Winnie the Pooh Shower

Today we had a very special baby boy to be shower celebration. The family was looking to do something similar to my daughter Erin's shower. Below is the link if you are looking for a baby girl shower.

 

http://celebratemywhimsy.blogspot.com/2013/07/baby-shower-styling.html

 

 

As you see, the comparisons were very similar with one being pink and one being blue.  I love the light coming in on the table so we set it up in the same spot for the cake and so on.

When I first heard the mommy Katie, my daughter's auntie, wanted to do baby JD's room in Winnie the pooh, well naturally we thought this little pooh themed party would be perfect.  So we put our heads together and this is what we came up with.

 

I had envisioned Winnie the pooh and the blustery day be the main theme of the shower.  I felt the blustery day was fitting considering the family just suffered the tragic loss of their loving father. This new baby was to be the son shining through the clouds and bringing light into a dark situation, and almost as if grandpa Jeffers was peeking down from the clouds himself and smiling on the celebration of this new little life to come.  The Son, son or Sun has an amazing way of doing this.  That is why you'll see the pooh with the umbrella on the sides in the 100 acre woods, you'll see the yellow burst of son coming through the white crepe paper clouds and the rain dropping in the background.  (Can you tell I'm all about symbolism?)  This little guy, JD, whom is going to be named after his Grandpa, is going to light this place up! What a joy and what a blessing it was for me to be part of this joyous celebration of Love....Lots of Love! 

So here is the lovely family that made this all possible.  Mommy-to-be Katie, sisters Tammy and Teri.

 

And here is my totally amazing daughter that once we thought up the theme, had made a computer print out to show everyone how things would look, how to set up and then she put together a totally amazing food menu. We also hosted this in Erin's lovely home.  I love this girl! 

 

And here is my stinkin' cute grand baby Scarlett, whom of course, matched the occasion with her little bee outfit! Muah! Smooches, grandma loves you...(oh wait, getting carried away with Scarlett and forgot I was blogging.)

So let's talk cake! To make the beehive cake, we purchased a beehive pan.  If you want one cheap...search eBay or amazon.

 After I baked the cake, I assembled it with glaze.  I drizzled some on both sides and put it together over a wire rack. This way drizzle overflow wouldn't pool up but end up on the plate below.
 To make this drizzle~
In a bowl, I put about 1 cup of powdered sugar and mixed with a few tablespoons of coconut milk (you can use water or regular milk too) 1/4 tsp vanilla bean paste, a few drips of honey and a small drip of yellow food coloring.  I wanted this really really pale yellow.  I stirred and added just a couple drips at a time of coconut milk until I had a nice thick, drip able slowly off the spoon, consistency. Then I drizzled on the edges of the hive to hide where it was assembled and then drizzled a little bit over the top.  I set this aside to let it cure and then started on the bottom.

 

I frosted the bottom cake doing a woodsy bark cake style.  Here is a link to how I did it...

http://celebratemywhimsy.blogspot.com/2013/07/woodsy-bark-cake.html.

I then piped on the heart.  Using a technique that Wilton Cake decorator Beth Somers taught me while I was at a Duncan Hines Cake decorating class in New Jersey.  I took a small tip paint brush and brushed from the outside of the heart to the inside of the heart to give it a "brushed embroidery" look.

I then piped on the initials to appear like it had been carved into the tree (cake).

 

I added a sprig of green to give it the woodsy look. I put the beehive in place and it was already so darling!

 

 

When I got it to the shower, I added a little banner that I had made with recycle grocery bags, two skewers and some buttons and bows. 

Once the bees were added, the cake was complete and so sweet too!

 

 

 So here was the beginning of a fun journey.  The table was in place, most the decorations hung and now the beginning of the cake and candy buffet was just beginning. I pulled out every white or blue jar I had for the candy table.

 

For the shower gifts, Tammy, Teri and Erin put together these adorable little honey pots using small Terra cotta flower pots and some paint.  Then they glued little bees onto each one.  They were filled with "Bit O Honey" candies.

 

 

 

 

On the walls, Tammy, Teri and Erin put cute pinwheels and kites up.

Here are some of the amazing flowers Teri did too...

 

 

 Erin's living room also received a makeover. There was plenty of seating after moving the couches to the edge of the room.

 

Teri's handy work.  Gorgeous flowers in Mason Jars for each table.

 

 

 

 There were also cutely adorned mason jars for each guest to use and keep.

