Everything You Need to Throw a Superhero Birthday Party!!

For those who haven't figured it out yet, I LOVE BIRTHDAYS!!!  I believe that it's important to celebrate your loved one's special day.  Some people might say I go overboard or a little crazy when it comes to my son, Brayden's, birthdays.  I tend to disagree; I say "go big or go home!"  So when it came time to start planning Brayden's 6th birthday party we decided on a Superhero theme.  This was by far the easiest themed birthday he's had yet!  I was amazed at how many cute ideas I found on Pinterest and other crafty sites. 

 

I think the best thing I found were superhero masks and capes at Target for only $1 each!!!  Before this amazing find, I was contemplating how I could use my sewing skills (or lack there of) to make my own masks and capes.  Thank goodness I was lucky enough to come across the goodies.  I spared myself the embarrassment of trying to sew and many frustrated hours! 

 

The other thing you see in this picture is the awesome telephone booth my very talented husband made!  This was a completely last minute detail that he threw together.  I called for weeks to many home improvement stores and appliance stores looking for a refrigerator box but always came up empty handed.  It wasn't until two days before the party that I thought we might be able to somehow tape together 2 XL moving boxes.  I gave the  hubby the boxes, extra strength tape, red primer and red spray paint and told him to work his magic!  Of course we had to explain to the kids what a telephone booth was and why it was there but once they understood they got a kick out of it!  The adults loved it too, many of them were taking their pictures in it!

 

I am also very picky when it comes to pinatas!  All the pinatas that I found in the party stores were super lame and all the ones I found in downtown were very tacky.  I found a couple of pinatas on Etsy that I liked but they were very pricey!  I figured since I had all the time in the world (currently unemployed and looking for work if anybody wants to hire me. haha!) that I could probably make my own pinata!  A few, more like 15, popped balloons and gallons of paper mache later, I gave up!  I decided to try and use cardboard, cut up pieces of tissue paper and spray glue.  The design turned out flawless and was almost indestructible.  Okay, so paper mache probably would have been better since it took about 30 minutes to break the pinata, now I know, but it looked awesome ;)

 

 

 

I also created my own games.  All the games that the party supply stores sell are very generic and kind of boring.  So since the hubby works at a lumber yard I had him bring home sheets of plywood.  He made the circle cut outs for me and I hand painted the bean bag game and Pin the Star on Captain America's sheild.  I also made star shaped stickers out of some Avery shipping labels for the Captain America game.  And since we had a lot of leftover wood the hubby cut out a Superman shape and painted the B for Super Brayden!

 

 

Speaking of my talented husband, he has his own photography business, www.ZSimages.com (my shameless plug) so he knows LOTS about photoshop...way more than I ever will!  I told him I wanted a few signs designed that I was then going to paste onto some wood and stakes.  He made these beauties for me! 

 

Along with the games, I also had a superhero bounce house and a craft station.  I found Superman magnets that came with their own individual paints, superman & batman sand art, superman felt coloring pictures, foam explosions and foam superhero assorted stickers!

 

I also wanted to utilize all the apothecary jars that I had left over from our wedding last year.  I decided Brayden's party was the perfect opportunity, especially with the awesome primary colors I was using.  I found a cool gumball machine on craigslist that I used as the center piece then just found the other candy as I was out and about at stores.  I cut the buildings from black wrapping paper that I found at Michaels and used a yellow table cover as my backdrop. 

 

Since I had been planning this party for soooo long, I had lots of time to find awesome deals for party favors.  Over a 6-9 month span I was able to put together some pretty cool party favor buckets.  I created a sticker that says "Thanks for being a SUPER friend!" for the front of the buckets.  And the hubs created a sign that looks like a comic book cover to remind the kids to take their buckets!!

 

Speaking of people who are amazing at Photoshop, creativity really runs in my husband's family!  His twin brothers are both Architectural Graphic Designers and photographers as well!  I knew I wanted a photo cut out where the kids could put their faces in the hole and become Superman.  I just wasn't sure how I was going to do it!  Thankfully my brother in law came to the rescue and created this beauty!

 

Another fun thing I made was a cupcake wreath!  It's basically just what it sounds like.  I bought a 14" foam circle wreath, 300 red/blue/yellow cupcake liners and straight pins.  All there is to it is folding up the liners and pinning them to the wreath.  Then I created the word explosions and glued them on and hung it on our front door for the party!

 

I also made little details like a superhero sticker for the recycling trash can, "Be a Superhero and Recycle".  And bought some red and blue paper hanging balls (no idea what they're really called) at our local 99 cent store and glued superhero action words to them! 

