Crazy Cat Lady Party

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I don’t know about you, but I love everything about cats. Most of my life, I’ve pretty much only had cats as pets and love the comfort of having them around. I know a lot of people don’t like cats because they can be little assholes sometimes, but I love little asshole cats too!

It had been a while since I had thrown a theme party, and I couldn’t decided what theme to choose, until I saw these paper plates in a store. They made me chuckle and that’s when it hit me! I need to celebrate the crazy cat lady in myself and invite all my crazy friends along for the ride. Everything, then, spiraled into cat-fueled delirium from there.

I always start my party planning by figuring out what decorations I plan to have and which of those to make myself. I am a self-proclaimed D.I.Y. Master, so making my own decor is a lot of fun for me. From the blog, Daisy Dreaming, I got the idea to make little tiny scratching posts for the food labels. I took their idea a few steps further by adding bright-colored, curled up paper clips, a little cat toy, and some fabric to the base of the post. I was incredibly happy with how they turned out!

To include a bit of the “Internet Cat” feel to my party, I made the food labels look like the oh-so-familiar cat memes you can’t escape online. Altogether, the scratching posts and food labels were popular at my party. A couple of my friends even took some home with them as party favors at the end.

Speaking of the food, I had to have some cat themed food at this party. The most popular (well, not too popular) item was the Cat Litter Cake! Most people were too grossed out by the look of it to even eat it. That just means more cake and frosting goodness for me!

This was the easiest cake I think I have ever made. It consists of a box of white cake mix and the ingredients to make it, canned chocolate frosting, and some food dye. For a more detailed tutorial click here for the recipe.

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Magic Mike Ladies’ Night Party

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Three years ago I won a giveaway from a local movie theater and the prize was a wall-sized vinyl poster from the first Magic Mike movie. It was huge and unwieldy, but it also had nearly life-sized, half naked actors on it, so I thought the best use for it would be to put it up temporarily for a Magic Mike themed party. That party always hung on the back of my mind, but I never went through with it. Then Magic Mike XXL (the sequel) came out, and I knew now was the chance to have that party. So for the release of MM XXL on dvd, I held a Magic Mike Ladies’ Night party, and it was fantastic. We watched both Magic Mike movies, had snacks, played games, and had tons of fun.

As I do for many of my theme parties, I scour the internet for fun ideas. There weren’t very many Magic Mike parties to look at, though, which might have been a good thing, because it forced me to be more creative. I did come across some fun sweets online that would be awesome for a Magic Mike party, so I stepped out of my comfort zone of cupcakes and tried some royal-icing-topped cookies and a cake that was decorated with more than just a little frosting.

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The first thing I wanted to make for the party were these awesome, funny Chippendales dancer-themed torso cookies from The Adventures of Sweet Sugarbelle. I’ve always wanted to learn how to make royal icing and the techniques for icing cookies, but it always looked like a lot of work. Turns out it is, but the results are pretty fun. I didn’t use Sweet Sugarbelle’s icing recipe though, because I forgot to get some of the ingredients, and just went with a simple recipe from Alton Brown instead. It uses raw egg whites though, so you will want to use pasteurized eggs.

magicmikecookiesMy cookies are far from perfect, but I think they looked pretty cute anyway. Not sure how soon I’ll try cookie icing again though. It was more work than I realized!

I couldn’t just have cookies at this party though. One bachelorette party idea I saw pop up in my search was a male stripper cake. That would be perfect at a Magic Mike party, I thought, so I collected some easy materials (Ken doll and a wooden dowel) and affixed them to the top of a three layered chocolate and pumpkin cake. I thought three layers was probably best to give the dowel enough of a foundation to support the doll. To decorate the doll, I made him a little thong, bow tie, and cuffs from some felt and ribbon and printed out some tiny dollar bills to stuff in his undies. I threw a few dollar bills on top of the cake too, but they ended up being camouflaged since I made the cake almost the same color as the money. Oops!

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The “stage” background wasn’t necessary, but the cake looked a bit boring without it. I covered a weighted box in a blue plastic tablecloth, tri-folded a large gold metallic piece of card stock, and decorated it with two fancy balloon weights, two flashlights, and a Magic Mike sign that I made. The tablecloth, card stock, balloon weights, and flashlights all came from a dollar store.

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The party wasn’t all sweets though. I had Pink Panty Dropper punch, (Magic) Mike’s Hard Lemonade, a popcorn bar, and pizza. What’s a movie night without popcorn and pizza?!

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Decorations included leopard print and black tablecloths, gold metallic fringe curtains, black fringe table skirt, the Magic Mike poster I showed you above, and a handmade garland of men’s thongs and bow ties! I made the garland myself. I found a package of thongs at Kmart and a few bow ties in the current Halloween costume section of a dollar store. I sewed them together, but you could hot glue as well if you don’t plan on using the bow ties or thongs again. Decorate it with some ribbon if you want to fancy it up a little. I used animal print ribbon.