Tammy bought a punch and made each of these little straw suns by hand.

 

 Here are the girls making the Sonshine Punch for the little mason jars now.

 

The punch was made with Blue Hawaiian punch (2 liter bottle), a 2 liter of Sprite and some orange sherbet.  It was heavenly delightful!

 

The Candy Buffet

I made some Bee-lue Rasperry cupcakes for dessert. Here is the quick and easy recipe:

http://www.duncanhines.com/recipes/cupcakes/lombardi.kimberly/bee-lue-raspberry-cupcakes/

We had orange sherbet popcorn, honey dipped rice crispy treats, rabbit garden cookies, and candy....

 

...and even more candy, 100 acre acorn cookies and tigger tails.

 

For the lunch table, everything had a pooh story themed identifier.

 

I tell you what, Tammy, Teri and Erin worked their bee-hinds off to make everything picture perfect!

 So here is a photo of how we utilized Erin's kitchen to the fullest. With lots of help, and Erin's huge kitchen island, we had plenty of work space. (If you don't have a big island, bring in a large table or use your dining table for space.) This was the orange sherbet popcorn that I made using a Duncan Hines Frosting creation's packet and white chocolate.  Recipe link below but using the Orange creme packet and orange sprinkles instead of the cotton candy flavor:
http://www.duncanhines.com/recipes/specialty-desserts/lombardi.kimberly/cotton-candy-popcorn-crunch-munch/

For the 100 acre acorn cookies, we took mini nutter butter bite size cookies and assembled them with dipping chocolate, a Hershey's kiss and a small chocolate chip to resemble an acorn.

 

Here are the tigger tails. They were three large marshmallows on a stick, dipped in melted caramel, then dipped in white chocolate tinted orange and swirled with dark chocolate.  Cute right?!

 

We also had long pretzels that we dipped in caramel, dark chocolate and then swirled with light blue chocolate over the tops.  

 

My daughter put together this adorable sign, diaper wipe contest drop off with raffle ticket draws and some cute little bees for the "don't say baby" game. I hate this game because the whole shower you have to be "On guard" not to say "The Word!" Of course, if I win...I loooove the game!

 

The sweet little bees were made out of clothes pins! A-dorable!

 

They also had a diaper clothes line and guest were encouraged to write a note to daddy for "late night" diaper changes.  Some notes were so funny, that you almost had to change your own diaper after reading them!

 

Here was the match game. When the guest matched a word, they won a coordinating candy prize. Learn how to make this game here listed as Baby word match/ concentration:

http://celebratemywhimsy.blogspot.com/2013/07/baby-shower-styling.html

 

 

And for the final spot, the Thotful spot...well, that was where all the cute baby shower gifts were placed.

This shower was so much fun.  I hope it inspires you to have fun at your next event, shower or party. Any questions or comments for me?  Feel free to leave them below.

Woodsy Bark Cake

I am so very proud of my son.  This week he graduated from the wild land fire fighter program in California.  I'm honored to be the momma of a young man that has decided on a very rewarding but a very dangerous job that killed 19 young men just a month ago in Arizona. God be with their families.
For the graduation, my son asked if I would make a cake for the class.  Instantly ideas started buzzing around in my head and I was thrilled to do it.  No problem.  So fast forward to a few days prior to graduation.  I asked my son to give me some details about what they'd like in a cake, like flavor, ideas or anything special.  He then mentioned a few allergies some of the young men had along with it needed to feed 200 people.  It was about then that I think I went unconscious.  For some reason, I just assumed that the cake was for 31 young graduating men and women and I had never given a second thought that all their families would be present for graduation too. So after I came to, I went into freak out mode.  At that moment I knew I would need a full sheet cake board, box and some extra supplies, like 10 cake mixes (especially with time constraints, I wasn't about to make a scratch cake) and whatever else like forms for making the candy decorations.
But after my trip to the cake supply store, I felt much better just being prepared. Since the young men weren't too picky on style, I decided to make a woodsy cake with a green chalk board to merge school with wilderness.  I think it turned out looking pretty nice and the boys thanked me repeatedly, even after they ate a piece of it. And to my delight, a few came back for seconds and cupcakes too.

 

 

Needed:

4 boxes of Chocolate cake mix

4 boxes of White cake mix

3 packets of Duncan Hines Frosting Creations Mint Chocolate

Yellow fondant, red fondant or white fondant that you can tint.