 

Last but certainly not least is the cake I made!  This was definitely a time consuming cake with cutting out all the buildings and little windows but it was worth it for my little superhero!!! In the background you can also see the cute photo my husband took of Brayden pretending to be Clark Kent!

 

How It All Started!

For many of you who don't know my story, I thought I'd give you a little glimpse.  My cake journey started about 5 years ago when my son was about to turn a year old.  We've all been into Michael's Craft Store and seen the cake aisle, right?  Well I had strolled past that aisle just one too many times until my curiosity got the best of me.  What is this fondant stuff?  How in the world do you put that weird stuff on cakes? And make it look pretty at the same time?  So I bought the smallest box of fondant they sold and turned to Google.  Boy where there a LOT of How To video's and helpful instructions!  I eventually learned how to roll out that small cube of fondant and covered my first cake with success!  I was so excited about my successful first fondant attempt that I went out and bought even more cake supplies.  And watched more video's and read even more How To's.  I discovered that Michael's also has cake decorating classes so I decided to give it a try.  As I sat in these 4 classes, I realized that I had already taught myself how to do ALL of what they were teaching.  Man, what a waste of money but pretty cool knowing that I didn't need to pay for any more classes since I could just teach myself. 

On a more personal note, I was a single mom since the day my son was born until he was 4 years old.  I'm not one to sugar coat things so I won't tell you that it was easy.  We shared an apartment with one of my friends who was also a single mom with a son around the same age.  Looking back, I'm sure she wasn't thrilled with the mess I made in our tiny kitchen with my cake supplies strewn about everywhere but she was nice enough to encourage me to keep going.  My friends and family were also gracious enough to let me create cakes for their birthdays, events, parties...etc.  Eventually I had enough pictures built up to establish a portfolio and put them online.  This single mom desperately needed to make some extra cash!  It was a slow start at first with just one or two cakes a month but it eventually evolved into a pretty decent business.  From starting with cakes, I then taught myself all about cupcakes, cakepops and even the dreaded sugar cookies (I despise working with royal icing!)  So there you have it.  You don't have to pay thousands of dollars to attend a culinary school to know how to decorate cakes.  You just need to have the desire, patience and Google!

Here's my first cake ever made with fondant:    

       

Here's my most recent cake:

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From today, Monday July 15th to Friday July 19th, enter for your chance to win 2 dozen free cupcakes from BradyCakes! All you have to do is follow us on Twitter and Facebook and you'll receive two automatic entries into the drawing.

 

 

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Converse Shoe Cake

So for those of you who don't know, I was recently laid off from my Office Manager position and was put in a pretty tough spot.  The hubs and I were all ready to buy a big house and were even having it built from the ground up!  But then I was laid off and couldn't find a job for a while so we had to call the whole thing off.  So instead of living off unemployment, I ended up going to work for my friend who owns a company called Shoes on the Way.  Now, I've known John (my friend and current boss) since we were in high school (over 15 years ago)! so I knew I had to make him a really awesome cake!  Obviously, we sell shoes and our main brand is Converse so I thought it'd be awesome to make him a Converse shoe cake!

 

I really had no idea where to start with this cake until the hubby came up with a template for me. I gave him a template I had for little fondant baby shoes and he went from there. So obviously the first step would be to bake your cakes, I used two 9x13" pans, and cut out the sole of the shoe from the template. I didn't level the cake first as the dome in the middle worked in my favor for the shape of the shoe, also be sure to build up the back a little for the heel. Then fill and crumb coat the soles and stick them in the fridge to firm up. Now it's time to cover it with fondant. Normally, to cover a cake you just roll out the fondant and drape it over, but this was different. Converse are made with layers of overlapping canvas which means you have to treat the fondant like canvas basically. Once I cut all my layers of fondant the most important part was remembering what order they go on. First the tongue, then the sides, then the toe cap, followed by the rubber around the sole. The laces are basically an illusion, they don't really go through the holes. I cut strips of fondant and placed them diagonally side to side then placed the rings of white fondant around them to make them appear like they're being laced up. Once you're done with the laces it's time to add the finishing touches such as the All Star tag on the top of the tongue, the two air holes (I guess that's what they are) on the sides of the shoe and the black lines around the soles.  And there you have it, a Converse Shoe Cake!

 

I really need to get better at taking step by step pictures so for now here's the finished product :)

Flashback Friday!

It's Flashback Friday so I thought I'd show you one of my very first cakes I made.  It was nothing too fancy and boy are there a lot of errors I made.  I cringe just looking at this picture (there are things you can't see in the picture that I did wrong).  If I could go back 4 years, I would fix so many things about this cake.  But we all have to start somewhere, right? 

