Somewhere over the rainbow - Cyan turns 11!!

Some highlights from Cyan’s ‘Sky & Rainbow’ party. 

This party was simple and lovely.  The decorations were fresh flowers and cardstock  fan rounds put up behind the dinner table.  Dinner was ‘make your own’ kebabs, rainbow fruit kebabs, and burgers from the grill.

I made a rainbow punch from sprite and fresh fruit.

The make-your-own kebab station was also a rainbow of wonderful fruits and veggies to grill up with the burgers!

The fruit kebabs, inspired by Pinterest, were a must,

…and the kids absolutely loved them!

Even Luke!

The flowers were the main décor.  I bought a few colors I didn’t have (orange and purple mostly), but much of these beautiful bouquets were from my own flower beds!

Next up we had a big, fat, backyard dance party.  Cyan picked all the tunes and the girls danced, then ate, then danced some more.  They are now in the stage where they teach each other dance routines to their favorite songs and it was so fun to watch!  No ends of giggles for the mamas that hung around.  We all remember being 11. 

And just look at Luke!  In the middle of the party, dancing his little heart out.  So cute!

Cake Time!

I actually made the cake this year!  It took some doing and a whole day, but this 6 layer rainbow cake was all me me me!  And MAN was I proud of this cake!  (For those of you that don’t know, I don’t really like baking and I don’t like eating cake, so this was a huge deal for me.)

And just look at the inside!  Didn’t it turn out lovely?!?  (Seriously… so proud!)

All of the colors were from natural food coloring except the blue.  I loosely used this guide for my colors and added a bit of my own flare to it as well.  I also changed the cake batter I used for each layer to help the colors be stronger.  How I did it is as follows:

Each layer was a 1/2 of a cake batter recipe.

• Red = Egg white, white cake with 1/4 cup smashed raspberries and 2 Tbs beet juice
• Orange = Egg yolk yellow cake with 2 1/2 Tbs carrot juice
• Yellow = Egg yolk yellow cake, plain
• Green = Egg white white cake with 2 Tbs spinach juice
• Blue = Egg white white cake with 1/4 cup smashed blueberries with a bit of blue dye because the batter looked grey.  (There is nothing appealing about grey cake batter.  Especially to those of us who do not like cake.  So I added a tiny bit of blue frosting dye to this batter and it worked out perfectly!)
• Purple = Egg white white cake with 1/4 cup smashed blackberries and 1 Tbs beet juice

(Notes: I used my juicer for the juices, so they are all raw and freshly made in these recipes.)

I covered the whole thing in real buttercream icing from this recipe and put it in the fridge for a day and a half until the party.  The layers were also buttercream.  The day of the party was not super warm, so the cake was safe to sit out on the table during the festivities.  However, just in case you want to make your own, I have heard that real buttercream doesn’t like to sit in the hot hot sun so I would keep it in the fridge until just before cutting.

The craft was making rainbow makers to hang in the girls windows.  I had gotten each girl a rainbow maker crystal, a sucker hook, and a crystal bead and placed them inside rainbow colored silk bags.  However, this is where Cyan started to feel ill.  So we rushed through this part of the party and went quickly to cake and gifts so the girls could all go home.

Poor sweet girly… she felt so awful at this point.  She didn’t even have a bite of the beautiful cake I made.  Everyone else went home just after cake time, and Cyan went to bed. 

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A birthday party funny.

In going along with this ‘sky’ party theme, I thought it would be fun to have these from Pinterest.  However, I couldn’t make 15 of those in cups so I thought one big one in a  trifle bowl would be just as pretty.

Nailed it.