Clue Game Birthday Party

My son, Matthew, rediscovered, and fell in love with, the game of Clue about a few months ago.  And since we didn't have the classic version he made his own twist when he had friends over. Life-sized Clue!

He would make is own lists of suspects, weapons, and rooms in our home and then give them to me to cross off items from both his and his friend's list confidentially so they could both solve the crime.  Then they would spend the next 30 minutes running around the house sleuthing to their hearts' content.  That's how it started.

He turned ten last month and we decided we could make his game even bigger and better for an unforgettable birthday party!

[caption id="attachment_1409" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Enjoying their 'dinner party' prior to the magic show.[/caption]

THE PLAYERS: He couldn't quite narrow down his guests list to match up with the Clue characters, number-wise, so he created new ones based on his friends' personalities and assigned them each a color.

We didn't have time to make an official paper invite, but Jen over at Rook No.17 has some great customize-able invites you can make for a Clue party.  In fact, many of our ideas for our party version of the game were inspired by her post, but modified to accommodate a large number of very loud excited boys!

Our invite ended up being an Event post through Facebook.  Hey, don't judge - that's what happens when your kid has a birthday RIGHT before the first day of school!

"Matthew the MARVELous invites you to his home to see the unveiling of his latest {and dare we say, GREATEST?!} trick yet!

Mystery dinner style. Have your son(s) try to dress to match their profile.

Guests are:
Kaden M. -  soccer player (light blue)
Henry M. - mustachioed butcher (white)
Jack B. - police officer (dark blue)
Nolan F. - movie star (red)
Israel P. - archaeologist (brown)
Ian P. - basketball player (purple)
Coby S. - millionaire (green)
Cal H. - comedian (yellow)
Chance S. - robot inventor/scientist (black)
Colin A. - professor (orange)
Matthew {birthday boy} - magician (tie dye)"

[caption id="attachment_1410" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Who doesn't like life-sized board games?[/caption]

GAME SET UP:  We used the entire first floor of our home as our game board.  Most of our lower level is covered with 18" tile.  For the few areas where our rooms were not connected by tile we used masking tape to create spaces and 'walls'.

We made player pieces by cutting squares out of construction paper that matched their assigned colors.  Their names were written on them and they were laminated with contact paper.  You can see one in the 'LIVING ROOM' and one on the table in the 'DINING ROOM' in the picture above.  We made the pieces so the boys could use them to mark their spot and still walk around when it wasn't their turn and be involved with what was going on in the game.

We did the same thing to create the suspect, weapon, and room cards but in a smaller version and backed with black paper.  After Matthew left for school that morning I had his older brother randomly choose the cards that would be the 'answers' so I could prepare the special reveal for them.  Instead of giving the remaining cards out to each of the players that night we placed them throughout the designated rooms, hidden in old books.

GAME PLAY:  After dinner Matthew did his magic show as pretense for our mystery.  His little sister was his lovely assistant.  His first trick was to hypnotize her and make her do the one trick she knew.  Sneaky way to not learn a magic trick, no?  Second, he did an impressive card trick.  Lastly, he made her disappear!

What's all that have to do with the game?  This is where the game really began.  Matthew had made her disappear, but he couldn't make her reappear!  Apparently when he had hypnotized her he had inadvertently also hypnotized an audience member to be magical.  The magic was so powerful that the unknown magician had made her REALLY disappear without even knowing they had done it!  Now we had a 'crime' and needed to narrow down our lists of suspects.

The boys received little flip notebooks with all the names of the suspects, rooms, and possible tools (ie. weapons in the original game) already listed.  They were divided into three teams.  Each member of each team was able to roll the dice and move their individual marker once per team turn.  Once they made their way into a room they were allowed to go to the book with the clues and notate whatever they found.  While they weren't moving (or rather, when the other teams were rolling and moving) the team convened to compare notes and clues they found.

WINNING THE GAME:  Each team wrote down their accusation on a separate piece of paper.  Surprisingly each one was different!

Time for cake to see who was right!  I made a reveal cake and had placed both candy and the answer cards inside the cake.

The candy didn't really pour out like I had wanted but the gaggle of 10 year old boys were thrilled nonetheless.  Next time I make this cake I think I'll forego frosting the center of the bottom layer, leaving it dry so the candy won't stick and smoosh.

While the boys were distracted by the cake Elizabeth 'magically' reappeared and the game was over.  The game and party were a hit!  Actually, maybe too much so.  My sweet Matthew had a pretty hard time coming to terms with being back to normal life once everyone left.  It was so fun, though, to see him really shine with his friends!

