Well, Izzy is 9.
I am not sure where 9 years went so fast and furiously.
It makes me want to stop time and just hold my kids at their birthday parties. It is so bittersweet to see them grow one year older and one year closer to flying away. I do not like this part of parenting. But birthdays are a good time to remember how little they used to be and to laugh at all the things they used to do as babies. She loves to hear all of the little sayings she used to have and we read through the journal I keep just for those sayings. We laugh so hard at everybody's little jokes and funnies. I need a new journal however because the one I have is getting filled rather quickly.
In our house, you can eat whatever you want on your birthday... all day long! Yes, we have ice cream for breakfast! Ramen noodles were her choice for dinner, or Rompin' Noodles as Tessa calls them =-)
Here IzzyB is taking her first bite of sugary goodness for the day
YUM!
Can I just say that these little single serving cups that every ice cream company is coming out with are all that and a bag of chips! You can try all of these different flavors and everyone is happy. And it is super easy to share! We are total converts to this kind of ice cream eating. No more wasted quarts!
Okay, now onto the Par-tay!
Another of our traditions is to decorate the downstairs and their door after they go to bed so when they wake up they have their first birthday surprise. I was a little behind this year so I got the OK from the birthday girl to decorate while she was at school.
I love that Isabella is 9 but she wasn't ready to go all grown up on me. She wanted a fairy party and so we set out to make our house filled with a bit of magic. If you want fairies to come to your house then you need flowers. I bought rainbow colored tissue paper and went to town creating giant tissue paper flowers. I wanted to make them colorful so it was all in the layering of the colors.
Here I layered violet, blue, then light blue, cut on half and put the papers back to back so I had 8 pieces with the violet in the middle. Accordion pleat, wrap with wire, cut the ends to be rounded and then pull apart each layer carefully.
I should have used about 12 sheets here but luckily, 9 years old are awed by the sheer size of things and don't care if it is like the "pictures in the Internet"!
I layered this a little differently. Light blue, then blue then violet so it had an ombre effect. This was her favorite and mine too.
We needed a grand entrance for the girls so the pocket doors got dressed in some garland and more flowers.
These were made with red, pink, peach and white and I made the edges pointed like a petal so they look similar to chrysanthemums.
For these to lay flat, just separate the sheets towards the middle and only on one side
For these, layer two colors (two greens, peach and pink and purple and white) so when they spin you get two different looks. Accordion pleat and trim ends in the shape you want and fan out the pleats and tape the sides together. Hint here: Cut your points a little bit deep on the sides and it will open up better and keep the pleated look.
Now for the cake. This year IzzyB wanted cupcakes for her party. The idea of making fairies for the cupcakes stumped me. I have some cake decorating skills but I feared this might do me in. Add to the fact that we also surprise the birthday kid with their cake, (are you feelin' a certain surprise vibe?) the day of their party and you have me making these starting at 8pm. Which makes these photos being taken at about 10:30pm so forgive the lighting!
I wanted IzzyB's cupcake to be a little bigger and different then the rest so I made her fairy dancing on grass and some pink and pearly dragees.
The other cupcakes got the standard cupcake swirl and the dragees.
Thanks goodness for cookie cutters! I found a ballet dancer cutter and figured I could use it to make the bodies and then add fondant dresses etc. Worked like a charm. To use fondant you need a rolling pin and confectioner's sugar to roll out. If you don't have confectioners sugar you can use a bit of corn starch.
I then remembered my silicone pad and the fondant rolled excellently on it. Fondant goes a long way so I pinched off about 1/4 of the larger piece and dyed it peach. I then used this as the base for the other decorations. You can just add other dyes to the peach and it doesn't really effect the color. I cut out all the ballet dancers and then used my petal cutter to cut out the fairy wings.
I just pinched off one of the petals to make the wings.
Then formed them into the wings and let them dry on a cookie rack.
Okay, I used one of the practice girls to cut out my dress for Izzy's fairy. I was practicing the face on this one too. Good thing I practiced! Evil fairy! Yeah.....the faces will be left blank I'm thinkin'.
I used an X-acto knife to cut out the dress and shoes. Why are the poor fairies on a stick you ask? Had to give them support when I stick them in the cupcake. We still had a few casualties so I would say make some extras and don't roll the fondant too thick or thin. Less handicapped fairies to deal with. I was also not too happy with the double chin these fairies were sporting so I used the knife and did some plastic surgery.
A leaf cutter and embosser served to make the dresses for the other fairies. Cut out the leaf and place the bottom two leaves to the fairy body and emboss with veins. Add the third on top and emboss that one. If you emboss all of the leaves first before placing on the fairy, you will lose too much vein detail when you press them into place.
To give the wings and dresses some glitter and shine, use luster dust and a bit of alcohol (I use vodka) to mix it up and then paint it where you want some glamour.
I had dreams and aspirations of giving all the fairies fondant hair but pooped out at 11pm and drew on the hair with food safe markers. Thank goodness for that invention is all I can say.
Then it was up at 5am to attach the wings to the back of the fairies. You can use water or some icing to attach but these take a while to dry. That's why I like a candy writer best because the candy dries fast and super hard. Just put the writer in some hot water until the candy in the tube is pliable and add a dab to the back of the fairy and place the wings. Now go ahead and stick fairy in cupcakes!
Now do the toothpicks in the derriere make sense?
Fairy Queen had an arm disaster so the candy writer came to the rescue again. I would also recommend that you do not add these until you are absolutely ready to serve the cupcakes. I was so excited about showing her that I forgot that 11 girls were going to be running through the house at the party and we lost two fairies this way. Again, thank goodness for extras!
Wanna see what she thought of them?
So worth it!
For the actual party, we decided that we would have each girl create things that will attract a fairy to their house. So of course, we needed to create a fairy house for the fairy to live in once they came to visit! We gathered sticks, bark, moss, pebbles from the outdoors and then added fake flowers, garland, etc. from the craft stash to decorate the houses.
These were $1.00 bird houses found at JoAnns.
I love the individuality of each of the houses. Here are a few shots I got during the party.
Another score was finding glow-in-the-dark glitter. Perfect for Pixie dust and lighting the way to the fairy house!
We painted faces in fairy flair and had presents galore....
Now take a deep breath and blow out your candle!
Another year....
Happy Birthday Babygirl.
Always being renewed,
