Calvin & Hobbes Birthday Party

 

 

My three boys LOVE Calvin and Hobbes. Draco here has loved him since he was like 3. He couldn't 'read' yet but would "read" his brothers comics and quote the lines he knew. He wore his Linus shirt from Halloween all the time and called it his Calvin shirt. He was due for a new one. This time instead of using a sharpie to draw lines we painted stripes with blue tape and fabric paint. (I would suggest the marker and quilting ruler next time. Much easier) We grabbed a picture of him with his stuffed Hobbes he got for Christmas.

 

 

It was his 2nd favorite present after this. I found a pattern for free here. So thankful I found it as I was going to be making my own. (saved me so much time!)  Draco loves his Hobbes. (And so does baby sister)

 

 

To decorate for his party I was able to get some comics to use for a backdrop from a girl from my church. I am so thankful for a silhouette. I can make a matching birthday banner pretty quickly. I had some orange crepe paper and made it fringey to switch it up. I love how crepe paper is cheap and colorful. It's a great way to make a party look festive. I printed up some fun prints of Calvin and Hobbes to add to the mix.

 

We kept the food simple by making popcorn with our popcorn maker. So easy and cheap. Plus it has less carbs for my diabetic son than microwave popcorn. I did flavored water instead of punch or soda. It's cheaper, easier, and doesn't have any carbs. We will have diet soda for him sometimes but I try to not let my other kids drink diet soda. Flavored water makes it easier. And don't the orange slices make it look classy? And match our décor.We made 'tiger tails' from pretzel rods dipped in orange melts and drizzled with dark chocolate. I love salty and sweet together. I had the kids take those home to keep the sweets to a minimum.

 

I was also told we had to have Calvin's favorite: Chocolate chip cookies! Draco loves the comic where Calvin drinks an elixir that turns him invisible. They after removing his clothes  he is free to sneak into the cookie jar. It ends with Calvin's mom yelling at Calvin, demanding to know why he is naked and sneaking into the cookies. Perfect humor for a 7 year old!

I am really excited about how his cake turned out. It was pretty easy to do. I was searching for ideas and could only find fondant made Calvin and Hobbes. And I knew that wasn't in my skill set quite yet. This method for transferring images would work great for so many things. I wish I would have discovered it years ago. I used Pooh Bear Gold for his skin and a mix of yellow and orange for his hair. The best part was my son's face when he saw it. He loved it!

 

How cute it Calvin??? I was a little scared it wouldn't work out. My plan B was some orange bunting for the top. So glad it turned out!

 

I love having parties based on characters from books. Even if they are comics. Our family loves reading. And having parties based of books just encourages reading and brings characters to life.

 

We made his piñata as well. Easy and so much cheaper. We wanted to make an alien that Spaceman Spiff liked to battle. We searched for the simplest one. (Calvin likes to pretend his teacher Miss Wormwood, or Suzie, or anyone he doesn't like is an alien he has to defeat. Gotta love his imagination!) I was going to make it the shape of the alien, but kept it simple by just using a box. I would cut some slits into unless you want to make it challenging. We filled it with cheap candy and party favors from the $1 store. (Cheap candy = Great candy for low blood sugars)

 

Just like with our Percy Jackson Party I did my research. I had scored this from a garage sale. I have read Calvin and Hobbes before but I was looking for fun ideas for his party.

 

 

 

We knew our party needed newspaper hats and water balloons.

 

 

This mischievous boy loved his party. And he loved introducing his friends to Calvin and Hobbes. Some of them were already fans. Most of the parents were as well. I love that he loves this character so much. And I love that all the brothers quote him together.

The kids were pretty great at letting me get a picture before our water balloon fight. Grady put the balloons in water to keep them cool, but it was still too hot. We had to redo a bunch for the fight. We had them play sardines, a game of hide and go seek, but you stay with someone instead of tagging them.

 

I love how I got this balloon right before it popped and right after.

