The countdown has begun, and to top it off...I've been home sick from work for two days now. Since I was planning on blogging my party planning journey anyway, I guess there's no better time to sit and type than when you're laid up on the couch. And might I just state for the record, daytime television sucks! Whew, now that I've gotten that out; back to my son's upcoming party!
I will admit, I sometimes wish that my son's birthday fell in the summer months rather than the end of October, simply because I could invite more people if we could put up a nice tent out in the yard. Alas, that's not the case, so we're happy to celebrate with a more intimate guest list...but that doesn't mean we have to have a tame little sit down either!
So, with the big day coming soon, it's time to really get started on the cake! As for the rest of my party planning, I have a spreadsheet (naturally), complete with time lines, color coding and lists. Since I'm planning on doing a nice treat table complete with Oreo & Cake Pops, Iced sugar cookies and a yummy sweet chex mix; next week is going to be a nightly dough making, cookie decorating, cake batter mixing, baking and freezing extravaganza!
If you've read some of my more recent cake posts, you'll see that my love affair with fondant ended almost as soon as it began. I chose to nix covering the cake with all fondant and just do a nice, smooth, butter cream with fondant accents. I did my research and I discovered that it's best to make the fondant accents as far as 2 weeks in advance so to give them adequate drying time which will reduce the possibility of colors bleeding into the butter cream.
I've been slowly buying my supplies from my local craft store for the past few months, one 40% off one item coupon at a time! I've also rummaged through my mom's cake supplies. Between the two of us, I've got enough supplies to get this party started!
For my fondants, I went with Wilton's white, black and red. I'd heard that tinting fondant black was a messy and difficult task, so I went the easy route and just bought it that way. For Elmo's cute little orange nose, I opted to color it myself.
