After all the planning and organizing that went into making Zac's surprise birthday party happen, when the night finally came, I relaxed and enjoyed the celebration. Rather than running around the party and taking pictures of all of the details, I sat back and mingled with all of our guests. Being a scrapbooker and blogger I know better than to let an event go by without taking pictures, but I'm glad that I wasn't glued to my camera the whole night. We captured a few photos here and there, so here are a few of the details from Zac's birthday bash.
I cannot even begin to say how utterly excited I was (and still am) about this cake! I have the BIGGEST thank you to send out to Zac's sister, Sarah, for the creation of this amazing beer mug cake. Seriously....just look at it!
A few months ago, while looking online for ideas for Zac's beer tasting theme party, I came across a picture of a beer mug cake. I sent the photo to Sarah telling her that I thought it would be cool if we could somehow make it for the party. Within roughly 15 minutes, Sarah had sent back a photo of a contraption she had created in her garage that would allow us to suspend an empty beer bottle from the cake. (There are so many reasons why I love her!) We did a little researching online about how to make a great beer flavored cake, as well as tips on how to apply fondant, and other cake decorating ideas. When it came time to make the cake for the party, Sarah and I took a trip to Lowe's to get all of the supplies for our cake. It was quite comical walking up and down the aisles getting a few wooden dowels and a piece of metal.....for a cake.
In the end we made a five layer Guinness chocolate cake with buttercream frosting between each layer. The cake was then covered with vanilla fondant and topped with hand whipped cream cheese frosting. To get the fondant to look like an actual mug full of beer, we purchased two cans of spray food coloring (one yellow, the other orange) and applied some brown food coloring using a sponge brush. A wooden dowel was put in the center of the cake, covered with fondant and sprayed to look like a stream of beer. The beer bottle was rested on a second, smaller dowel that was attached to the larger dowel. To make sure that the bottle didn't move around and fall off of the cake, it was secured with a little glass glue. It turned out better than I could have ever hoped. Thanks to Sarah again for making it happen. Zac was blown away by his birthday cake and everyone agreed that it was also pretty yummy!
Next to the cake, we placed a small chalkboard with "Zac's Bar est. 1981" on it to go along with the beer tasting/pub feel. I found the chalkboard at The Salvation Army for only $2.88. We plan to use it for the wedding on the bar to let our guests know what we have available.
All of the beer was placed outside in a bunch of metal tubs. Next to the beer table we set up a little table with tasting glasses and cards for people to write down beers that they liked and beers they didn't care for.
The cards said "Beers to remember" and "Beers to forget" and had several lines under each category so that guests could keep track of their tastings. At the end of the night guests could take their cards home as a way of remembering the beers they tried at the party.
As I mentioned in yesterday's post, we had some wine for the non beer drinking guests. To make the wine bottles a little more fun I created labels for the occassion (using the same process as when I created labels asking my girls to be bridesmaids). The new labels had the words "Zac's Whine Aged 30 Years" printed above a photo of a crying baby Zac. Everyone got a giggle out of seeing Zac's cute little baby face.
I purchased a pack of clear 9oz. cups for tasting. Since the cups were kind of plain I decided to add a little surprise to each glass by drawing fun mustaches on each one. It was quite fun to watch people bring a glass to their lips and have a little mustache appear.
We set up three 8 foot tables on the lawn in the shape of a 'u' for our guests to sit and enjoy some food and good company. To decorate the tables we placed flowers in empty beer bottles to add a pop of color. Each table also got two beer cups/mugs filled with beer nuts and pretzels. In the center of each table was a little box filled with suckers. Stuck in each box was a sign on a stick that said "30 Sucks!".
We also put a few tea lights on each of the tables to add some nice lighting after the sun went down.The guests seemed to like the atmosphere (and thankfully a cool breeze) outside.
I also couldn't resist lighting our tree lights. It was the first time that we had a large group of guests over since Project Wonderland had gotten underway.
The morning of the party, the boys went to the store and picked up some games for the bbq dinner Zac thought we were having that night. That evening we set up a bean bag toss game, cornhole, and beer pong.
I may have missed out on getting pictures of the table centerpieces, the tissue paper pom poms, and the birthday banner, but it was well worth it to enjoy the party and watch the birthday boy have fun at his surprise bash!
Zac loved having everyone hanging out in our backyard. He's excited to get the backyard projects underway and invite people over for another party so that they can check out our progress. I can't wait to see the changes we can make before the next big party.
No comments:
Post a Comment