Word World Birthday Party

When Tate first started talking about birthday themes, he wanted to do a space party again. Then a few weeks ago, we started talking about it again. He thought he might want a Star Wars birthday. STAR WARS?! I know nothing about Star Wars! In fact, I have never seen any of the movies. I guess I could have made something up because the only character he knows Darth Vader (my mom found a costume at a garage sale). He also thinks Darth Vader and Toyota are superheroes from the movie.
I started frantically wracking my brain to come up with a counter offer! (I'm sure there was smoke and everything!) Luckily, the "aha!" light bulb came fairly quick.... Word World, his favorite TV show. He agreed to combine it with the space theme to make it Out of this Word World.
As I started looking for cake ideas, I sort of panicked. All the cakes I had found were WAY above my skill level (reference last year's cake). I'm not a baker. I'm more of a Rachel Ray 30 minute meals or Semi-homemade with Sandra Lee cook. One idea I saw really fit our theme. I asked my friend, Chari, if she could offer any suggestions for the rocket. She found it on Cake Central and it was a done with color flow, but a flooded sugar cookie would be just as easy. She sent me some links on how to do it and how to transfer an image to cake. All she had to say was sugar cookie and I knew I could fake it!
The rocket image came from a screen shot of the Word World "Rocket to the Moon" episode I enlarged. Later, I found 2 different rockets in the coloring pages on their website. That would have saved a lot of time!

 I used pre-made cookie dough; the kind that comes in a roll. The practice version took less than 1/2 the roll. I flattened it out, put the paper on top and cut around it. I used a knife to put indentations where I wanted the letters. I added food coloring to the lines in case they disappeared during baking.

Attempt #1 spread out too much when I baked it. It would have been too big to put on top of the cake. For the party version, I didn't fair much better with size. I'm not great at geometry... I made it thicker thinking that would help. It turned out bigger than before. Oh well, it made more for the guests.

For the frosting, I used a butter cream recipe (which I can't find the link for). I put the details on using a pastry bag and easy clean up with this method!

 I brought the cakes down to my skill level too. I used a white cake box mix, substituted unsweetened applesauce for the oil and added some almond extract to give it a different flavor. Tate requested a blue moon (incidentally, there were two this month), so I also added blue food coloring. The white swirls came from the bottom of the pans... I had forgotten to add the food coloring and remembered just as I was about to put them in the oven... WHEW!

 The frosting is the same butter cream I used on the cookie and the same technique was used for the detailing.

Michael was afraid we wouldn't have enough, so I ended up making the Earth too.

Here's how I set them up on the table.

I didn't get a picture of the other decorations we had because it started raining and we had to move inside. We had Scrabble Junior Cheez-Its, fruit and veggies. I used dry erase markers to label the serving bowls and plates. (I covered the plates with cling wrap so the food was not contaminated.)

Tate's shirt didn't turn out exactly as I planned. I should have used the freezer paper technique, but I already had some iron-on transfer paper. Here are the images I used:

To get the moon and spaceship, it was a rather lengthy process. I paused the DVR when the image I wanted appeared on screen and took a picture with my phone. I downloaded and enlarged the picture on my computer, printed, outlined, scanned and reprinted.

I set my printer to mirror image. Then ironed it on the shirt. I just did the outlines of the images so Tate could decorate them himself. We used the new Stained by Sharpie markers. They would have worked really well, however the transfer paper I used left a residue on the t-shirt. The residue also cause the markers to smudge when he was coloring and to fade when we washed it.

Nothing ever goes exactly according to my plans. Thankfully, Tate doesn't know that or won't remember. (I had promised glow-in-the-dark frosting...  and the butter cream glowed with a black light, but the problem was finding a dark room to fit everyone in!) All he knows is that he had most of his family and friends over for cake... and presents because, really, those are the most important things when you are turning 4!