 White chocolate colored yellow

Piping bags

Small round tip, Medium round tip, star type tip, frosting scraper

Butter cream frosting (lots of it) I made about 3 batches of it.

Hershey's cocoa powder

Brown tint

small water color style paint brush

 



To make this full sheet cake, and 120 cupcakes, I used 10 boxes of cake mix.  I used 5 boxes of white and 5 boxes chocolate but for the cake I only need 8 boxes. Since I only have One half sheet pan, I decided I'd make two different cakes.  I was going to do a chocolate white marble and a chocolate mint marble cake. I figured it gave more selection for the families to choose from.  To do the marble effect, I made two boxes of chocolate cake and poured it into a prepared pan and then made the 2 white cake mixes and poured them on top. (* Note~ I cut out paper towels to fit the bottom of my pan and only spray the sides of my pan with cooking spray.  Then the cake pops right out and doesn't have a greasy top.) Then I took a butter knife, stuck it into the cake mix and swirled it around a few times from edge to edge  lifting the knife up and down every once in awhile.  You'll be able to see swirls but don't mix it too much.  You want a nice clean marble look. Bake.

For the second cake, I made the two white cakes and mixed in the Duncan Hines Frosting Creations Mint Chocolate packets for a really nice and minty flavor.  I poured this on the bottom of the pan.  Then I made the chocolate cake and poured it on top of the mint cake and swirled it around with a knife a few times.  I baked it until it was ready, about 50 minutes.

When the cake was cool, using a serrated knife,  I cut the top off the cake so that it was flush with the pan. This way I got the same size height on my cakes.  If your cake is smaller than the pan, you may have to cut them after wards to even them out.

 

 

 

Turn the cake out onto the sheet cake board. If you look really good, you'll see I have thin strips of wax paper at the edges of the board. This is for when I frost it, I can pull the wax paper away afterwards and have a clean board still.  That's when I do my finishing touches.

 

Pull the paper towels off here if you used them.

 

While I was waiting for the second cake to bake, I started on my fondant.  Using this large leaf cutter from Wilton, I started making my fire.

I rolled out the red fondant onto a flat surface lightly dusted with cornstarch.

I used a flat and super thin spatula to pick up my fire flames and placed them on wax paper.

Then I made small flames with the smallest  cutter.  I brushed a small bit of water with a paint brush onto the yellow flames and placed them onto my red flames to dry.

 

For an added effect, I took left over red and yellow fondant, mixed them together and made these orange flames. I really liked them this color.  

 

 

So now my second cake was done,  so I placed them together, filled it with frosting and trimmed the edges.

 

Isn't that pretty. =)

 

 

I frosted the cake with a scratch coat of un-tinted frosting.  Then I took about 2 cups of frosting, added about 1/4 cup of cocoa powder and stirred it  until  it started to turn light brown but I made sure that there were still bits of chocolate powder throughout.  Using a spatula, I frosted the parts shown along with the edges.

 

Using this scraper tool, I lightly scraped the brown frosting  starting at one side of the cake and running it down the frosting to the other side of the cake. Then I took my spatula and very gently went over the frosting again but leaving some of the roughness. I want the frosting to look rough but not too perfectly scraped looking.  This is were it starts to look woodsy.

 

I took a little bit of water and mixed some brown food coloring into it.  Using a paint brush, in miscellaneous and random places, I brushed brown lines into the frosting like it shows below.

 

 

I did this on the sides and on top.   Then I took about 1 cup of white frosting and tinted it forest green, then I spread it nice and evenly in the middle.  Using a warm spatula that has been dipped in hot water, I smoothed out the green frosting.  (*note~ this is were I remove the wax paper from under my cake edges by pulling gently.)  Using excess brown frosting in a piping bag, pipe the edges around the base of the cake.  I used an open star tip #32.  I also piped s patterns around the chalk board.

 

I tinted a small amount of white frosting yellow and with a medium round tip, piped the words.  For the pine tree branches, I took the brown piping bag with the  star tip and  made a little branch, then with a super small round tip, took the green frosting and pulled little needles onto the branches.  

 

For my finishing touches, I had made lemon yellow chocolate molds and added them onto my cake along with my fondant flaming fire.  

 

  

This is me and my lovely daughter at 4am, making cupcakes. See all those boxes. Yikes!

 

 

 Fireman hats...

 

...and some flames.   

 

...and here are the lovely men and women that graduated. Our Heroes!

 

And here is our son. Proud momma I am.

 

 

Love our boys (and daughter's too!)