Ethan's Maisy Mouse Train 2nd Birthday Party!

I'm finally getting around to sharing my photos from Ethan's party! I probably spent twice the many hours planning this party than his First Birthday Party! Since his theme was Maisy's Train and Maisy is a European cartoon, no party goods are available in the U.S. I ended up purchasing a flatbed scanner to scan images from Maisy books so I had something to work with.

First is the invite, right? You can see the invite on my post here that I wrote a few weeks back. I used my digiscrapping software to construct this invite. It turned out great!

I started working on all the details about a week before the party. I made some stickers for the napkins. Inside the napkins was a fork. I found a basket on clearance at Target that fit the right amount of napkins and plates. Since there was a lot on the table this helped the space.

I spent $12 making goody boxes which included everything even the shredded paper. I bought smelly bubbles and mini tubs of playdough at the dollar store. I also included a wooden train whistle for each child. I made stickers for the playdough and for the boxes.

I made a sign to go with the candy buffet and take home bags. I was wanting to make stickers for the boxes as well, but I knew I would have leftovers and decided not to put stickers on them so I could use them for another party.

I also enlarged the image from his invite to make a sign in table in my foyer when you first come in. I had several of his 2 year pictures framed on the table and had a guest book and flowers on it. I wish I hadn't forgotten to take a picture of it  :-/

Here is the party pictures! I didn't take many with my digital camera and used my dads 35mm camera. I didn't realize I had the wide angle lens on (don't laugh, I'm still learning about cameras!) which means I needed the flash with the special filter on it. My dad told me once he got there, but I had already taken pictures of the cake and everything. I didn't think I would need to go back and re-take the photos. That is why some of the photos are a little blurry. Live and learn right?

Here's the whole room

A close up of the table (with my digital camera)

A little better close up of the table (right when I started cutting the cake)

The candy buffet! We had a ton of candy leftover which we will be using at our Halloween Gingerbread Party in a few weeks.

The Cake! Wow, this thing was a monster ;-) It took about 12 hours to make this. I made a 2 tier cake, 6 and 9 inch layers. White cake on top tier and chocolate on the bottom tier. All covered with buttercream frosting. Everything on the cake is edible. The "2" I made out of fondant and I added tylose powder to make it a gum paste. I made it about a week before the party so it had time to dry. Some of the items (the train) I started to make a few days before the party, but really almost everything I made the day before the party and transferred it straight to the cake. I was wanting to add a few more animals to fill in the cake (esp the bottom tier). However, after spending 12 hours on the cake I was pooped (not to mention pregnancy fatigue decided it wanted to kick in that day!). Overall, I am really happy with how the cake turned out. It was the most difficult thing I have made yet. I don't see myself as an artist and it took me several tries to make each animal look half way reasonable :-)

This picture cracks me up. It is when Ethan was blowing out his candles, but it looks like Andrew and I are ready to blow them out just in case he can't! ha! He did fine though, he's full of hot air, so I don't know why we wouldn't think he couldn't do it ;-)