Get Your Sparkle On! A Fashion Fairytale Birthday for Venice!

What a whirl wind spring and early summer!

I can, with mixed emotions, announce that I am done party planning for the summer.

Just the summer people.

I'm not giving up, just taking a break.

So for my party finale, I present my little peanut's 4th birthday party.

Barbie in Paris or a Fashion Fairytale, based on a movie that came out last fall.

 Some floral inspiration from my backyard.

Unfortunately, they didn't last for the party.

*sniff*

 Doesn't mean they're not still dead in the vase.

On my table.

 Good Morning birthday girl!!

 Barbie snuck out of Mattel to dropped by and see Venice.

Unfortunately she was sleeping, but I told her it was OK to leave a message, balloons and a little gift.

Barbie's SO nice!

(wink)

Wand and sticker/coloring book from 'Barbie'.

I love the excitement in her eyes!

GG stopped by and dropped off a couple of presents in the morning.

Bride Venice.

Hair, Check!

Dress, Check!

Glitter spray, Check!

Sassy pose, Check!

Worried dad, Check.

Treat bag, with Barbie chocolate coins, bubble gum pop-rocks & glitter stickers.

Each girl got to take home a strawberry cupcake with chocolate mousse filling, topped with a vanilla bean buttercream.

The dress up rack and accessory trunk were a huge hit!

Food table!

The fashion Flairies, yes Flair-ies, dropped off some treats.

Shine brought white chocolate Eiffel Tower suckers with lustre dust.

 Shimmer brought white chocolate dipped strawberries with hot pink sugar sprinkles and disco dust.

Glimmer made some mini strawberry pop tarts.

I ate 6.

Out of 10.

Mom's got to take home a 6 pack of glitter and instructions for doing quick (and cheap) glitter pedicures with their daughters!

Pink lemonade with drink sparkles!

I had kept Venice out of the basement for about a week, this was her first time seeing it all decorated.

Isn't this one priceless?!

Strawberry cake on top of chocolate with marshmallow fondant, pink sugar diamonds, and edible sugar paper wrapping.

With an oversized Eiffel tower candle...in case you missed that.

Intensely watching Barbie reunite with ken...Oh brother.

Trying to blow out the sparkler!

Lifting + me = baaaaad photo

 See?

 Let's blow that thing out!!

Venice and her friend Isabelle from preschool.

BFF Lexie!

Cousin Olivia was SO cute!

 Getting ready for gift opening!

 Lexie, just lovin' that ring pop!

Hair cutting Barbie from Auntie Jen and Uncle Travis was a big hit!

Adding four pink feathers let me re-use the ostrich feather centerpiece from the Glam party, SA-WEET!

 Wardrobe change!

Glittered party hats, that no one wanted to wear.

Mental note: Don't stay up till 11:30 glittering hats no one will wear.

Is it just me or does she look tired?

And my little bug who almost slept through the entire party!

Venice was spoiled by her friends and family! 

Thanks to all her little friends from school and her closest family friends that came out to celebrate with us.

So far, her most used gifts are her scooter and her BFF crown necklace that she got from Lexie.

I should also mention that my memory card filled up before I could get a post-party shot of the theatre room.

WOW!!

There was more popcorn than carpet.

It was worth every kernel.

Love you Peanut!!

Je'taime Mon Petite Coeur

I am basically in love with all things french. I think there's a term for it, but I don't want to use it wrong then look like an idiot. So instead I pretend to know how to speak french and do a post title en francais.

This is common knowledge to my close people. Once I got 3 of the same toast stamps, which is a stamp that you press onto your toast leaving an imprint of the Eiffel Tower so you can have 'french' toast (I know! how flippin' cute is that?) . PS. I bought one too.

I have in fact been to Paris, if you can call 3 days, actually being in Paris. I'm holding on to that, so please don't try and take it away from me! I am determined to go back one day and spend a little more time than 72 hours of frantic racing around.

So right now, I am vicariously living in France through some baking, buying almost anything with french writing or an Eiffel Tower on it in sight. This includes shirts, art, clothes for my little girls, subtitled movies and keeping all my food in the fridge and pantry turned around so the french labels all face out. 

 In keeping with the french spirit of things, such as love and pastry, I whipped up my easiest treat yet! And when I say 'my' I mean my baking hero, Heather from Sprinkle Bakes. She's one of a kind, Artist/Baker, who is taking the foodie world by storm. And she also is kind and answers my stupid questions really fast!  If you click on the link above, it'll take you right to her site and the recipe for her French Palmiers. If you don't want the recipe, you should just go to her site simply for her pictures, they are art all on their own.

So here they are, my version of the French Palmiers, made in to hearts (shocking, right?).

What you need:

1 package of puff pastry, thawed.

1/2 - 1 cup of sugar.

Rolling pin

Spread 1/2 of your sugar on to a cutting board (I like to use a cutting board simply for easy clean up, but you can use your counter top too.)

Spread out your puff pastry on top of the sugar.

Put the remainder of your sugar on top of the puff pastry.

Roll out the sugar-covered pastry until its 1/4 " thick, or resembles a large rectangle.

Roll the sided into each other, until they meet in the middle.

Flip over your tube of pastry and slice into 1/2 " slices.

Place your slices on a parchment lined cookie sheet.

I unrolled mine just a little and pinched the middle so my cookies resembles hearts.

Put in a 450 degree oven for 4 minutes, spin your pan around and bake for another 4 minutes. Best to stay around and watch them juuuuuust in case, that's one hot oven.

The only thing I actually did differently was that I didn't flip my cookies over. I've tried it that way, it just hasn't worked for me, these have been my best batch to date.

So crunchy and flaky.

I love these cookies!