 

 

I loved keeping it simple. Our activities were making the hats, dress up clothes for free play, relay race, water balloon toss and the piñata. I loved seeing their joy from these simple party blowers.

I can't believe my sweet boy is 7!

 

 

Calvin and Hobbes create G.R.O.S.S, a club to Get Rid Of Slimey girlS. Good thing we didn't go along with that. Girls were totally welcomed at his party. Which was a good thing since we had so many of them show up. I love this sweet boy and I loved seeing him giggle and play with his friends.

Some of these items are affiliated links. You are welcomed to buy from anywhere. But I don't mind if you buy them from here. I only share items I really like or use. Thanks for your support!

Percy Jackson Cake Tutorial

My son's Percy Jackson party was so much fun! I am loving this book series right along with my three sons. When I was searching for ideas for decorating his cake I was seriously impressed. There are some really cool cakes out there. Most of them well above my skill level.

I do love the ombre effect on cakes. A fairly simple task of adding more dye to each section. That is when I thought I would try and mimic waves from the ocean. But I was still stumped on what to do on the top. I thought about bunting or just writing out his name, but then I thought a trident would look great on top and it would stay with our theme.

I love using cookie cutters to stamp out fondant. But I really didn't want to buy and try to find a trident cookie cutter. That's when I got this idea. I don't know why I didn't think of it before. I'll cut out a shape with my Cameo Silhouette on card stock and use it as a template.

Really You can cut out anything. Some one's name. A fox. Pikachu. Giant lips. A tardis. The options are endless.

Decorating a Cake using A Silhouette

Fondant

Spreader

Small paint brush

Pizza cutter

paring knife

Roller

Powdered Sugar

Crisco

Small bowl of water

A template made from your Silhouette

First you need to make your cake. These are a huge help! I bought them years ago. They fit around your pan and help your cake bake more evenly and level. I just used a box cake this time but substituted milk for water and butter for oil. I was able to do this a few days before to save time.

You can either buy or make your fondant. I love How Does She's fondant recipe. I have used it a couple of times. And it's super yummy. She also has tips for frosting a cake.

Once my fondant was made and my cake was frosted with a yummy butter cream frosting it was time to get to work. I divided my fondant into three amounts, well 4. I had a small ball for the trident on top. At first I was going to do three shades of blue, but because I was short on time I thought I would leave one white. Ocean foam is white, right? Leave some for your design on top. And then divide into three sections. Color them their desired color. Wrap them back up till ready to work with them.

Roll your fondant into a fat little worm and then roll it out lengthwise with your roller. I love my Pampered Chef roller. I then used my Pizza Cutter and free handed a little wave.

Dip your paint brush into your bowl of water to help the fondant stick. Starting at the top wrap it around your cake. Because I was working from a idea in my head I didn't start as high as I would have liked. If I were to do it over I wouldn't have the top part of the cake showing at all. Keep working around the cake doing one color at a time. I liked finishing row by row and varying my "waves" by putting low and high points near each other.

 

Some parts were a little cracked. I just painted a little extra water to smooth them out as pictured above. As you are finishing up on the bottom row cut the bottom in a straight line so it lines up nicely with your cake platter. Though it might be smarter to fix this before you put it on your cake.

Cut out your design using your Silhouette, or free hand if you don't have one yet. Using a paring knife trace your design.

I wanted my trident to have a longer staff so I improvised.

 
Clean up any edges with your knife. I laid my fondant design on my hand and then carefully placed it on my cake. Get an idea where you want it before you pick it up.  Also I picked my best display of my waves and made sure to make that the front of my cake. You can also use a rolling pin and drape it over and then place it on your cake.

Adjust if you need to. Try not to move it around too much or your frosting can move around as well.

And don't get too discouraged if it doesn't turn out perfect. I made this cake for Draco 2 years ago. It so wasn't perfect, but boy did his face light up when he saw it. Making cakes is a labor of love. And I am sure whom ever you are making your cake for will absolutely love it!

