Charm & Whimsy

The Boy’s Robot Birthday Party.

The Boy turned 3 this week and it was time for a party. A Robot Party!

Ever since seeing the movie Wall-E, the Boy has really been into robots. He spontaneously speaks robot and walks like a robot; the last few months have been pretty hilarious. All said, it was easy to settle on a theme for his party. At first I collected Wall-E ideas onto my Pinterest board but then decided to go with a general robot theme instead of a specific character.

The adorable printables from Tracy Ann were the cornerstone of the robot theme. She was such a pleasure to work with and her turnaround was very fast. She has tons of other cute designs – go check her out on Etsy.

The Boy and his best buddy Brady who lives across the street.

I bought the printable party pack and customized invitation and then printed them out at Kinko’s . I printed the 5x7 invitations on card stock and just mailed them as postcards (there’s one hiding back there behind the hats). Easy peasy.I used metallic elastic from the beading section at Michael’s for the hat string and metallic pom poms from my crafty stash.

I had a lot of fun setting up the party – I have to admit I love this stuff – I totally get it from my Mom (aka Womsy). I wish I had a picture from one of my birthday parties as a kid and you would see where I get it from. The forks and napkins scream Womsy.

I struggled for a bit how to stand up the signs. Glue the printable cards to a card stock table tent? Hmmm… as I contemplated my options munching on Halloween candy – I came up with the toothpick-in-a-rolo idea. Voila! They worked perfect and were tasty during cleanup.

Juice boxes. Would have been cute to have the straw sticking out but those things are filled so full there would have been apple juice squirting everywhere when they were picked up. The striped paper was part of the printable party pack.

The baby robots are just mini sugar cookies with cheerios, frosting glue, rainbow sour ribbon mouths and mini M&M ears/antennas.

The centerpiece – a Watermelon Robot! In the next picture you can see how I had to prop up the head in the back with some skewers and a watermelon wedge.

 

I heart egg salad. These make an appearance at nearly all of my parties.

These were the party favors. Guests got to take home a little robot and a favor bag (robot sugar cookie, bottle of bubbles, couple sheets of stickers, couple of glow sticks and a crazy straw).

I’m new to this kiddie party thing and one thing I missed during my research were tips on timing and pace so here are a few that I found helpful:

- I read somewhere a good rule of thumb is to invite as many kids as the age of the birthday boy/girl. We invited a couple extra but three would have been good too.

- We started the party at 11am and it was over by just before 1pm. Good timing for five 3 year olds – that way they could still go home for an afternoon nap.

- We ate when the kids arrived, then played for awhile with all the balloons in the toy room.

- Then we made robot circuit boards. I had prepped square, silver paper plates with a loop of yarn at the top to hang around the neck. The kids glued a bunch of misc. stuff to them. Everyone put on their circuit board and then moved around the room like robots. We had a mini robot dance party but they lost interest quickly!

- Then we blew out a candle and ate cupcakes.

- A bit more balloon kicking and running around and then the breakdowns began – time to wrap up the party!

- We opened presents after everyone left. At this age I think that opening the presents all together would have caused more problems than anything. Fighting over unwrapping, the toys, etc. It was a wise decision.

Here’s some other neat stuff from the Boy’s birthday celebration:

The morning of his birthday, the Boy woke up to a ton of balloons in the family room. He loved it, rolled around in them, kicked them all over the place. It was great to see the joy on his face!

I made robot favors and cupcakes for his classmates at preschool/daycare. You’d think we just handed those kids a million bucks each – they were so happy! Ahh the simple joys of childhood…

 

Thanks to all the awesome people out there who share their parties and ideas on the web. Here is where I got some of my inspiration .

I discovered the printables at this party.

Robot cookie inspiration and “ball bearings” here.

Watermelon robot idea from this party.

“Nuts & Bolts” and “Computer Chips” from here.

Circuit board craft from this party.

Robot party favors for his party were based on these. As well as the balloon idea (or somewhere on Pinterest?).

Robot party favors for his daycare were based on these.

Winter Craftyness: Homemade Playdough with my sick Boy

So The Boy is sick… AGAIN. The bummer is his fever started the day before ending a 20 day stint of antibiotics for his second bout of pneumonia since October (yes 2 months ago). . Now he has a double ear infection. More antibiotics, more steroids for his asthma. My poor baby - I'm open to suggestions people. I'm willing to listen to and try anything if you've got any ideas.

I had taken this week off from the office in hopes of getting caught up on projects at home and for work; instead The Boy and Mommy are getting crafty.

We made homemade playdough using this recipe from TinkerLab. It took a little longer than I expected to cook it but it came out great and The Boy loved it! Shoot – I loved it! Kneading that warm dough was so… pleasing. I can’t describe it other than to say it made me miss my pottery studio days.

He’s wearing his apron AND his cape. Just in case he needs to be super while cooking.

In goes the salt.

In goes the flour.

He really liked the whisk. Rather, he really liked flailing the whisk around and flinging the watery dough everywhere.

It’s so soupy in the beginning you never think it will thicken up.

At this point the dough was really hard to stir but he really wanted to keep on “cooking” so I put some in one of his play pots and let him at it.

Yay! It’s ready to turn out and knead.

It gets so nice and smooth in no time.

Mommy – I don’t care if it’s colored. Let me at it!

These are pretty big handfuls of dough not to mention all the dough The Boy is playing with. This recipe yielded a lot!

That’s a car and a tree.

Time to squish it all together.

This can still be used next time – into a ziploc you go.

I only had whole wheat flour on hand so our playdough was a little more grainy and brown than other people’s pictures out there but who cares. It was colorful, squishy fun and the recipe made more than enough playdough for several future sessions of squishy, crafty fantasticness. Hope you try it for yourself!

