Bellis 6th Birthday - Wild Zoofari

My beautiful girl is 6!!!

I couldn't decide which animal print to use, so I used them all!

animal print shoes and M2M hair clip

oct 7 she came home from school to a couple of balloons and her birthday banner!

oct 9 here she is at her birthday party, wearing her zebra animal print hat, glasses and bracelet and this shirt dress and matching shoes her aunt gave her. Perfect for fall weather!

the invitations

I made her a birthday banner with the same fabric as her birthday dress

centerpieces, zebra print buckets and animal candy pops

sugar iced cookies for the grown ups

at the end we decided on a cake instead of cupcakes -I was short on time and it was quicker to do the fondant animal print spots and stripes than the fondant animal faces- finished it off with animal print candles.

playing with food

This weekend was one of the rare ones when we have no birthdays, no projects, no work for Gus, in other words is a lazy weekend, so I got to play :) I got my cookie cutters, baking supplies, fondant, food coloring and this is what I came up with:

these are going to be cupcake toppers...need about 3 more sets!

as per Gus: the giraffe is too round & the elephants trunk is too thick, so they'll be going in the OR for reconstructive surgery & hopefully will come out better than they went in...or they might just not make it :(

These Hello Kitty cookies are a trial run for a birthday coming up in December with this theme. I think the iced ones taste better but the fondant ones look the best.

w/out whiskers

with whiskers


I used a shortbread cookie, not too sweet, otherwise it will be sugar overload!

with whiskers...

w/out whiskers...my favorite

I tried different designs and consistencies, my favorite one is the bat and the my worst one is "Barbie" icing was not thin enough & the design shows it :(

these are the perfect bite size!...for someone who takes small bites ; )

pink and brown cowgirl outfit

This weekend Belli attended a western birthday for 3 of her cousins, and although she has about 4 "cowgirl" outfits, none are pink. And because I decided on making this outfit on Thursday night, I took the easy way out: to applique a store bought tshirt, and a simple denim polkas skirt. I spent 2 hrs. and$8.50 ($5.00 for the t'shirt, and $3.50 for the denim fabric) I had all the other notions but it would have been about $5.00 for ribbon, rhinestones, felt, and fabric.

The front of the shirt had a felt horseshoe applique embellished with iron on pink metal studs

I added a coordinating ribbon band and flower to the hat (which originally had a lace trim with a blue flower for the Gymboree Malibu cowgirl line)

the back of the t'shirt had an applique with iron on rhinestones and 3d fabric paint

I, and most importantly Belli (because if she doesn't like it she won't wear it!) loved the outfit, I wish I could make one just like it for me!

Belli's birthday theme

Ever since Belli was about 18 months she has been obsessed with horses, and still is. For her 2nd birthday we had a petting zoo and pony rides and after her 4th and 5th birthday not being at home or as big as we are used to I wanted her 6th to be at home because I have more freedom at doing things exactly how I like them, my way. She had mention she wanted a rock star birthday, or a party at the zoo, or with animals so the first thing that came to mind was a "cowgirl" birthday with horses. Well, after I had convinced her to go with the western theme and accumulated supplies for the past 4 months I had to rethink this idea and just go with whatever she really wants, it's her birthday after all.
When I had scheduled the pony rides, mechanical bull and was about to get to work on her decorations...

we received this invitation...for a family member's birthday just 2 weeks before Belli's birthday. So we went back to either rock star or zoo theme, what a dilemma!

so she finally decided on a zoo party, and what better decor for this theme than animal print!