Winter Woodland Birthday Party

It was my daughter's 5th birthday and we decided to have a winter woodland themed party where Elsa would make a special appearance. You can see more more photos of Elsa at the party here.

It seems that no birthday is complete in my house without cake pops. I use my all time favourite recipe for these, lemon poppy seed sour cream cake. Maybe one day I will use a different receipe…maybe.  I then used the Wilton candy melts (do no overheat, it makes for a challenge to coat the cake pops).

One of the latest things that I just love to make are marshmallows.  I used Butter's famous marshmallow recipe and made 2 batches, vanilla and blackberry flavoured. I also decide to make rock candy which reminds me of ice, perfect for a winter themed party.

Lots of cupcakes, cookies and fruit covered the table.

Some snowflake sugar cookies (recipe from Butter Baked Goods) but as yummy as they were, I found the dough to be a bit crumbly to work with.  Some royal icing with crystal sugar and you have some lovely snowflakes.

Then I had to make some chocolate cupcakes with a hollowed out center which was then filled with Nutella and covered with icing…they were delicious. (recipe from Butter Baked Goods)

For decorations I painted twigs white, paper roses which I had all over the place.  Acorns, branch coasters and paper punched snowflakes worked nicely with the winter woodland theme.

Every little girl left with a pretty princess cup and some ribbon elastic hair ties. 

As an activity for the kids I try to do a craft.  I found these adorable castle like birdhouses which each of the girls got to decorate. They turned out so cute. 

And finally the birthday cake. I did not put Elsa on top of the cake, I really didn't feel that it went with everything else. My daughter has been collecting these little Mooska dolls and thought it was perfect. A few model train trees, blackberries and lots of icing we had a great cake.  This cake was a white layered cake with homemade strawberry jam and icing between the layers. I used the white cake recipe from Butter Baked Goods, it was so good. 

hair elastics using covered buttons

I love making hair elastics for little girls and using a covered button is a fun way to create something unique.  I purchased some buttons that I could cover from my local fabric store and then used some scrap fabrics to create my button.  I did find that if the cotton I used was too thin the back would not always stay in place, so I would use two layers of fabric. Attach a hair elastic to the back then add some Swarovski crystals to add that little bit of sparkle and there you have it...a cute hair elastic for that cute little girl.  You can get coloured elastics as well which would add another fun element to this cute elastic.