Twincess Designs: 2012

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Brave Birthday Party!

My girls turned 7 last month and they really wanted to have a Brave birthday party. I did a search on the internet and tons of ideas came up. I’ll share some of what we did.

First, the girls “needed” to have some Merida birthday dresses. I found Brave fabric at Joann’s and this cute Merida applique file at Lynnie Pinnie. I also learned a great tip for making appliques that saves soooo much time and frustration. Sew your applique onto a piece of felt first and then cut a small border around your applique and sew it onto your dress, shirt, bag, etc. This also means there won’t be any of that itchy stitching on the inside either! Yeah!

I just made them some basic t-shirt dresses but I think they are cute!

The most helpful resource was on Disney Family. All of the following ideas are from this site.

We made the bear paw cookies as well as fruit skewers to look like arrows.

I cut out and laminated these cute Brave charms and the girls strung beads and these charms to make necklaces.

(Source)

I printed out these activity books to go in the party favor bags.

(Source)

I also used these cute Thank Cards. I made my own invitations but the ones on the Disney site are cute too.

For decorations I made ruffled streamers and tissue paper pompoms.

For the ruffled streamers tutorial go to MADE.

The pompoms are very easy.

You will need tissue paper, floral wire or pipe cleaners, fishing line for hanging, and scissors.

Spread out 8-12 sheets of tissue paper and fold it back and forth accordion style.

Cut the corners off of each end to make them rounded.

Pinch it in the center and twist the floral wire or pipe cleaner around it.

Start to pull the sheets apart one at a time.

Keep pulling and fluffing until it looks just right and hang with fishing line.

For activities, we beaded necklaces, made snow cones, put on temporary Brave tattoos, and colored a giant cardboard castle.

Then it doesn’t hurt to have a sister who just happens to run school enrichment programs as well as super awesome birthday parties. She planned a whole scavenger hunt with rhyming clues and everything. The girls were searching for the lost cake.

My girls took turns reading the clues and then everyone would run to the next location. At each location my sister had set up different activities that needed to be completed before reading the next clue.

Some of the activities were:

Archery

A “Horse” relay race

Keep the wisps in the air and try to get them into the witches house

Learn and dance the jig

Everyone had a really great time! Thanks auntie!

Then they found the cake and we all had cake and ice cream and opened presents. All of my cake pictures came out blurry but it was really cute so I hope that you can get an idea of it anyway. It was just from our local grocery store and they did a great job! Yes there are two sets of Merida decorations on there. One for each girl of course! Smile

Happy Birthday Girls!

Resources:

http://family.go.com/disney/pkg-disney-character-fun/pkg-disney-brave/
http://www.disneydonnakay.com/2012/06/disney-party-boards-brave.html
http://www.birthdayinabox.com/activity-guides/disney-brave-blue-wisp-hunt-brave-party-game.html
http://kidsparties.about.com/od/birthdaypartythemes/tp/Brave-Party-Ideas.htm

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Book Club Treats

I hosted book club at my house last night. It’s always fun getting together but as of yesterday morning I had no idea what I was going to make. I also knew that I wanted it to be quick to make but still yummy because I would have to do the grocery shopping and cooking with my two boys in tow. I ended up googling Book Club Appetizers and a ton of recipes popped up. I decided on some fun fall recipes.

(Please excuse the picture quality as one of my girlfriends had to remind me last minute that I should take some so I snapped a few real quick with my IPhone. Recipe credits are at the bottom of this post.)

Here’s what I made:

Pumpkin Pie Bites

2 refrigerated ready-to roll pie crusts

8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
Pumpkin-shaped cookie cutter

Optional
1/2 cup chocolate morsels
vegetable oil
re-sealable plastic bags

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Use a circle cookie cutter or small glass to cut shapes for each pie crust.
Press dough shapes into a 24 cup mini muffin tray. Apply egg whites from one egg to the top edges of each pie. (I skipped this step)
Mix cream cheese, sugar, canned pumpkin, remaining 2 eggs, vanilla and pumpkin pie spice together until thoroughly combined.
Spoon mixture into each pumpkin-shaped pie crust.
Bake for 12-15 minutes.
Remove pies to cool.

Makes 24 pies. Keep refrigerated.

To decorate, melt chocolate in a heat-proof bowl in the microwave on medium. Heat in 30 second intervals, stirring in between until melted. Add a little vegetable oil to make the chocolate more fluid. Transfer to a re-sealable plastic bag and cut the corner off. Drizzle or draw jack-o-lantern faces on pies.

Cream Cheese Toffee Apple Dip

8oz cream cheese

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup white sugar

2 tsp vanilla (Please not that the original recipe says 2Tbs That is way too much!)

1/2 bag of toffee bits

Whip softened cream cheese until smooth. Mix in sugars, vanilla, and toffee bits. Chill. Serve up with apple slices.

Cranberry and White Chocolate Cookies

This is actually a recipe that I have had for a while. I love it! I usually makes these at Christmas because of the white and red.

Makes: 30 Cookies Time: 30 minutes

1 cup all-purpose flour

½ tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. salt

1 cup quick-cooking oats

9 Tbs. soft butter

½ cup soft dark brown sugar

½ cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla extract

½ cup dried cranberries

½ cup roughly chopped pecans

¾ cup white chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Measure flour, baking powder, salt and oats into a bowl. Put butter and sugars into another bowl and beat together until creamy. Then beat in egg and vanilla extract.

2. Beat in the flour mixture, then cranberries, pecans and chocolate chips.

3. Roll tablespoonfuls of dough into balls, then place them on your cookie sheet and squish down with a fork. Bake for 15 minutes until cookies are tinged a pale gold. Remove to cool.

Happy Baking!