Cupcakes, Spring Birthday Party and a Guest Blogger

I am so excited to introduce you to my real life bloggy friend Tina. If you love homemade cards and anything crafty head over to her blog to find her amazing work. Tina has a passion for anything vintage, she is a talented crafter, a wonderful friend and an incredible mom of two adorable kids.
I am so happy to have her here today showing us the details she made for her little girl's birthday party, in which we were a guest and had the most wonderful time ever.

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I'm so happy to be a guest blogger today at Kathia's amazing blog! I won't be sharing any great baking tips with you today--actually, I'm a pretty bad baker! So needless to say, it's great having a super baker, like Kathia, for a friend. She's always helping me when it's time for one of my kids' parties by gracing us with one of her amazing creations.

As for me, I'm a crafter and my media of choice is paper. I love making cards and holiday decorations, I have a passion for repurposing anything old into something new and I'm crazy for vintage and love to find ways to use vintage images in my crafting.

I'm here today on Kathia's blog to talk about planning your party with a theme. Party planning is relatively new to me, but I had such fun creating decorations for my daughters 1st birthday that I wanted to share a few tips on just how to pull everything together for your next party.

When I first started thinking about what I wanted for my little girl's 1st Birthday party this year, I had a few particular things in mind; my favorite girlie colors, butterflies and the expectation of Spring-- from there  my theme for my party decorations and goodies emerged. I knew I wanted to incorporate the sweet elements of Spring into our party's decor to give our guests a real treat after our long and harsh Jersey winter.

A few  die cuts layered together make a great embellishment for a simple glassine bag filled with sweet treats. The glassine bags are very inexpensive and can easily be bought in bulk, which makes them great goodie bags and they would also work well for cookies.
Since this party was for adults and children, I wanted to make sure my smaller guests had some extra special favors to take home with them too.

Again sticking with my theme I made Butterfly fairy wands for all our little girl guests.

And pinwheels for all our little boy guests.

Centerpieces are a great way to highlight your party's theme. I had so much fun making my centerpieces and it was a great way to pull all your favorite design elements and colors together. Again, you see my butterflies and pinwheels.

No birthday party is complete without some sweet baked goodies. Kathia, being the friend that she is, supplied these gorgeous cupcakes for the event. She knew what I had in mind and she incorporated those ideas into her cupcake decorating.

Here's her receipe for that lovely pink icing;
Quick Pour Icing
Ingredients
6 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
DirectionsIn a saucepan, combine confectioners' sugar, water and corn syrup. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until it reaches a temperature of 92 degrees F (33 degrees C.) Mixture should be thin enough to pour, but thick enough to coat cupcakes.
To cover cupcakes: Take the cupcake and dip it upside down in the hot icing. Carefully shake the excess of icing off. I dipped the cupcakes so the icing sticks to the cupcakes liners .
Set the cupcakes aside and let them dry. If you like you can give them a second coat when the first one is dry.
Attach your chosen decoration on the cupcakes with dots of royal icing or light corn sirup.

Of course, you can easily go to the party store and buy the balloons and matching party sets--but if your looking for that extra special touch then making one of a kind decorations or finding someone that can put a look together for you is the way to go.Thanks you so much for taking the time to read this post. I hope your  found some inspiration for planning your next party! Please make sure to stop by my blog Vintage Haven Studio for a tutorial on how to make your own Butterfly Fairy Wand .