It will look even better on a Dollar Tree tablecloth. For more Percy Jackson party ideas click HERE. If you do make these waves or use a stencil for your cake share your link in the comments. I love seeing other cake creations! Thanks again!

Some of these items are affiliated links. You are welcomed to buy from anywhere. But I don't mind if you buy them from here. I only share items I really like or use. Thanks for your support!

Percy Jackson Birthday Party

This is a story of a boy who turned 10. Turns out he is a demi-god. So we threw a party.

Gandalf loves to read. Like most boys his age he loves the Percy Jackson series. We thought that would be a great theme for his next party. So I ended up listening to the audio books on one of our drive to California one time. I absolutely love them!!!( I've only read the first 3, so please no spoilers!) 

Having my son Draco crack up was an added bonus. So our whole family pretty much loves the books. (The reader did an amazing job with this book. The perfect amount of attitude) 

  Reading the book helped me plan the party. We went with blue foods (it's a thing Percy and his mom do to bond) and a nautical theme. I won't tell you why, you'll just have to read the book to find out. I love having a Silhouette Cameo to make fun banners for our parties. With just a little paper, and streamers and table clothes from the dollar store we can make our place look fun. We used our Nautical decor from Draco's room when he was a baby.

I was really happy with how the cake turned out. I will be posting a tutorial this week with the details. I am getting better at working with fondant. Gandalf loved the cake too. I bet you'll never guess what color it is on the inside..

My inspiration was the ocean. I love how it looks.

We had just a few snacks. Blue corn chips, sixlets, and cookies. All that sword fighting makes growing demi-gods hungry. 

Most of the boys had read the book or seen the movies. (We still need to watch those!)

The boys love the Ambrosia and Nectar (cookies and soda), or food of the gods. It was fun to see they were going with the theme.

The Half Bloods were welcomed to camp and given a shield to decorate. We kept it simple and used cardboard (Thanks again amazon! We love reusing those boxes.), fabric strips, and duct tape. I really enjoyed watching the boys put time into their designs. My hubby had put on music for the sound track. He also made swords from PVC pie, pipe insulation, and duct tape. Gandalf got the sword Riptide of course. They had fun practice fighting. My hubby and I even got in on the action and I think the boys liked fighting adults. 

I also had balloons for the boys to hit and keep their balloon up the longest, but Zeus must not have been very happy. It was a pretty windy day. Another great element in the book is that they play capture the flag. It was the perfect party game. We went to a park near by and the boys hide their flag on the opposite side of the park. If you got hit on your opponents side you had to go back to a circle on the basketball court. When one side was hiding the flag with my husband there I was home with the other team. We divided them according to their cabin which they picked out of a bucket. One of the teams had a kid who could scale walls and hid it so high up in a tree. They felt bad and lowered it.

Then we had a monster pinata that I had made. It was super lame looking, but still fun. The boys loved smashing and beating that monster. Instead of becoming gold dust, it just rained yummy candy. Below is my attempt at a Manitcore. One of his eyes fell off on the way to the park and a kid turned him into a cyclops.

Afterwards we came back for cake. Not everyone wanted one because a lot of cookies were eaten earlier.  All in all a pretty fun party. You can't go wrong with swords, capture the flag, soda, and sugar. The best part was watching my son socialize with the other boys. We couldn't pass out invites at school and I was really concerned we wouldn't have enough boys. We moved here from California last summer. Making friends can be really hard. We were always so lucky to have so many friends in California. I am glad he had a good group of really nice boys. 

I wish I had the budget to make everyone a "Camp Half Blood" shirt. I knew the siblings would want one too. After all, our whole family loves these books. Little sister loved being like her big brothers!!! You can find the image for the shirt here. I found it from this lovely blog here. 

For a tutorial on the cake check out this post.


Thanks for reading!!!

Some of these items are affiliated links. You are welcomed to buy from anywhere. But I don't mind if you buy them from here. I only share items I really like or use. Thanks for your support!