We made it through the friend-birthday-party with flying colours, though now I am ex-haus-ted! Rudi asked for “a Cars 2 party” and planned it together. I adore making his birthday parties personal, having a hand in loot bags and/or cake. It’s really rewarding to pour myself into something just for him, even if the cake is gone in the blink of an eye! And the crafting and baking makes the experience more tangible and exciting for him, and for me.

I think I’ve said here before that I am not really a baker, but I try now and again. And I love watching the magical baking shows where they make amazing cakes that defy the apparent laws of gravity that my cakes adhere to. So I thought I’d challenge myself and try fondant, and it wasn’t so bad! I kept the cake simple, flat, and used sugar decorations that Rudi chose/adored — who knew they still made these?! They remind me of 1980s birthday cakes. Here’s the result:

The cacti marzipan dyed with gel dye that my friend lent me — another baking revelation — and I even made my own glorious buttercream to dirty-ice the cake under the black fondant. To really go for the win, I decided to try making the inside a checkerboard flag. This was the best part for Rudi as he helped me slice thin slabs of the chocolate and white cake and place them alternately on the cake board. It worked! We were so excited! Susan Kendal, FTW!!! Check it:

And then Skor bits for dirt of course. Does it get any better? The kids blasted through our Cars cake in record time, leaving huge blobs of black fondant all over the table. Another birthday cake, sorted.

As I mentioned in a recent Rearview Fridays post about some past birthday craftinesses, above all I adore making loot bags. Or in the case of this Cars 2 party, loot CANS! If you haven’t seen Cars 2 then you might not know about Allinol, a fictional fuel that is key to the plot. I thought it’d be funny to make little oil cans for the loot bag/cans, so we started with the purchase of an obscene amount of apple juice and a no-water-apple-juice-only week in the household (it’s in the name of awesomeness kids, chug, chug, chug).

After emptying the cans and soaking off the labels, I pulled a jpeg of the Allinol logo off the web and printed it out on label paper, et voila:

And of course we needed labels so that the cans could be claimed by the 4-year-old guests. Those had to be traffic cones, naturally! I made a wee template and cut ’em out of bright orange felt with a paper one for the name:

I just love how the finished Loot Can came out. And aside from the forced apple juice drinking, it was pretty easy, and makes a great marker/scissor/etc holder!

A rewarding party it was. As I lay on the couch in the post-party haze, drinking an Allinol can of wine a glass of wine, Adam (the patient, amused, house cleaning husband in the midst of all this madness) asked me what next year’s party was going to be. I snorted and told him I needed a bit o’ time before I start thinking about the next extravaganza. Then he joked/seriously suggested that a 5-Alive party would be great for a 5-year-old, good colour scheme, automatic juice element … and the wheels started to turn …