Construction Cake

Click here for details of my son's construction themed birthday party.

• I am messy, so I always use parchment or waxed paper under my cakes while I decorate.

• I used two boxes of devil's food cake mix, baked as directed in two 9x13 rectangle pans.

• I used toothpicks to mark a road. I then frosted the entire cake with cream cheese icing that I tinted with an absurd amount of green food coloring. This is as close to grass green that I could manage. I have since learned that gel food dyes work better and you use less, but I haven't tried that yet.

• It took a little less than two tubs of frosting and I really loaded up the top so I could 'pull it' to look more like grass. The sides don't have to be thick or pretty because you can cover them later. I know you can use tips and bags to get a grassy look, but I don't have the patience for that. I have no idea where I learned this trick but I just stuck a clean butter knife flat on the frosting & pulled straight up all over to get the look I wanted. See the picture? I know it looks like waves of green water but in the big picture, it served its purpose for a three year old.

• Then fill the roadway with graham cracker crumbs (I only used 2 whole crackers, crushed in a baggie).

 
Now for the details:

• Chocolate sugar wafers stuck onto the sides....please learn from my very lucky mistake: They go soft and kinda chewy overnight AND they fall apart waiting for the party, so if you want them to stay nice and perfect, wait until the last minute to use them on the cake itself. I personally love how they were falling all over the place and it looked like it was done on purpose.
• I ran out of wafers near the back corner so I just used popsicle sticks to look like a wooden fence. I would have liked for them to be the wide ones, but I used what I had on hand.
• The little guy standing near the candles is one of the toy drivers from another construction truck among our playroom fleet.
• The rocks are actually completely edible chocolate rocks that Santa found at TJMaxx while looking for stocking stuffers. I somehow managed to convince my child to let me save most of them for his construction party and hid them away until the day of the party.
• Lastly, after the cake was set up at the party, I stuck his excavator/digger at the end of the road and crumbled the cake a bit to make it look like it was under construction.

Pretty cool, huh? Candy coated chocolate 'rocks'

We Like to Party

Adding this shirt to my birthday collection for BCFP, customizable to fit other themes, of course.

My oldest turned 3 at the end of February and knew just what kind of party he wanted months in advance. The kid is totally obsessed with tools and construction, so a Construction Birthday Party was on the books. See the end of this post for links to places & parties I visited for inspiration. Thanks to my ever-helpful mother for snapping shots of just about everything and a few from friends.

Check back soon for DIY directions for this cake.

Our local zoo has a pretty outstanding playground and surrounding picnic/party pavilions so my parents staked claim to one close to the play area and the bathrooms.

I think my favorite part of this party was the cake, but I loved the simple (mostly borrowed) decorations, too. I am a perfectionist at heart but small children and a time schedule force me to step out of my comfort zone more than I care to admit.

This is how it all broke down:

• Tables were covered with black plastic table covers ($1.99 at the party supply store) held in place by basic woodworking clamps, i.e. c-clamps & spring clamps (borrowed from my dad). I wanted to put yellow dotted lines down the middle of the table covers to add that road look, but I ran out of time and it was still fine. I would recommend finding yellow duct tape or gluing strips of paper if you want to do this.
• My mother-in-law kindly sent us a box of goodies from the huge party store where she lives. Included were construction themed plates and napkins, hats, a Happy Birthday banner and table top decorations. Oh, and I can't forget to mention the fabulous candles that look like safety cones.
• The birthday boy's uncle purchased a set of bulletin board border on clearance at an office supply store and I saved it for this party. It comes in strips so we just taped them randomly throughout the party space, using black electrical tape. Look here for the exact kind he found. 
•  The food table was so simple & I love how well it turned out. We used part of the birthday boy's our fleet of construction trucks, thoroughly cleaned. His giant dump truck was filled with chocolate covered mini doughnuts and the front loader was pushing a pile of pretzel nuggets. Someone mentioned that the doughnuts looked like tires, but I was hoping they were boulders. Either way, the kids demolished them and I didn't have to make anything but a trip to the store.
• Plastic construction party hats are easy to come by and we decided to scatter them around the food and cake to fill the table. Most of them have a flat space on the front so you can attach stickers to go along with your party design or the party-goers' names, or write with permanent marker.
• We used sports marker cones to hold bunches of yellow, orange and black balloons at the corners of the entrance to the pavilion. You can see one set on the corner of the food table. We purchased ours at Hibbett Sports but they have some just like them here at Target.

Want to know how I made the cake? Check back soon for the DIY instructions.

Be sure to check out the following blogs/sites for my inspiration and so many more great ideas for a construction themed birthday party.
Your Southern Peach
Juicy Bits
The Smiths
Kids Party Fun
seattletimes
 Creative Hostess
  Creative Party Place

And guess what? My friend is letting me help with her daughter's Princess Party! I get to make the castle cake (!) and am really looking forward to another cake creation and something girly for a change!