Castle Cake

Don't be intimidated. My 3 year old did a majority of this cake for her 3rd birthday party.

Shopping List:

2 box cake mixes

2 large cans of frosting

1 4-pack of pudding

5 sugar cones

food coloring

candy, marshmellows, chocolate chips, any accessories for decorations.

Step 1: Follow the directions for making the cake on the box. Pour 1/2 the batter in 8x8 pan. (I used the foil baking pans in a 3 pack you can buy) Before pouring the batter into the pan, line the pan with wax paper. It will make removal a breeze after cooking. Follow the directions for cook time on the back of the box. After cooking, pull the wax paper/cake out of the pan and let it cool.

Step 2: You now have 4 8x8 cakes that are cool to the touch. I would suggest carefully cutting off the top part of the cake to make them level. Start with one cake in front of you. Take out 1 pudding and spread it over the cake. Put a 2nd cake on top and cover it with another pudding. Finally, put the 3rd cake on top. Set aside. Take the 4th cake and cut it into quarters and level 2 of them. Put pudding in between 2 of them and take a break. You and your helper are now entitled to eat the other half of the cake. Shhh don't tell. Put the 2 small cakes on top of the 3 large cakes for the basic castle construction.

Step 3: Now take the frosting out of the containers and mix them in a bowl with your mixer. This will increase the amount of frosting you really have. You may want to add powdered sugar if you would like it to be a little stiffer. Cover the entire cake in frosting. Make sure you have frosting left over for accessories. If you don't have cake decorating supplies, you can put the colored frosting in a small plastic bad and cut the end off. That will work just fine for this project. (Remember my 3 year old did most of this!) Put the streamers around wherever you want, and of course, a draw bridge. The sugar cones go in the 4 corners and on top of the little cakes. You can decorate those, or not. We had fun with chocolate chips and marshmellows. You aren't limited by color or candy preferences, have fun with it! We did.

Cupcake Dino-Rama

I'm a huge fan of cupcakes. I hate taking time out of my kids' parties to slice and serve cake and ice cream to guests... I want to be a part of things. Not to mention, if I'm not behind the camera, no one is.

When my son wanted a dinosaur birthday cake I searched the net for an awesome dinosaur cake only to mind that most suggestions were beyond my ability and my cupcake bias was still tugging me in that direction.

So, I hit Wal-Mart in search of inspiration and happened upon the solution: a two dollar pack of dinosaurs, complete with mountains and trees. I could already see them scattered across cupcakes, fending off preditors and protecting their nests. To make it a little more cake-like, I arranged the cupcakes in what I called, my cupcake dino-rama (an awesome throwback to my elementary school diorama days).

To create this awesome Dino-Rama, you will need:
1 jelly-roll pan, covered in tinfoil
1 pkg cake mix
1 large can frosting (or 2 regular)
a handfull of crushed, cream-filled cookies
about 2-3 cups coconut flakes (extra can be freezed for other parties or used elsewise)
green food coloring
toy dinosaurs
jelly beans

Before getting started, fill a large ziploc bag with the coconut flakes and add a few drops of food coloring. Let your kids take turns shaking and smooshing the flakes around until the are grassy looking.

Begin by frosting the "mountains." I frosted two cupcakes for the far right corner and sprinkled them with cookie crumbs. For the tall mountain, I removed tins from two cupcakes, stacked, frosted and then rolled them in crumbs. I toyed with the idea of adding fruit- by-the-foot lava but didn't go there. Be creative if you are so inclined! Arrange mountains and foliage around your pan.

Then I dyed the frosting green and frosted as many cakes as would fit but before arranging them my kids helped top them with grass. Arrange your cupcakes on the pan and then decorate with dinos, nests and anything else you may have rounded up.

If you do a Dino-Rama, please send us a picture so we can see what you created!

--Brittney

Party time, on a dime

Of course we all want our children to have the best. It's in our DNA. The best education, the best opportunities and of course, the best birthday party. But times are changing. People still want to give their children the best... on a budget. According to this article Barney just isn't cruising the birthday party circuit like he used to. More parents are cutting back the outsourcing and taking the do-it-yourself route, a trail blazed by the Been-There-Moms and so many like us.

Watch loads of do-it-yourself party ideas weekly here on our blog including cakes, invitations, games, crafts, decorations and more! We've been there, done that and you can do it too!