This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking them, we will be compensated, but there is no additional cost to you. All opinions expressed are our own. Thank you for your support. Last Spring, which feels like a million years ago, Tupperware was running a special on this adorable Party Set for Kids! At the time it was only $19.99! I fell in love with it. Look at the adorable tiny pitcher and that mini version of the classic cake taker! I purchased 3 sets to give to my 3 youngest granddaughters. I gave my granddaughter Emily a set first. She loved it and I actually decorated a mini cake so that we could have a little party with her parents and my husband. It was so cute and fun! I got to thinking that it would be a lot of work to make a real cake every time the girls wanted to play with these sets. Wouldn't it be great if I made a play cake that they could use when a real little cake wasn't available?
Well, I kept thinking and thinking about that idea as Emily played with her little set, and then I gave the second set to Amelia and I still thought it would be a good idea. Now, the time has come for me to give the final set to Sofia, and I have finally taken my idea and turned it into reality!
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This post contains affiliate links. I will be compensated for purchases made through those links at no additional cost to you. All views expressed are my own. Thank you for your support! A couple years ago, I showed you how I made this Daniel Tiger birthday cake for my daughter's first birthday. That has been one of our most popular posts, so I thought today I'd show you what I did for her third birthday party! She has been adamant for a few months that she wanted an elephant birthday party. So I set about figuring out what one does for an elephant party. I am going to show you the cake I made and give you the recipe for it. I also want to tell you about the games we played. First, a word on decorations. I went with easy and got grey balloons and plates. I got small clear sparkling cups for drinking. Now, on to games! Creating a twist on the classic pin the tail on the donkey game is always fun and easy to do for a kids birthday party. Since this was an elephant birthday party, of course I had to make a pin the trunk on the elephant! I'll be uploading a copy of this to our subscribers only page this weekend, so you can print it and have a pin the trunk on the elephant game for your own elephant party! So make sure you subscribe to get a copy of it! Of course, all the rules to this game are the same. This is a picture of her cousin after he pinned his trunk perfectly (we think there may have been some fraud involved). It is a fun game for all ages! The second game we played was one my MIL came up with. She ran to the store and found a bag of unshelled peanuts (no small feat in December when they aren't in high demand.) She and Emily hid them around her yard. Then when her cousins came over they went on a peanut hunt. All of her cousins at the party were her bigger cousins, so they let the 3 year old birthday girl win. But a hunt is a fun activity when the weather is nice. It'll help the kids work up a nice appetite for the elephant cake you'll eat later! A few other fun ideas for elephant party activities are making elephant masks for the kids to wear, like these here. I was pretty happy with how this cake turned out. Drawing is not my forte, everyone else on this blog is much better at it than I am. Fortunately, an elephant head is a pretty simple shape to duplicate! So, if you're like me and think you can't draw well AT ALL (honestly people, my stick figures don't usually turn out right) I am here to tell you, you CAN make this elephant cake! You can see from the picture the eyes are a little uneven and the trunk isn't perfect. Guess what, it's your kid's birthday party so, it's okay! Emily loved her elephant cake, and that is what mattered. I even drew these little elephants on the side. They weren't perfect either, but they still looked like little elephants. I am really happy with the overall look of this cake, and you will be too! The recipe I'm sharing with you is my go to recipe for chocolate cake. It comes from the back of the Hershey's Cocoa box. It is such a moist, delicious chocolate cake! It also holds up well for stacking! There you have it. A simple formula for a fun elephant birthday party.
This post contains affiliate links. I will be compensated for purchases made through those links at no additional cost to you. All views expressed are my own. Thanks for your support!
The holidays are over, but in most parts of the country, the cold weather is not! There are still plenty of reasons to enjoy Hot Cocoa Bombs. When I found these White Funfetti Chips in our local grocery store, I knew that White Chocolate Funfetti Birthday Bombs for the Winter Birthdays would be an awesome idea!
In ourFall Flavors Hot Cocoa Bomb Book, available in our Etsy Shop, I explain that different types of chocolate act differently when you melt them and try to put them into the molds. I was a little unsure about how Funfetti Morsels would work, because white chocolate is usually very hard to get to cling to the mold if it is melted to too high of a temperature. But, I was so pleasantly surprised at how well these funfetti chips worked in the molds. There wasn't a lot of pooling in the bottom of the mold and the white chocolate, mixed with the funfetti sprinkles, kept its shape very well.
I want to let you in on how the process works when we come up with new flavors and designs of Hot Cocoa Bombs.
First of all, I needed to decide what flavor to put inside of these Birthday Bombs. When I tasted the chips themselves, I didn't really get a birthday cake flavor, simply white chocolate. I thought to myself that banana flavor might go great with them. When I asked the girls what they thought, they thought vanilla or cheesecake. So, I made a few of each flavor. Guess what, they all tasted good! I used Jello Instant Pudding in various flavors to add the flavor to these Bombs. I wanted the color to be light so that other surprises could happen when the Bomb is melted into the milk. You can flavor them however you would like! Here are the 3 things that I did:
Third, I had to decide how I wanted to decorate them! I thought I would pipe on stars and make them look like a birthday cake! A star on top with a gold sprinkle would be like a candle. WELL, that was less than successful! My family was split in the decision that I should do something different when they saw the pictures! Here is one of the original pics. I leave you to your own thoughts.
So, I changed the look by adding more sprinkles. I rolled some of the bottoms along the bottom sides, others, I just sprinkled more on the top. Remember, these are my first prototypes of these Birthday Bombs.
