{Finally} Constance's 5th Lalaloopsy Birthday Party

Last year my daughter was OBSESSED with the Lalaloopsy dolls. Actually ever since they first came out. When they first came out, I couldn't understand what was so cool about them. Here were these dolls with extremely tiny legs and a huge hard plastic head and hard plastic hair. And they didn't do anything! Little by little I realized their little stories and cute names and then I fell in love with them too. Well not like my daughter did, but I thought they were pretty cute and LOVED the different catchy little names.

It was only fitting to give Constance a Lalaloopsy birthday party right??

Here is the invite that I designed.

 The Birthday Girl!

I had my good friend make this shirt for her and found the skirt on the clearance section at Kmart. Shoes are from the converse outlet and I made the headband.

 

These were favor tag labels that went on mini gable boxes.

I made each child a coloring book.

Found these converse sneakers to go along with the colors that we were using. The inside was the bright green color. I looks yellow in the picture.

Printing of all the party stationery

I had gotten this HUGE piece of cardboard from my previous job and drew this tree from the movies in lalaloopsy land. Then I painted it.

Party prep

Frames for the girls to decorate with buttons.

Number 5 for the front door.

Cute matching headband that I made to coordinate with everything.

Time flies by so fast! Here are a few photos through out the past years

Here at the party the girls were at work coloring in their coloring books!

Then we had story time with a lalaloopsy book.

Had the cake done at Publix. Told them that I wanted little buttons all over the cake and gave them fabric swatches of the colors.

Here they are at work making cute little button frames for their pictures that they will take individually by the lalaloopsy land tree.

Cute packaging for lolipops

I had a friend make super cute chunky necklaces for all the little girls when it was time to open presents. Having a little gift for your party guests helps with making them feel special when the birthday girl is opening her presents. They also sit pretty still too.

After the party was over!

This year's party theme will be BARBIE and we are excited!

Spring Rainbow Spiral Cookies

Spring Rainbow Spiral Cookies

A few weekends ago, I got the itch to bake something. Not to mention my daughter wanted to do some baking with mommy as well. There were so many things that I had to choose from to bake and then stuff I was craving, since I am such a sweet-a-holic!! I kept narrowing the choices down, until I just kind of made up my own thing from a recipe I had already! I love when that happens sometimes. That is how I am with cooking - I always create my own thing in the end from a recipe that I have set out to use. I will glance over it to get an idea of the ingredients and some of the directions and then I throw in my own touch :-)

My kitchen aid mixer has been just sitting around and collecting dust. Since I quit baking on a regular basis along with cake decorating, I just don't use it anymore. Well another reason is I hate cleaning all the parts! I don't like big dishes sitting around in the sink (they take up too much space for one thing and the sink fills up FAST...lol) and I am partly OCD - I have to start cleaning them right away or it will bother me. So instead of getting bothered, I just leave it alone!

I decided on a basic sugar cookie recipe but wanted it to be colorful like spring. The idea of coloring the cookie dough sounded fun, so I came up with the idea to make this batch rolled spiral cookie. I didn't come up with the whole spiral idea, of course, but the idea to try it out on this particular day.

 My Kitchen Aid fluffing the butter and sugar. 

This is what recipes mean when you CREAM the butter and sugar together. It creates a nice fluffy texture when done. Cream it for about 3-5 minutes. Its so cool to see the texture change!

Trying to bake with a 5 year old and take pictures of every step is a little hard. I missed photos of a few steps, but oh well. Maybe next time I will have many more photos.

After the dough was mixed, I separated it into 4 sections and put in separate bowls. Then we started coloring each section by hand. We wanted to get our hands all in the dough. Messy but fun. That took a lot of hand work strength.

Then It was time to roll the dough out. I don't like adding extra flour to the surface to keep the dough from sticking because you will end up with some super flour tasting cookies. So I use wax paper instead. I put the wad of dough on a decent sized waxed sheet and add another sheet on top and roll it out. That takes some arm strength and tires you out for sure! Especially when making a double batch and 4 different colors!

I forgot the photo of the 4th color. Sorry.

The challenge came when I was going to stack them all on top of each other to roll them. It was more like peel a layer of wax paper off and go fast and flip it to the other layer. Once it comes completely off the wax paper onto another layer, if its not lined up, there is really no way to take it off without messing up the dough. Most of mine came in line okay. I think one didnt, but that was okay. 

I then cut the stack in half to have 2 rolls. Other wise the roll would have been entirely too thick! I rolled each section up, wrapped in wax paper and threw it in the fridge. I couldn't get it rolled as tightly as I wanted, but hey it was my first time. I found out afterwards that I should have put it in the freezer for an hour. Oops!

When I took it out the fridge to cut, it started to crumble a little bit, but I managed to get them all done.

Here they are! They were so YUMMY!!

Started with the Vanilla-Almond Sugar Cookies recipe. This is not my recipe. I have had it for quite sometime, and don't remember where I found it.

Vanilla-Almond Sugar Cookies

3c unbleached, all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 c sugar

2 sticks of unsalted butter

1 egg

1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

1/2 tsp pure almond extract

Preheat oven to 350

Combine the flour and baking powder, set aside. Cream the sugar and butter. Add the egg and extracts and mix. Gradually add the flour mixture and beat just until combined, scraping down the bowl, especially the bottom.

Roll onto a floured surface (or wax paper in my case). Stack the colors, and roll into a roll. Place in the freezer for 1 hour. 

Cut slices from the roll and place on parchment lined baking sheets and bake for 8-10 minutes. let sit for a few minutes on the baking sheet then transfer to a cooling rack.

Note. I usually take the whole parchment sheet with the cookies and transfer them after about a minute :-) I love soft yummy cookies.

And the Winner Is......

Thank you to everyone that participated in the GIVEAWAY last week!

 I really appreciate all of your support! I am so happy to give some goodies away! The note cards and art prints will be available in my shop soon!

 Our Lovely winner will receive all of the following!

I had my daughter help with the drawing of the names! She felt so special to be included in picking someone and told everyone "good luck".

 

 AND THE WINNER IS:

Ruth I will be in contact with you to see what your preferences are on the art prints and the gift card!