We had a Christmas party last weekend and it was a blast! I especially had fun decorating and incorporating a Buddy the Elf theme. That is my favorite holiday movie! For the dessert table I had a cake with candy canes on top to imitate the 7 levels of the candy cane forest, chocolate peppermint bark, snowflake gumdrops, marshmallows, petite tree cakes, and sugar cookies.
We served Coconut Vanilla Bellini’s for a Christmas cocktail. The cup rims are coated in red and green sugar.
I printed off quotes from the movie and set them around the party
Coffee station with coffee quote: “You did it! Congratulations! World’s Best Cup of Coffee. Great job everybody!”
Table Setting: I found a very cute book of Christmas scrapbook papers. I used these as place mats and every setting had a different design.
Centerpiece: Pine cone filled basket and 2 large mason jars filled with cranberries and ice. (Secret: that’s not real ice. It’s water and plastic wrap)
Such a fun party! We served Olive Garden lasagna, bread sticks, and salad for dinner. For the entertainment portion of the party we played “Minute to Win it” games and Holiday Family Feud.
These mustache and tie cookies were for a baby shower I helped put together. The colors are so fun and I got to do this cookie flooding technique I’ve been wanting to try for a while. The trick is using these bottles:
Wilton Mini Squeeze Bottles (Amazon)
I watched a few videos and found that some people mixed up their royal icing, outlined the cookies, then added a little water to do the flooding inside the cookie. Others just added the water at the beginning, outlined the cookies and filled it in, all with the same icing consistency. I tried both ways and ended up liking the second way better. As you can see, it takes a few practice cookies to get the hang of it:
But once I did, I was very happy with it.
Once you make the royal icing (recipe below), you’ll want to add 1/2 tsp at a time of water until you get the right consistency which is a 10-15 second icing. This means when you take a spoonful of icing and then drizzle a little design, it should disappear back into the icing within 10-15 seconds. If you end up getting it too runny, add in some more powdered sugar. I found this YouTube video very helpful:
Royal Icing Recipe:
4 cups powdered sugar
2 Tablespoons Meringue Powder (bought mine on Amazon)
5 Tablespoons water
1/2 teaspoon cream of tarter
Mix meringue powder and water in stand up mixer until foamy.
Add powdered sugar and cream of tarter and mix on low for about 8-10 minutes. Yes, minutes. 🙂
Transfer whatever royal icing you aren’t adding water to yet in an airtight container because it hardens quickly. So if you’re doing multiple colors, just keep out what you’ll need for the first color, and put the rest in the airtight container.
Mix in your color and then 1/2 tsp of water until icing is right consistency.
Put your 10-15 second icing into the squeeze bottle and outline the cookie. Then fill it in. If there’s some little holes where the icing didn’t quite fill, just take a toothpick and spread a little bit of the outside icing into the hole.
When they completely dry, they have a nice gloss to them and you can stack them without messing it up. Here they are on display at the shower:
The party colors were green and blue with a mustache and tie/bowtie theme. My mom has the new Cricut Explore which was amazing for making the food labels and banner.
Dessert Table
For appetizers we had bowtie pasta, meatballs & little smokies, sliders, white chocolate m&m popcorn and fruit (in a baby carriage of course 🙂 )
Drinks were served in mason jars with mustache straws. I cut out the mustaches (with Cricut Explore Machine) and just hot glued them onto some straws.
There was a photo booth where you could take silly photos with props and hats. You could also get a finger mustache tattoo there because those are awesome!
Some other details were the chalkboard sign with a To Do List
Envelopes to write your address for thank you notes
A Little Handmade Charm 