Sweet Sneak Peek

Recently, one of my friends from our Bradley Birth Class was telling me how she is already planning for her son's first birthday party. *Gasp*, he's even a month younger than my daughter! I didn't laugh at her for planning something 1/3 of a year away, but that might have been because she inspired me...I realized that the earlier I start planning and preparing, the cheaper and nicer it will be, since I can have plenty of time to make things for my daughter's birthday instead of rushing around last minute and buying everything.

So. That being said, I started looking for a theme. I may as well say, I also despise licensed characters. Inasmuch as I have anything to do with it, my daughter won't ever have an "Elmo" or "Barbie" or "Hannah Montana" party, etc...of course, once she can speak her own mind, who knows? She'll probably ask for a licensed character party every year. But for now, the planning is up to me. *evil cackling*

I started my research by looking for a cake. I figured I could build a party theme around a cake, and I did! Naomi's first birthday party theme is officially: Owls. I did a lot of online research, but quickly realized that if I want her sweet treats to be as adorable as this one, and not wind up looking unfortunate, then I needed to practice! I saw some cute owl cake pops and thought I would try my hand at them. I think they turned out to be adorable!

Owl Cake Pop

And here's the whole mess of them. I used a ballpoint pen to poke holes in a cereal box to prop them up while they were drying. They were really a lot easier to make than I'd thought they would be!

Colorful Owl Cake Pops

Now, I'm glad I didn't make an entire cake's worth of cake pops. That would have been entirely too many! But from one box of cake mix, I made 12 regular cupcakes, 12 mini cupcakes, and 1 loaf pan's worth of the rest of the batter, which, when mixed with frosting, became 20 cake balls. Want to know how I made the owls? 

I lightened the photo to more easily show off owl-ey features.

What I did with the mini cupcakes was practice various icing techniques with my metal icing tips. The regular-sized cupcakes, I practiced making ball of yarn cupcakes which will hopefully be for my birthday party/Christmas party later this year. Here's a sneak peek:

I used Pocky with chocolate chips to make the knitting needles. 

Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think!