How to make super easy, adorable panda cupcakes.

Why hello Ms. Cutie-Patootie Panda.

      

I made these for a friend’s twin girls who were graduating from kindergarten. Their class mascot was a panda… how about some panda cupcakes to celebrate!

These were really easy to make. With that said - I've included a few tips how to make them way more complicated than necessary because that's how I roll. Why make them easily when you can make them the OCD way?

Go get your cupcake pans and let's get started. What you'll need:

Pandas

• Cupcakes (I like to use brown cupcake liners)
• White frosting (I used 1 tub of frosting per 2 dozen cupcakes)
• Chocolate frosting (just need a little bit for the mouths)
• Mini oreo cookies
• Junior Mints
• 1/4" White And Black Icing Eyes (or white frosting and brown mini M&Ms)
• Icing flowers (or color frosting your favorite color and use a star tip)

• ***OCD item*** mushroom brush

Bamboo

• Green frosting (I like Americolor gel colors - this was a blend of Leaf Green & Electric Green)
• Wilton Grass Tip #233
• Pepperidge Farm Pirouettes

 

That sounds like a lot but let's get started because I'm serious they're really easy. Here we go:

Voila!!! Wasn’t that easy? If you’d like to add a flower you can just add a little white frosting to the back of the flower and press on.

For the bamboo cupcakes – use the green frosting with the grass tip to create the grassy base.

 

(doesn’t that look super cool??!)

Press in your varied lengths of pirouette cookies then cover the bases with more grass. Add leaves if you’re feeling frisky.

 

 

Couple of tips:

- “Mise en place” works for decorating cupcakes as well as cooking. Have all of your toppings ready to go in little bowls and everything within reach so you can decorate while the frosting is still “wet” and everything will stick. The actual decorating will be quick and easy this way.

- ***OCD Tip*** If you’ve ever eaten mini oreo cookies, you know that they are particularly crumbly. Well all those crumbs can mess up your clean white frosting face so I separated all the cookie sandwiches, scraped off the filling and brushed off the crumbs from each and every one.

  

 

Yes – it actually made a difference. It kept those cute faces nice and clean with no stray crumbs.

Look at all those crumbs!!! Sweetboy makes fun of me for my OCD tendencies but I tell you what – it’s all about the details sometimes and this was one of those times.

These were so much fun and really tasty. I hope you’ll try them.

 

 

Here are some sweet shots of The Boy enjoying a panda cupcake. When I saw them in sequence I nearly hyperventilated from laughing so hard because the panda eyes are staring up at him while he nibbles.

 

Geez, is this kid cute or what??

Have a great weekend everyone! :)

Hard boiled egg secrets. Perfect boil, peel, tiny square dice, egg salad and deviled tastiness.

I love hard boiled eggs. I like them in sandwiches, in salads, in whatever. I especially love deviled eggs... hooohhhhh. Must go boil some eggs now. No... must focus.

I'm going to share my eggy secrets with you, ok? Are you ready?

1. How to boil the perfect egg (no green!)
2. How to peel so the shell comes off smooth (no missing chunks of egg white!)
3. How to cut your egg into perfectly square, tiny dice
4. My favorite recipe for egg salad
5. My favorite recipe for deviled eggs

 

Let's get started -

Boiling the perfect egg is simple

Place eggs in the pot, cover with cold water by about an inch. Bring the water to a hard rolling boil - you want that water really moving. No wimpy little bubbles - you want big giant bubbles. Take the pot off the heat and cover. Set your timer for 12 minutes. Once your timer goes off, drain the hot water and replace with cold water and ice. Add fresh ice as the ice in the pot melts. When the eggs are completely cold you're ready for the next step...

Tips for the perfect peel (works most of the time anyway!)

First off - you want your eggs to be a little old before you cook 'em. Yes - old. I know that sounds funny but it seems to work. I usually try to buy the eggs a week or two before I'm going to cook them. The ice plunge after cooking above also seems to work. I believe it's because the egg white shrinks back from the shell. Crack the egg against the counter on the ends and then give it a light roll around the center. If you start peeling and you're taking off white chunks you can put the egg in the fridge and wait until it's really cold then try to peel the egg under running water (water may get under the shell making it easier to slip off). If you're still getting white chunks after that - make egg salad. No one will know the difference. Case in point below. :)

Tiny, perfectly square diced eggs (pictured above)

Once your egg is peeled, pull out your handy dandy egg slicer (I like this one because you can have straight or wavy slices - fancy!).

 

 

Start with your egg long ways and slice.

 

 

Then carefully turn your sliced egg 90 degrees and slice again. I find it helps to turn the slicer over in your hand while you are gently holding the egg. The next part is tricky because by now the egg is pretty chopped up but you can do it!

 

 

Now you want to rotate the egg sideways and bring the slicer down. Your egg is going to go all over the place so turn it upside down and let the egg fall right into the bowl as you make that final slice.

 

 

 

Push through any last bit of egg that is resisting.

 

Lightly fluff your perfect squares and admire your handiwork. Ahhh. Tiny square perfection!

My favorite egg salad recipe

Tiny eqq squares
Best Foods/Hellmans Mayo (I like the Light version)
Salt

That's it - what can I say I'm a purist. As for bread - I personally favor Milton's Multigrain bread. It's a nice texture against the silky egg salad and the flavor is delicious.

What do you put in your egg salad? Do tell.

My favorite deviled egg recipe

I wrote about it in this post - there are pictures and all. I also see I included tips on boiling a proper egg in there. Apparently these tips stemmed from The Supreme Leader. How could I forget!

Alright party peeps - you have been given the secrets - use them wisely. If you have secrets - spill 'em.