Birthday Decortions - Including Cake Made With the Cricut Cake Machine

So, today is my daughter's 3rd birthday.  We had her party on Saturday and it works out that my dear, sweet friend Tracy shares the same birthday and all this birthday fun fits in perfectly with her birthday blog hop.

You'll want to see all the fun and inspirational birthday themed ideas, and be sure to wish Tracy a happy birthday - so if you're doing the hop you should have arrived from Jessica's Blog.  If you have not started the hop yet you can head on over to see Tracy - the first stop on the hop and our special birthday girl :)

Today I'd like to share the decorations I made for her party.  I will focus mainly on the cake  I made using the Cricut Cake machine

Here's a photo of the supplies I used.  Everything seemed to work just fine.  The cake was good and moist and I would buy any of these products again in a heartbeat.  These were all readily available at my local grocery store.

The first thing I had to do of course was bake the cake.  I baked it in 2 round pans that were each 9 inches.  I used some triple berry jelly in the middle to put the two layers together.

The next step was frosting the cake.  I am by no means an expert at this - but I think it came out fine.  The imperfections seem so much less noticeable later after all the decorations are added.  Someday I'll learn to fondant a cake - but not today :)

The next step was preparing the gum paste.  The mix I bought needed water and A LOT of kneading.  My arms were so sore.  I was already tired after just making the gum paste - then I had to work the color into it.  Oh my goodness.  I think that was by far the hardest part.  Here are my four colors all done and ready to be cut.

To use the Cricut Cake machine you need to roll the gum paste out onto the Cricut Cake mat.  First you spread some Crisco onto the mat with a pastry brush and then you just add the gum paste and roll it out.  I TRIED FONDANT LAST TIME AND I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THE GUM PASTE FOR THIS MACHINE INSTEAD!!!!!!  The fondant had to be frozen after being rolled out on the mat and I still had a lot of trouble.  The gum paste cut like a dream.  Here is a picture of some cuts on the mat.

Here's a picture of a bunch of the shapes sitting and waiting to be applied to the cake.  I cut all my shapes first so that I could have them all at hand when I went to see how I wanted everything to fit on the cake.

Here's the finished cake on the party table.

Here's a close up shot of the finished cake again.

This took up pretty much the whole day before the party - but my gosh did it feel good to see it all done and see my daughter's excitement over her birthday cake.  It may have a lot more imperfections than one bought from the store - but it was made with a whole lot of love, and I did truly enjoy the process (all except the mess it left in my kitchen *LOL*)

Here are a few more quick photos of things that I made.

This little decoration went on the back of her chair at the party table.  I cut it using my new E2 machine and the Cricut American Alphabet Cartridge.  Then I blinged it up with some Stickles.

Here's a large sign.  It's hard to see much detail but the presents have a bunch of glitter on them, and the letters have some bling. 

My favorite thing at the whole party was this banner I made.  I spent hours custom making the paper doll using the Cricut Everyday Paper Dolls cartridge.  I think he came out exactly how I wanted.

Here's a shot of the whole banner.

Here's a shot of the top so you can see my special doll.  He is supposed to look like my daughter's favorite TV show character - and she chose him for her party theme.

Here's a quick shot of a couple of the banner letters.  I just alternated these 2 color combos.

Thanks for stopping by my bloggy little corner of the world today!  I hope you enjoyed this little glimpse of all my party planning. I go absolutely INSANE over my children's parties.  I don't invite a ton of people or anything - but I go nuts over wanting every little detail to be just so and take great pride in making a lot of the decor myself.

Now it's time to continue the blog hopping fun and head on over to Shawn's blog for some more inspiration.