The Party Details

 I made a pinata for the party this year. I was inspired by the pinata on this page. I decided to make the pinata base, as well, rather than buy one. I just did a basic paper mache on a large party balloon. If you've never done paper mache, you must have skipped grade school, all you do is mix flour & water until it's thin enough to dip strips of newspaper into (or, in my case, since we don't get the newspaper, I used the Republican voting information booklet, just the section that was in Spanish). Then, dip one inch by 4 inch strips of newspaper into the flour soup, use your fingers to scrape off most of it, and apply to your balloon. Cover the whole balloon with one layer, let dry, apply another layer, let dry...repeat until you think it's thick enough. The pinata was sturdier than I thought it would be. I only did 3 layers of paper mache, and instead of breaking when it was hit, it just got dented. Eventually it fell off of the wire hanger that I installed, so I just ripped it open for the kids. They didn't mind.

 I made tissue paper pom-poms in each color of the rainbow, just using the basic tutorial from Martha Stewart. I hung them up over our dining table light using push pins and fishing line.

 For the cake, I just used two basic Devil's Food Cake boxed cake mixes & 1 1/2 tubs of store-bought cream cheese frosting. I used 3 layers of cake & just used the cream cheese frosting between the layers. I used an offset spatula to get the outside nice and smooth (it could have been smoother, but she's 3 years old and doesn't really care). I used this recipe to make the marshmallow fondant. I did have a problem with the fondant being too dry & crumbly, and it didn't mix together well, so I squished as much of it together as I could & threw it in the microwave for about 15 seconds & it mixed perfectly after that. I divided it into 7 sections & added this food coloring to make the 7 colors. After icing the cake, I rolled out the fondant & cut out a bunch of circles & two stripes in each color. The circles went around the side & the stripes went on top in rainbow order. I made the pom pom bunting with two skewers, white yarn & leftover tissue paper circles from the pinata just stapled onto the yarn. (By the way, I made that cake stand using a dollar store plate & a thrift store goblet)

As you can see, Sharon was pretty excited about it. All in all, none of these things were really difficult, just time consuming. I love doing it, especially when I can see how happy it makes Sharon!