Yo Gabba Gabba Party!
These favors/decorations were a pain in the ass. They're very cute and I got a lot of compliments, but time consuming and difficult. Now, I'm not a person that works with cakes and chocolates, so if you are, then this might not be so hard. I'll save all most of my trials and failures and tell you what worked.
DO NOT attempt to use almond bark or candi-quik and dye it. DO NOT attempt to melt this chocolate in the microwave or stove-top. Typically I do not have a problem with the stove-top chocolate melting method, however, this white chocolate screwed me up. I wasted so much. Off to the store I went to get the pre-dyed chocolate chips. I think they're made by Wilton. I did see them at Michael's Craft Store and I ended up at Wal-Mart (it was closer when I was in dire straits). I also used some chocolate melting pot my MIL had. Maybe it was a warmer....not sure, but it was red. And I'm going to buy my own because it's just that good.
THE MOST USEFUL TIP I LEARNED DURING THIS PROCESS:::: If you're going to use the chocolate melting chips and the chocolate begins to get hard and unworkable, add a little vegetable or canola oil and it will get more flexible.
Toodee Ingredients: Double Stuf Oreo Cookies; eyes; black icing in the tube; light blue icing in a tube; white icing in a tube; lollipop sticks; pre-dyed chocolate chips....they're quarter shaped; parchment paper and a cookie sheet
Toodee was a bitch. This was the last one I did but it was first in my camera. From the other projects I learned to use the red chocolate melting pot.
I started to stick the lollipop sticks in the Oreos and they broke apart. So then I twisted them apart and put it back together and the cookies cracked. After about 10 failures I decided Double Stuf Oreos would've been the better route. I tossed the lollipop sticks aside and just did the cookies sans stick. Most of the Oreos were already cracked coming straight out of the package so that was annoying.
Put Toodee's eyes on when the chocolate is wet. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and put the cookies on it to dry (harden). You can put that in the fridge for 10 min. or so until it's hard then go back and put on her face. I used gel decoration for the ears and face "fur" and it did not harden so when I put it in the bags it smeared. Whatever you use to decorate, make sure it will dry.
The full set-up. My MIL bought vases at the Dollar Tree and filled the bottom with LemonHeads then stuck the Plex Marshmallows in them.
I did not make this cake :( But it was almond with strawberry filling.
I did not make this one either, but I did make the Plex Marshmallows that are photo-bombing. This was chocolate inside.Plex Ingredients: gigantic marshmallows, yellow melting chips, lollipop sticks, candy eyes, black icing.
Ah, Plex. Dear Old Plex is where I learned that it IS possible to overcook CandiQuik. In order to keep my cubital tunnel hand from typing this hysterical process, I'll save it all and tell you that MIL and I had to apply this on 50 something marshmallows using a knife and our hands. I thought this would be as simple as heat the chocolate up and dip, but it got as hard as ice cream and was impossible to dip. If I were to do this again, I would do this process like we did Toodee. You can put the food (cookies, marshmallows, whatever) in the melting pot, toss it around a bit and pull it out then put on parchment paper to cool. We did stick the marshmallows BEFORE putting the chocolate on and that helped.
This one was SO easy. Once the chocolate was melted, I just rubbed it on the pretzel, smoothed it out with my finger, put it on the parchment paper and put on the eye.
Here's Brobee with Toodee. My MIL is the cookie master. I cannot begin to tell you how to make them. I did help ice and decorate them. I can tell you that it is like an almond sugar cookie. She used white fondant for the eyes, cut them in circles and dotted with black icing. We used powdered sugar, water, and green dye for the face and red icing for the lips, black icing for his unibrow. The red horns are Sugar Sheets. They have a plastic backing on them.
All of the above projects (minus the cakes) took about 8 hours combined. My MIL helped me with Brobee, Plex, Muno. I did Toodee on a separate night by myself.
I did have an idea for Foofa and it was to use strawberries and dip them in pink chocolate but my party was outside, and frankly, I ran out of time to do her.
Crock Pot Asian Pork Tenderloin
- 2 lb pork tenderloin
- 1/2 cup Ginger Orange sauce from Target
- 1 c. chicken broth
- 1/4 c. brown sugar
- 4 cloves chopped garlic or cheat like me and get the already minced and use 2 tsp
the rest of these ingredients to taste (I didn't measure)
- crushed red pepper
- onion powder (I'm sure you could use real onions, I didn't have any)
- chili powder
- black pepper
cook high for 4-5 hours
I did not make the cake, but I did do everything else.
The cake is done by Kelli's Kakes (on FB).
diaper centerpieces again
DIY flower pens & the label for the pens is a DIY business card
taped to a toothpick, stuck in a marshmallow.
Giraffe cookies, made by me, mother-in-law and gradmother-in-law.JPG)
Elephant cookies!.JPG)
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Naked giraffes!
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Baby shower wreath
Baby shower centerpieces (Safari Theme)
Here are my son's letters for his nursery! Totally DIY. Everything from Michael's. Frames and letters painted white. Background is scrapbooking paper adhered with spray glue. Crafting glue holds on everything else. The smaller animals are scrapbooking animals.