 

 

Cracked Dyed Hardboiled Eggs

Well I guess I'm a little late with this posting; probably should have posted before Easter!  Oh well, save this posting for next year :)  For Easter with the family, I offered to bring deviled eggs (and dessert of course!) but wanted to get a little creative with them.  So here's my tutorial on how to get the cracked dye job on the hard boiled eggs:

1) Set eggs in a single layer in a saucepan. Water should cover eggs by one to two inches. (skip to step  4 if you already know how to hard boil eggs)

2) Bring the water to a full, rolling boil, and cover the saucepan. Turn off the stove, remove the pot from the burner, and let it stand, covered, for 12 minutes (set the timer).

3) Drain the pot, and transfer the eggs to a bowl of cold ice water, to stop the cooking process.

4)  Once the eggs have cooled, get to cracking them. 

5) Add about 5 drops of food coloring to half a glass of water and gently place the cracked eggs in

6)  Let the eggs sit in the colored water for about 15 minutes.  Then remove and gently peel the shell away and voila, you have cracked dyed hardboiled eggs!  Perfect for making those hardboiled eggs a little prettier :)

Hunter Boots Giveaway!

Hello there lovelies. Today sponsors and supporters of Through the Eyes of the Mrs. have a treat for you! The opportunity to win a pair of Hunter Boots valued up to $135.00. The best part is if you win you get to pick the style and color.  Enter below through Rafflecopter! Lots of luck to each of you.

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

How many of us grew up on this awesome cartoon?  I know I did and I just love that it's popular again!  This cake was easy enough to make except for the lid of the sewer.  My hubby had the brilliant idea to use diamond plate (I had no idea what that was) as a template design for the lid.  Off to Home Depot we went only to discover it was $35 per sheet!!!  Holy cow that's one expense sheet of metal!  So we bought it, brought it home, rolled out the fondant and imprinted the diamond plate design onto the lid and then promptly returned that sucker to Home Depot.  Making the cobble stone on the cake was pretty fun since there really was no rhyme or reason, just abstract square and rectangle shapes.  It was certainly time consuming, I can't image doing it on a bigger cake, but it turned out really cool.  The name was done with fondant by the talented hubs (he's getting good at this stuff!) as well at the writing on the cake board!  I also made some cake pops to go along with the awesome Ninja Turtle party that Delightful Deets put together.  The super cool cake pop stand was made by my wonderful friend Nichole at Yeung Mother Hubbard Designs.

Ninjago Lego Cake

Well this cake certainly wasn't the hardest cake I've had to make but it definitely was very time consuming.  Thanks to the lovely USPS for delivering my lego candy mold to the wrong post office it was delayed by 3 days which meant I would be getting the mold after the cake was due.  So I spent the morning calling all the cake supply stores in Orange County that I knew of...every one of them was either completely sold out or they didn't carry them.  Agh!  What was I going to do?!  There was no way I was going to make those legos out of fondant.  For one, who wants to eat a bunch of fondant legos? (gross!) For two, holy moly those would take forever to make!  So I started calling some cake supply stores in the Los Angeles area (for those who know me well, know that I despise LA.  I would much rather stay behind my Orange curtain.  haha) but you have to do what you have to do.  Off to Bell and Pico Rivera I went.  The cake stores were absolutely perfect!  The one in Bell has any type of candy mold you could ever imagine!!!  And the one in Pico had amazing prices on boards and fondant!!!  Okay so I'm forced to eat (no pun intended) my words for LA...at least it has great cake stores going for it ;)  I was able to score one lego candy mold...which meant making only 6 legos at a time...which took quite a long time.  But I was able to put my amazingly talented hubby, Zack, to work on creating the Ninjago character for me.  He's not a cake designer by trade and he's rarely worked with fondant but his artistic abilities outshine me by far!  This was his first character that he's made for me and I think it turned out fantastically!   (you'll see some more of his fondant work in my next post)  Once all the chocolate legos where made and the Ninjago character complete, it was time to stack the cake, strategically place all the legos and write the happy birthdays (writing on a cake is one thing I truly despise) which thankfully the writing went smoothly this time.  And voila, there's the Ninjago Lego cake for my friend Kim's two cutest little boys, Jared and Connor!

School Bus Cake

Well here it is, my first ever school bus cake.  I'm not afraid to admit that I'm not the greatest at carved cakes so I typically pass on those orders.  But when I received this order I thought "why not, let's give this sucker a try!"  I figured it wouldn't be too difficult since buses are pretty rectangular and there's not much to them.  And all in all, I was pretty much right and it wasn't too hard.  The only obstacle was covering it with a huge piece of fondant, which was a little difficult since it was so tall.  The other obstacle was trying to figure out how to make it look like the bus was actually being held up by the wheels; as opposed to the ghetto version of just having it sit on the cake board and sticking the wheels to the side of it.  I figured out what had to be done: I cut some cake boards to about half the size of the bus, glued them together, then glued them to the main cake board, covered it all with black fondant and then stuck the bus on top and added the wheels.  And there you have it, my first school bus cake.  Oh and I made some school bus cookies too :)

Books, Books, Books!

