run of my swimsuit and cover up went well I think.
Sorry for bathroom picture it truly is the ONLY mirror I've ever allowed in the house.
And I didn't have time to have someone take my picture.

Hope you have a GREAT day and get the grill on!

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

End of School Year Ideas .... School's Out Pool Party (In our case a Lake Party)

We are looking at changing schools next year, which is really sad but something we may need to do (that story to come).  So I wanted to do something special for the kids and their friends that we may not see again.  So why not have a swim party at my parents lake front property.  I came across a free download on for a Pool Party Invite on Living Locurto.  Technically our's is a lake party but the invite was so cute I couldn't pass it up.  I took the wording she used and off I went.  She had a great PDF that I took to a local printer and had them print on cardstock and then I used this handy dandy circle cutter by EK Tools.  I picked mine up at Michael's for $14.99 and it was worth EVERY penny!  And I'll use it for other projects as we all know!  I printed the inside circle (4.7 circle) in word and played with the words to look right when the upper circle swiveled out of the way to reveal the inside.  (And yes I realized AFTER I put them together I forgot to switch out the word Summer to School (is near)

WHAT YOU NEED

• Plain white cardstock and/or photo paper
• Colored cardstock
• Corner punch (optional)
• Adhesive (glue stick or double sided tape)
• Paper trimmer, scissors and/or a circle cutter
• Fasteners such as brads or eyelets.

Alexis Notes: I used white cardstock, yellow cardstock, glue stick, circle cutter and I found some cute flip flop brads that were on clearance at Micheal's!!

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Print the FREE printable PDF file and trim the beach ball design from the paper just inside the yellow cutting line. (NOTE: be sure and set your printer options to “best quality” or “photo” printing for rich, vibrant color.

2. Cut cardstock (I used yellow for background card) to 5 ½” x 5 ½” and punch corners with a corner rounder if desired.

3. Format text for inside of invitation on computer within a 4.7” circle and print onto white cardstock…cut the circle out. You could also just hand write the inside for a personal touch.

4. Glue the circle containing party info to the center of the 5 ½” cardstock square.

5. Place the printed beach ball design on top of the text circle –centered on the card –and fasten to the card with a brad or an eyelet.

Hope you had a wonderful weekend, and thanked a Vet.

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

Star War's Party has been blasted off into space ...

We came, we saw, we concurred and took down Jabba!  The party was a hit, well at least I hope so!  I'm exhausted and need to go through all the pictures to show the last few items that were made for the party.  So I thought I'd give you a recap of our party!

For you who follow me on FB know that on Monday I found out through a friend (NOT the pool) that the pool was closed.  2 days of calling and finally got a human.  I was told the had a problem with the roof and it SHOULD be fixed on Thursday but no guarantee's.  MIND you I rented this room about a month and a half ago the pool I did during open swim and would just pay for each person!  So I called the pool on the other side of town (Both Part of Metro Parks).  They had availability and if I needed to switch I would have to pay the difference for the room there.  Thursday I call to see how the roof is doing to find out it was a PUMP. They installed it and the temp is not up but should be by Thursday.  Oh and by the way Saturday is our FREE swim day.  So I say well since I don't have to pay for the kids I'll just book the room another hour to give me set up time.

Saturday get the pool to find a LINE out the door ... oh yes everyone and their mother is there to swim for FREE.   CRAP (well worse words came to mind but you get the jest).  People where being turned away ... I think some of our guest may have been turned away. 

I get in the room don't even get a moment to say hi to people because I'm decorating (thankfully I was able to get in there a 1/2 hour early).  PLUS I still needed to tie bows on the cupcake (in a cup w/ the bag) and finish up a few other details.  THANK God for my Best Friend Amy and my mom busting this out for me!  20 minutes before the pool open swim is to end a manager comes in to greet me.  Odd never done this in the 4 years we've done this.  WELL she then tells me someone else rented the room!!  The lady is in the front screaming that I NEED to get out!!!

Come to find out they double booked the room BUT the lady just reserved it that Wednesday!  I repeated over and over that I had done this in advance and I WAS not leaving the room.  I had to give up some chairs and tables! I was so upset the manager made me come out there to confront this woman.  They should have saw who rented first and be done with it.  INSTEAD they put her in the hallway and when my guest had to walk by her guest (which they barely left a walk way) they made comments and nasty looks.  OH yes it was fun NOT.  I'm supposedly getting a refund, we'll see on that!

So our party was a little cramped, a ton of people didn't show up which was really a bummer but over all the food and cupcakes got high marks and everyone had smiles so it was worth it!

And some pictures!

Some shots of the food and the labels!

Kids and Food

Present time!!

And some special food made by my friend April

Yoda Apple

Yodalicious Apple...

1 Large Green Apple
1 Mini Marshmallow
Black Edible Pen
Peanut Butter
1 Tooth Pick

Take the apple and cut off the back bottom side to get it to tilt back just a bit.  Save these scraps to cut out the ears, eye lids, and mouth. Shape ears using a knife. Break a tooth pick in half and attached them in the apple with that.   Cut out the other face details with a knife or kitchen scissors and attach them on with peanut butter.  My friend used edible pen to make the black of eyes but you could use mini chocolate chips.

We found this idea for Yodalicious Apple on Kitchen Fun with My 3 Sons.

A BIG thanks to my friend April for doing this!  Sorry no step by pictures I had to leave her house at 11pm after the cupcake decorating so I could get up at 5am the next morning (Saturday) for work and then get ready for the party. 

Death Star Watermelon

My Amazing friend April who did the Shark watermelon last year, did a Death Star Watermelon this year for Cole.  We couldn't find instructions so she just ran with the picture we found on Makezine's Website.  She used a sharp knife and a few tools for cake decorating to make the carvings and the opening.  I think it turned out GREAT.  it was a huge hit with the kids.

And the food Table!

So it was busy and a bit of craziness but Cole kept telling me thank you!

I promise food details to come tomorrow!

Thanks for stopping by, if you're looking for more Star War's Themed items here is what I've done so far:

Light Saber Invites

Yoda RSVP's
Edible Ewok Gummies

Princess Leia Cookies - Cupcake Toppers
Chocolate Darth Vader - Cupcake Toppers
Light Saber Napkin Wraps
Light Saber Fruit Roll-Ups
Pool Noodle Light Saber Tuturial

May the 4th be with you :)

Hope you all have a wonderful day!

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