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After each movie, we played some Magic Mike themed games. One game I came up with was called Strip Trivia. Usually when you play a game with stripping the players have to strip, but in my game, the players got to take off a paper doll’s clothes! Except for the male body image, I hand drew all of the clothing pieces for the game.  To play the game, I asked my guests trivia questions about the movie we just watched and who ever answered first correctly, got to remove an article of clothing. The first person to remove all clothing won a prize.

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The other game we played I have dubbed Place the Kiss on Mike’s Magic. It’s basically Pin the Tail on the Donkey for adults! I found the game in the bachelorette section of a party store and pasted a picture of Channing Tatum over the face to make it a little more Magic Mike themed. It was popular.

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The party was a total success and I got to introduce the awesomeness of Magic Mike to a handful of my friends! This type of party would be fun for any time of year whether you just want to get the girls together, have some drinks and (respectfully) ogle some grown men or if you are throwing a bachelorette party.

Have you ever seen the Magic Mike movies or had a girls’ night in or adult sleepover party before? I’d love to hear some of your experiences or ideas for this type of party.

 

***I was not asked or compensated to mention any brand names in this post. Any brands that I specified are only included to help you find certain materials I used to put on this party.*** 

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4th of July Brownie Bites

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4th of July Brownies | shaneskillercupcakes.com

Tomorrow is the 4th of July, so I whipped up these easy brownies as a last minute treat for a BBQ I’m attending. I used a delicious brownie mix I only recently started using. Most brownie mixes that I’ve used taste like brownie mixes. They taste good but not quite as decadent as homemade brownies.

A few weeks ago I tried Trader Joe’s Brownie Truffle Baking Mix with Dutch Cocoa and Chocolate Chips for the first time and was impressed at how rich and delicious it was. It’s also nice that it already has chocolate chips included in it! To make these brownies you can use whatever mix or recipe you want, but I’d suggest trying the Trader Joe’s mix. It’s a good thing to have around when you need a dessert fast and don’t want to rummage through the kitchen collecting all the ingredients.

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Make your brownies and let them cool completely. Cut them into small squares and drizzle melted frosting on the top. If you want them to be festive, sprinkle a few jimmies on each.

4th of July Brownies | shaneskillercupcakes.com

That’s it! They are easy to make and don’t require a lot of artistic skill, yet they look pretty and patriotic.

4th of July Brownies | shaneskillercupcakes.com

4th of July Brownie Bites

Yield: 36 bites

Serving Size: One brownie bite

Ingredients

  • A batch of brownies, cooled completely
  • 1/3 of a can of white frosting
  • Red, white and blue sprinkles
  • Optional:
  • Marshmallows
  • Chocolate chips
  • Nuts

Instructions

  1. Make your brownies from a mix or recipe and let cool completely. Add extra items (nuts, chocolate chips, marshmallows, etc) to the brownies if you wish.
  2. Cut the brownies into one inch squares.
  3. Put a cooling rack on top of a wax paper-covered cookie pan and place the brownie bites onto the rack.
  4. Melt the frosting in a bowl for 10-30 seconds until the consistency is liquid but still thick.
  5. Drizzle the frosting in a zig zag pattern over each brownie bite.
  6. While the frosting is still wet, sprinkle with your red, white, and blue jimmies.
  7. Chill brownies in the fridge for about 10 minutes to set the frosting.
  8. Serve at room temperature.
https://shaneskillercupcakes.com/2015/07/4th-of-july-brownie-bites/

I added marshmallows to my brownies, but they turned brownish yellow while baking and kind of messed up my red, white, and blue color scheme. They taste great though!

4th of July Brownies | shaneskillercupcakes.com

What are you doing for the 4th of July? Are you making anything special?

 

****I was not sponsored or paid by Trader Joe’s to recommend their product. I just really like it!****

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D.I.Y. Circus Marquee Sign {Tutorial}

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This past weekend I had a circus/carnival themed party at my house. When I first started planning the party, I knew I wasn’t going to have a lot of money to spend on decor, but I needed to have some big spectacular pieces if I wanted my house to look anything like a circus.

Luckily, a trip to the dollar store for some plastic tablecloths fixed my circus tent situation, but what is a circus without its sign?!

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Marquee letters and signs can range anywhere from $30-$40 per letter and into the hundreds for whole signs! I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t going to spend that much on a decor item for some silly party I’m having for friends. It’s just not going to happen.

As I do with many things I can’t afford, I make them. While oftentimes making an item can end up costing more than the store bought item, in this case, it’s just the opposite!

Most of the items for this project can be found around the house or easily bought for little money.

