Landon's Curious George Birthday Party

I can't believe that Landon is 2! We had fun celebrating a couple of weeks ago with a Curious George themed birthday party. Landon LOVES George and I must admit that I am a big fan as well. I think what really inspired the theme though is the close resemblance Dave has to the Man in the Yellow Hat. Since Landon's birthday is about a month after Halloween we got a lot of use out of the costume.



Here is the Man in the Yellow Hat during "story time". We used fabric dye to color a shirt and old pants yellow (from Goodwill). I made the hat out of card stock and spray painted it and the tie is made out of felt. On Halloween I was a banana and Landon was Curious George :)

As all of Landon's little friends arrived we played in the front yard with some big bubbles....

 I made Landon's shirt by designing it in a program called inkscape and printing it on paper that you can iron onto fabric. I don't know how long it will hold up in the wash, but I like how it turned out! I bought the white shirt for $3 at Wal-Mart and already had the paper...party on a budget!

After the bubbles, we came in to make monkey paper bag puppets! I remember making paper bag puppets as a kid. I drew the Curious George face and printed him on our home printer. I think they turned out pretty cute, but Landon thought his was trash and threw it away. 

I made the "hats" by just placing a yellow cup on a yellow plate. I used some black contact paper to add the strip around the bottom of the hat. This was super easy to do and so cute! 

I LOVED being able to use bananas as decorations and my friend Raeanne found the fruit snacks at the Dollar Tree. Landon was so funny about them and for a while didn't want to eat George's head. 

I found these straws at the dollar section at Target. I totally got them for the cuteness factor because I don't think anyone actually used them (isn't that how it always goes with those fancy straws?!) My friend Amanda let me borrow the jars/cups they are in. I remember when you could buy jelly in them. 

I actually found the invitation for free on pinterest and my friend Bethany helped me change a few things on it by using inkscape. I printed them at home and bought some inexpensive envelopes at Michael's. 

And here is the cake! I made the cake topper out of polymer clay...I really hope to make one for him (and his brother) each year. 

I made the banner with paper  I had left over from other projects and check out that chalkboard! I made it by spray painting an old frame and covered it with chalk board contact paper. Super easy and super versatile...it is now hanging in our house with "Merry Christmas" on it. 

Here is my big 2 year old ready to blow out his candles! For some reason he knew exactly what to do and blew them both out. 

Let me tell you, this boy LOVES cake and most of the time I am telling him "no, you can't eat that one...it is for someone else." I guess he was super excited that this one was for him and he decided to devour it like this...

My silly little Curious George...

I love that I was able to use what we already had around the house for this party. I put a lot of books up and I found these coloring books at the Dollar Tree to use as party favors! 

Thank you Karoline for taking awesome pics of the party! 

Cake Topper Auction!

Well, I must admit that I have fallen behind on keeping up with my Darlin' Designs blog. I have still been making a TON of cakes, but I want to share a new blog that I have been working on for a few months. Some of you may already heard, but we have decided to adopt a little boy from China! If you would like to read more about our adoption journey you can check out A Beautiful Mess

I also want to fill you in on an great opportunity if you are in the market for one of my polymer clay toppers! We are currently having an online auction from Dec. 1st-10th to help raise funds for our adoption. Adoption from China cost approximately $30,000, so as you can see, we can't do it alone.

Also, my friend, Bethany Keown, makes cakes and she donated a cake/cupcakes to our auction as well! Here is her flyer:

If you want to bid on either one of these hot offers or any of the other awesome items (including an iPad Air) check out the bidding album on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.757492906454&type=1&l=dd83c24d25

Check out this cake topper I made for my now 2 year old last week....

Landon turned 2 on Thanksgiving, and the Saturday before we had a Curious George themed birthday party. He LOVES Curious George and well he reminds me of George. Landon is quite a curious little monkey these days. 

I hope to make one of these cake toppers each year for him as a birthday tradition. Hopefully it will help us remember the theme of each one of his parties (although I am not sure how he will feel at 13 with a "themed" party topper ;) ) 

I hope you will check out our auction and adoption blog! Happy belated Thanksgiving!

Syracuse and NCSU wedding cake topper

This polymer clay topper was a ton of fun of fun to make - mainly because my hubby is a Syracuse fan and I am 100% State fan. I say 100% because Dave is a Syracuse fan first and State fan second (this is kind of riding the fence if you ask me ;) ) Anywho, the bride and groom asked me to make this for their wedding cake which just happened to be on the SAME day that State/Syracuse played. 

Pumpkin Carriage Cake

 My friend Dianna ask my to make this precious cake/ matching cupcakes for her boyfriend's daughter who turned 5. I haven't met them yet, but I hope to soon! I LOVE how the cake turned out and it was a perfect combination of Fall and Cinderella.

Molly's 1st Birthday Cake

I made this first bday cake for a friend a few weeks ago. It turned out so cute! It was lemon pound cake and covered in  butter cream icing with fondant details.

A Surprise Order

A few months ago I received an order from the editor of the book The Little Blue Truck! Back in the Spring I blogged here about my friend's Little Blue Truck birthday party. Apparently, that post is pretty popular because I have gotten a bunch of orders from people all over the country for those cookies and the cake topper. I have shipped some to Florida, Ohio, Alabama and now Boston.

Sooo, when the editor emailed I was super surprised to find out her order was for the illustrator and author of the book! She wanted to send them cookies as a congratulations on the success of their book (a very cute book I might add). Landon and I were very surprised to get the following thank you present....

And here is a pic of some of the cookies before I packaged them all up (Now THAT is a process when mailing cookies). I wrap the cookies individually in bubble wrap, then as a whole in bubble wrap, and finally put lots and lots of packing materials all around them. 

Let me tell you, that order sure made this North Carolina girl quite happy :)

I also recently shipped a smaller order of the same cookies along with another cake topper. This one is also made out of polymer clay, but I changed a few of the animals. Landon always wants to play with my toppers and especially this once since he loves The Little Blue Truck. 

Oh yeah, though I would share this picture of my little guy with ya'll as well: 

That's my precious little boy who likes to go through our trash can and find treasures (such as an empty bottle of blue food coloring). Boy of boy that was fun to clean up and his mouth was blue for the rest of the day ;)

Hexagon Wedding Cake

This past weekend I made my biggest wedding cake yet and had to purchase a new cake stand to fit it on! It was a hexagon shape which was also new to me. It was 5 tiers, but the bottom two tiers were made out of styrofoam.

The most difficult part of this cake was cutting the styrofoam into the exact hexagon shape. I used a styrofoam cutter (found in the floral section at Michael's) to cut it but I think this job was way too big for that little cutter. I ended up pulling out a kitchen knife and using that as well. This part took me a whole day to do (something I thought would only take an hour or so)! In the life of cake making this is often the case - something you think will take no time at all takes a lot longer to do then expected.

The other tiers were red velvet and vanilla. I really like how the quilting technique turned out on the hexagon shape. I also made the roses out of gumpaste. The bride and groom provided the ring cake topper and asked me to put a "ring motif" around some of the tiers. This cake was covered with buttercream and fondant.

Check out my new cake stand! I ordered it from Amazon and Landon has enjoyed playing in the box it was packed it. It is a 20" round and I honestly have no idea where I am going to store it.