 

This was my first attempt at making a multi-tier book cake.  There were definitely some ups and downs and things I learned not to do on my next book cake.  All in all, I think it turned out pretty fantastically.  There was a lot of math and measuring involved which is where my wonderful husband helps me out.  First for the book covers, you measure the length, width, and height(after its been iced!). Then add 1/4" to the width and 1/2" to the length.  You want the covers to hang over the cake to make the edges of the book.  For the bottom edges of the books it's just 3 - 1/4" strips of fondant.  For the pages I needed to measure the height of the gap and then roll out a thin strip of white fondant long enough to go around the book.  Before putting the white fondant on the cake I made sure to make the lines for the pages...it's much harder once it's on the cake. You'll notice the pages on the bottom book aren't very defined, I tried to do it while on the cake...that's where I learned my lesson ;)  Each book is of course a different tier of cake separated by cardboard cake squares and dowels so they don't sink into each other.  And there you have it, my first book cake!

CONTEST!!!

It's that time again!  For the remaining month of January, BradyCakes is hosting a contest on our Facebook page.  All you have to do is list your favorite cake and icing combination then get as many people as you can to "like" your comment!  The person with the most "likes" on their comment at the end of the day on January 31st will win one dozen Valentine's Day cake pops!!!!

http://www.facebook.com/custom.cakes.by.BradyCakes


Cake Pops valued at $30
Pick up only

4 years ago...

Everybody always asks why my company is called BradyCakes.  Well let me introduce you to my inspiration, my son Brayden.  Four years ago today he blessed my life and made me the happiest I've ever been.  Brayden is growing up to be your typical little boy.  He loves monster trucks, cars, any sports but especially baseball (Angels) and football (USC), he would wear his green froggy rain boots everyday if it were up to him, our new dog Daisy although she's a bit too crazy for his taste, Disneyland, Sea World but especially Shamu, he's currently obsessed with Toy Story and we might have every Buzz Lightyear toy ever made.  For his party this year I rented out a little train station in Costa Mesa called Goathill Junction Railroad.  Now I might be a bit biased but he was definitely the cutest little conductor I've ever seen. 

Happy Birthday my little man.  Mommy loves you!!

Posh Little Tutu

I have to be honest….this is definitely one of my favorites of all the cakes I’ve created!  When someone asks you to create a cake for her daughter’s tutu themed birthday party your head kind of starts to reel.  I’ve never had that request before and honestly had no idea where to start.  I did a little research, compared some examples and came up with the design that I thought would work.  The tutu part was supposed to be a little fuller but I still think it turned out pretty great! 



Cookies for a Cure!

 Well it’s been a while since I last blogged so here goes nothing. If you thought something was different about my page you are certainly right! I had to jump on the offer that my friend Nichole from yeungmotherhubbard.blogspot.com made to redo my page. Apparently my limited techie skills don’t include making very pretty blog pages.  I am in love with what she did to update my blog and hope you are too! Check out her blog…she makes AMAZING quilts…she’s made 2 for me (so far) and I keep telling her I want more…hint hint Nichole ;)

Anyway, back to the reason for my NEW post! This past week I was given the opportunity to create some cookies for a charity event that I just couldn’t say no to. Marcus & Millichap was doing their first annual Chili for CHOC Cook Off and asked if I could create some bear cookies for them to pass out. Any event for CHOC I will never pass up! I’ve had many friends who’ve had to take their children to CHOC and even under the horrible circumstances for their visits they always rave about how amazing the staff and doctors are. The event, Chili for CHOC, was able to bring in over $2,000 in donations for the hospital…and this was just their first year! Again, I’m so thankful that I was able to do my little part in raising money for the wonderful Children’s Hospital of Orange County!!!

Merry Christmas!

I hope they enjoyed "opening" this present as much as I enjoyed making it!  This is a red velvet cake with chocolate/peanut butter ganache filling, covered with fondant.

21st Birthday Cake

This was for a very special girls 21st birthday party.  Everything on this cake is edible except for the martini glass.  The top tier is red velvet with cream cheese filling.  The bottom tier is dark chocolate with kahlua cream cheese filling.

Coach Purse!

This is another one in my top 5 favorite cakes!  I recently made this for my friend's 21st birthday.  The girl has everything COACH so this was the absolute perfect cake for her!  It is a dark chocolate cake with chocolate chip buttercream filling covered in fondant.