Of course, the fun part is testing the bombs to see how they melt into the hot milk and how they taste! All of these blue sprinkles turned the milk blue right away! I know kids will love that! Then there were some bubbles and the best part is always when the marshmallows pop up to the top!
We usually make our Hot Cocoa Bombs in the traditional bomb shape. But, we have been known to make them in other shapes as well. We have done Christmas Trees and this year Maddy made some Star Wars Ship shaped ones. (Those would be great for a Star Wars or Outer Space themed party!) I have seen people making a lot of pretty round ones as well. I have a one inch round mold that I used to make chocolate bells for the 12 Days of Christmas. I decided to make smaller Hot Cocoa Bombs for the smaller kids, since our normal Bombs make a large mug of Hot Cocoa. They came out pretty cute.
I think that at a snowy day birthday party, these fancy snowballs would be a welcome treat. For young children, I like to have them drop their Hot Cocoa Bomb into a hot cup of milk that has a lid. They can stir it, or you can help them stir it and they can watch the marshmallows pop up. Then, add some cold milk to cool the drink down and pop on the lid and add a straw! Saves on a lot of mess and the kids love Hot Cocoa!
The beauty of this process is that you can create Hot Cocoa Bombs in any shape or flavor that you would like! Use milk or semi-sweet chocolate and flavor them with peppermint or peanut butter. You can find all kinds of ideas in our books in our Etsy Shop, as well as tips to make it easier. We also put out a new YouTube video this year that gives more tips.
If you have anyone with a winter-time birthday, make them some special birthday Hot Cocoa Bombs! What a great treat! And, let us know how your Cocoa Bomb making is going.
You still have time to enter our Fall Flavors Hot Cocoa Bomb Contest! Click here to find out the details! This post contains affiliate links. I will be compensated for purchases made through those links at no additional cost to you. All views expressed are my own. Thank you for your support! Sunday is Grandparents Day and because my husband and I are the proud grandparents of 11 grandchildren, I decided that this is the perfect time to introduce a project that Alicia and I have been working on together. Well, I did a lot of the imagining and Alicia did all of the fabulous artwork and design. The inspiration for this project came from the ideas for experience gifts that I see many grandparents doing for their grandchildren. I thought that it would be great to have a way to record and keep memories of those grandparent/grandchild times together. I also wanted to suggest ideas for experience gifts that grandparents on fixed incomes and small budgets could afford and yet still be something that children would look back on with fondness as well as be excited about in the moment. Alicia and I brainstormed and came up with a long list of ideas and put them into categories and then Alicia set to work drawing and designing. I sent the finished design to Staples to get it printed as a huge, interactive poster. That is easy and inexpensive to do. Then, because I had 2 grandchildren staying with me for the summer, I used them as my guinea pigs to see how they liked the poster. They really liked it and it was so endearing and fun to hear from them the things that they wanted to include on the poster that meant something to them. They would think of ways to make the activities we did fit into the poster categories. They also would look at the ideas and come up with activities for us to do together on their own. It was a lot of fun! My main focus for this project has been the idea of giving the chart as a gift along with a date set in stone to do a certain activity with your grandchild. With the holidays right around the corner, this is a good start to your holiday shopping list. You can give the poster along with an item that goes along with your planned activity! Here is a list of ideas and some links to get your juices flowing. Experience Categories and gift ideas:
Here is a gallery of pics showing some of the things we did with our grandkids this summer. I can't wait to make memories with the rest of my grandchildren! There are so many other activities that you could fit into this chart that I didn't list. Since I was going for inexpensive, I didn't include horseback riding or water skiing. But those could totally go under "new skill" or "swimming". If you have any great ideas for experience gifts for our grandchildren, I know that I would love to hear them. Please share in the comment section below. We have also made this poster into a booklet form if you think that would be a better way for your grandchild to keep their memories. There is the option to print a full sheet booklet or to get two half sheet booklets. We included some blank pages in it where you can add more experiences that we didn't include on our list. And, there is room for pictures! (We glued pictures on the poster sometimes, too.) I have sent the booklet to be printed at Staples. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten it back in time to share pictures with you today. There is always the option of printing the booklet yourself on your home computer, but that can be a little tricky when you figure out how to print them back to back. It can be done though! If you send it to a place like Staples be sure to give the instruction to print the book "head to head." We are making these posters and booklets available in our Etsy Shop! They are available with the words "Adventures with Grandparents", "With Grandma" or "With Grandpa", whichever fits your situation. For this Grandparents Weekend, we're running a special on them, so don't miss out! While you are checking out the Etsy Shop, don't forget to check out the Pie Book and the Hot Cocoa Bomb Idea Book, (which is soon going to have an addition)! Fall is the time to start making pie and hot chocolate! Our Favorite! Aren't you just so excited for Fall and the holidays that go with it? If you use these experience ideas, you have a good start on your holiday gift giving! Be sure to give us some love in the comments!
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Creators of Hot Cocoa Bombs! (copyrighted)
Author
Helen Reynolds: Mother of six children , grandmother to eleven! I love to cook, craft and create things and I especially love doing that with my family, So, when my lawyer daughter, Lindsey, my artist daughter, Madalynn, and I came up with the idea of Hot Cocoa Bombs, this blog was born. Then, one more daughter, with her technical and science skills, plus creativity has joined in to round us out! Read more about us here! Archives
April 2024
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