Ice cream, you scream!!!

Summer is a great time for a get together. An old fashion ice cream social us a great way to stay cool and celebrate any special occasion! This yummy sprinkle collection would be perfect for a birthday party, baby shower or just a friendly get together!! With a simple text color change, this party will be perfect for boys or girls and kids of all ages!! A yummy treat for everyone!!!

Pink poodles in paris??? Adorable!!

A friend of mine asked me to design a birthday package for her daughters pink poodle party and of course, I went crazy for the theme!!! It's the latest addition to my store and it's Tres chic if you ask me!!!

Boys love Milk and Cookies too!

I made a blue version of my milk and cookies party and it is one of my most popular collections!  I thought I would post the samples here too!!!  As always, everything you see here is available at www.lilpartyanimals.etsy.com

Yertle the Turtle caramel turtle tutorial

Ok, the title alone is intimidating right?? Well rest assure, this deliciously adorable twist on the classic caramel turtle treat was fast and simple to make!! I followed the turtle recipe I found on http://www.easybake.net  I copied and pasted their recipe here:


INGREDIENTS:

• about 2 cups of whole pecans.
• 12oz (one bag) of Wilton Dark Candy Cocoa Melts
• 32 Kraft caramels (unwrapped)
• 1/2c. butter
• 1 (14oz.) can of sweetened condensed milk

DIRECTIONS:

• Line pecans up in squares on parchment paper
• Melt candy melts in microwave in 30 second increments, stirring in between until smooth.
• Spoon chocolate over pecans, filling in the center space and spilling it over about half of each pecan.
• While this hardens, make caramel sauce (this recipe makes more caramel than you need, but you can refrigerate the rest and use as an ice cream topping later…or you can cut this part of the recipe in half- you will just have 1/2 a can of sweetened condensed milk left…?)
• Melt unwrapped caramels, butter and sweetened condensed milk over the stove until smooth.
• Spoon caramel into the center of each turtle (try to keep as much as you can on the chocolate- it will harden some, but it is a soft caramel)
• Allow these to harden (refrigerate if necessary) and ENJOY!!!!!

You'll need a package of whole pecans, a can of sweetened condensed milk, butter, a package of wilton chocolate melts and a package of caramels. I picked a pack up at target for $1!! There were 13 pieces of caramel in this package so I cut the original recipe in half.

I started by laying out the pecans on a wax piece of paper in this formation. Then I melted the wilton Melts in the microwave for 30 seconds at a time stirring in between intervals. Then I dropped the chocolate over the pecans making sure to completely fill the center and go over the "feet" a little. I let that sit and harden a bit while I prepared the caramel sauce. I followed the recipe above. Once the sauce was complete, I spooned a little onto each center of each turtle. To make the turtles blue like Yertle, I melted a little bit of blue wilton melts I had left over from the marshmallow pops I made and with a spoon drizzled a bit of blue over the entire turtle. They were every bit as delicious as they looked and completely gone by the end of the party!!

Truffula tree tutorial

 

My seuss party was yesterday!! I had a blast creating the most amazing seuss party ever!! Along with a ton of my sons favorite characters, we made several truffulla trees to put around the yard.  To make these tree's, you need to start out with a pool noodle, white duct tape, 8 sheets of tissue paper, scissors and floral wire.  I started out by wrapping the pool noodle with white duct tapes to create the stripes just like the ones from the Lorax movie.  I made my tree's lots of different colors as opposed to the yellow trunks from the story so the yard would pop with color!

Once all my truncks were wrapped, I moved onto the tops of the trees.  Again, I used a variety of colors. I did some all 1 color and sone striped. To make the stripped ones, altranate colors when laying out your sheets of tissue. Make sure you use at least 8 sheets of tissue for each pom pom top. Otherwise it won't be fluffy enough when you seperate the layers.  Once you have layered your 8 sheets of tissue, fold it accordian style with each fold being about an inch wide. Once you have finished your folding, making sure to crease very well, tie your floral wire around the center of the pompom.

Your next step is to carefully start to seperate each layer to fluff out your pom pom.  The tissue is very delicate so make sure you work slowly so the tissue doesn't rip.  I learned this the hard way.

Once your pom poms are complete you need to attach them to the trunks.  This was a bit trickier than I had anticipated.  I went back to where my twisted wire was and used duct tape to secure it down to the noodle top.  You could also use hot glue. To set them up outside, we used garden stakes bought at Home Depot.  We hammered them into the dirt and then slipped the noodle over them!  They were so cute and a huge hit at the party!

Seuss-tacular preparations!!

5 days left till Matty's 5th birthday and preparations are in full swing!! Tomorrow we'll finish up all the characters for the yard, truffulla trees (keep an eye out for the tutorial), thing shirts for the 3 cutest babies in town, matty's bday shirt and so much more!! Excited for his big day and hopeful I can get it all done!!

Ribbon wreath tutorial

For Matty's Matt in the hat Seusstacular 5th birthday, I wanted to make this awesome ribbon wreath I saw on pinterest! It was so cute and perfect! I started out with a 16 inch foam form I got at at Michaels and a ton of ribbon ( some from the dollar store, Michael's, Joanns and what I had around the house) I also had to use stick pins. I cut the ribbon into approximately 4 inch pieces. Then started sticking them into the form 1 piece at a time making sure not to lay 2 of the same ribbon over each other and also that each layer fell nicely over the last. It was tedious work but very easy! When I was done, I attached the sign I made to the center just like I had for Aaron's wreath! It looks adorable! I took this picture from inside the house since the party isn't until next week so I apologize for the lighting! I'm contemplating adding some seuss stickers I bought for the party but haven't decided whether I will or not. You'll just have to stop by again to find out!!