Supply List

  • Poster board
  • Letter stencils
  • Foam core board
  • A string of LED lights (length depends on how many letters you make)
  • Ping pong balls
  • A drill with a bit
  • A box cutter/ X-acto knife
  • String
  • Pencil/pen
  • Glossy spray paint
  • Hot glue gun/ hot glue sticks
  • Masking tape
  • Ruler/yardstick

First you want to make the letter stencils. Find the right font for your sign and print the letters out at the correct size for tracing onto the foam core board. I used Freak Show font because it had fat wide letters that would be easy to fit the ping pong balls into and it looked like a circus font. Just remember, if you use a fancier font like I did, this project will take longer to edge with the poster board.

If you want your letters to be bigger than a sheet of 8.5″ x 11″ paper you can use blockposters.com to break your letter image onto other sheets of paper and then cut and tape them together.

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Once you have your letter stencils cut out, trace them onto the foam core. Since my sign was relatively small, I only needed one sheet of foam core. Cut out the letters with a sharp X-Acto knife. A sharp craft knife is important because you won’t have to push down as hard and the edges will be smoother. Also make sure to put something under the foam core such as a self healing cutting mat or a piece of cardboard, so you don’t cut into something you care about.

At this time, use your drill to make 1/4″ holes in the foam core where you want the lights to push through. If you need larger holes, you can use a larger bit or stretch the holes by pushing a thick pen or marker through the hole. I had to use the pen trick, because I didn’t have any larger drill bits!

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Next, cut 3″ strips of poster board. I just cut one long strip and then cut it down as I figured out the lengths I needed. I also drew myself a guide line about 1″ in on one side so that I knew where to glue the strip to the edge of the foam core.IMG_5457

To measure the lengths of poster board, take a piece of string and run it along one continuous side. Cut the string to the correct length and then measure the string for the length to cut the poster board to.

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Product Spotlight: Tiny Hands Jewelry

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Lately I’ve been posting a lot about Tiny Hands Jewelry on my Facebook page and you may be wondering why I’ve been obsessed with it so much recently.  I got the opportunity to become a Tiny Hands Ambassador this past month and I couldn’t be happier. What this means is that I can bring you Tiny Hands jewelry at a discounted rate, and in return I’ll get a small commission from each sale made through my Shane’s Killer Cupcakes Facebook page. Keep an eye out for future sales! All the money I make from this adventure will be funneled back into the blog, and I’ll be able to offer more giveaways in the future, so it’s a win-win for all of us!

I came across Tiny Hands jewelry a couple of years ago and fell in love with it immediately. All of the adorable artistry is thanks to Mei Pak, the founder of Tiny Hands, and her assistants. You may have seen her work before and not even realized it. She’s had her jewelry featured in many lifestyle magazines such as Every Day with Rachael Ray and InTouch Magazine, and even Amy Poehler’s character Leslie Knope wears her maple scented waffle necklace on NBC’s Parks and Recreation.

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I also own the maple scented waffle necklace and it smells and looks as good as you can imagine. I’m a huge fan of Parks and Recreation, so I just had to have the same necklace that Leslie has (I’m also about as crazy for breakfast as she is too).

tinyhands-owner-mei-lowresBack in 2006, Mei set out to create a product that combined quality with sweet, feminine charm. What she’s ended up with is a lovely collection of delectable scented food jewelry that comes in necklaces, rings, earrings, bracelets and even customized pieces. All of her polymer clay pieces are created in the USA at her Minnesota studio. Do you like desserts and comfort food? If you do, then Mei will have just the piece for you! Currently she offers miniature versions of your favorite foods (cupcakes, ice cream, bonbons, donuts, popcorn, corn dogs, bacon, etc) which can be worn daily or even saved for a special occasion. The quality and expertise imbued into each piece is remarkable.

As you know, I LOVE sweets, but one thing that always keeps me from enjoying them is those darn calories! With Tiny Hands deliciously scented jewelry, now you can have your sweets without all those pesky calories. Sure, you can’t eat them (I wouldn’t recommend it) but when you’re craving a dessert maybe just looking and sniffing some of Tiny Hands jewelry will suffice! And it’s zero calories! Whoo!

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Tiny Hands jewelry is perfect for gift giving. Each piece is packaged in a lovely gift box. When I bought my piece last year, I was surprised how pretty the packaging was. It was like a surprise gift I received in the mail even though I was expecting it to arrive!

Take a look at her full collection. It just makes me hungry looking at it! For just a sample of her beautiful jewelry take a look below:

In the coming weeks/months, I’ll be running flash sales featuring pieces of Tiny Hands jewelry marked down 10%-15%. I want to offer you discounts on the pieces you want to buy, so let me know which pieces you love in the comments and maybe you’ll find them on sale soon!

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