[caption id="attachment_1416" align="aligncenter" width="184"] What an excited goofball![/caption]

Banana Split Cupcakes

Don't these look YUMMY?!!  My son, Sam, and I made these as part of a fundraising effort in May for his National Youth Leadership Training fees.

It was just an idea we came up with and put together without Pinterest or Google and, boy, was that a good idea this time.  The reason being that afterwards I DID look up 'banana split cupcakes' and found lots of recipes using yellow cake mix and mashed bananas as the cake portion and chocolate for the filling.  That's all good but, we - blissfully naive - went in a different direction and they were delicious!!

Banana Split Cupcake , à la The Coles - chocolate cake, banana pudding filling, cream cheese icing sprinkled with cinnamon, sugar, chopped peanuts, and topped with a marachino cherry.

Make sure the cake is moist and the icing is thick (not like the canned store bought stuff, if you can avoid it.)

One thing we did use Pinterest for was a means to deliver the cupcakes to his customers.  We used a shirt gift box as shown at THIS PIN.

[caption id="attachment_1399" align="aligncenter" width="336"] Sam getting ready to deliver a dozen red velvet cupcakes to earn his way to NYLT.[/caption]

 

Gettin' Busy

Sometimes the stars align and I get all kinds of domestic all at once.  My July thus far:

I got to know a few new friends as we made some hair clips for our girls right before Independence Day.  I found the blue fabric with stars at Walmart for $.99 and thought that would be perfect for the city BBQ and fireworks.

The blue section was made folding a long strip in half length-wise and gathering  (watch a video showing how HERE).

The red section is made with felt using 4 circles, each folded in half and overlapped like box flaps (see step by step how to fold and stitch them HERE, especially Step 3).

Elizabeth loved it, even though I made it a bit large.

 

Pretty basic Hello Kitty Cake for a cute little girl born on the Fourth of July.

Turns out I don't pipe well.  At all.  Nor have I yet to purchase those ABC cutters for fondant.  So I tried something new with melted pink chocolate.  I placed wax paper over a print out of the message and piped the chocolate onto the wax paper.  It worked perfectly and they peel right off.  You could do any font and get the sizing right every time, every letter!

 

Then there was this last minute order for a work party, Independence Day themed, of course.  I really need to get those ABC cutters!  These letters were done using cut sugar paper and then free hand with icing gel.  The cake was blue and white swirl/zebra and red velvet and white swirl/zebra.

The cake was a huge hit and resulted in another order for - guess what?!!  A Hello Kitty cake for next week!

 

Remember way back in January when I turned all the hangers around?  Well, it's time to reap what has not been used for six months and either find a new use for it, toss it, or donate it.  I have lots of my husband's shirts stacked and ready to be put to better use.

Saturday I whipped up this darling dress and matching clip from one of Chris' old dress shirts.  It was absolutely FREE and meets the school's dress code.  Yay!

It was easier than I thought and I didn't even use a pattern.  I was inspired by THIS PIN but ended up making a bodice with skirt style rather than an A-line.

July is half way over and I'm feeling pretty darn industrious!  Hopefully it keeps up - school starts soon!!

 

Cake March

The cakes I made way back in March:

This Lego cake was for an outdoor wedding that was super cute!  Everything was Lego themed, right down to the bride's shoes.  The bride was our first babysitter after we moved to AZ and her mom is one of my dearest friends.  I loved doing this this for them!

The blue brick is just styrofoam covered in icing and fondant - they didn't want too much cake or leftovers.  The other bricks are cake, I think I did chocolate and vanilla, also covered in icing and marshmallow fondant.  The circles are just extra thick fondant.  And, yes, I did make them to-scale so I ended up using the cap from a laundry soap bottle to get the right size circle.

[caption id="attachment_1364" align="aligncenter" width="560"] The topper was simply a Lego bride and groom secured with a little corn syrup.[/caption]

The following weekend we celebrated Elizabeth's 7th birthday at the pool with this fun cake.

This cake was so fun and super easy!  I baked the cake in my glass bowls and then stacked and cut them to shape the main part of the castle.  The moat was cut from a small sheet cake.

The towers were made from paper towel tubes covered in icing and then rolled in the "sand" and their roofs are ice cream cones that I did the same thing to.  I cut half circles from the sides of the cake so the towers would fit right up against it.  Then I iced the rest of the cake and added the "sand".  The shells and sea stars are made from molded white chocolate.

Sand Castle "Sand" Recipe

• 1 box Nilla wafers


• 1 pack cinnamon graham crackers


• 1-2 Tbsp brown sugar

Blend everything together in a food processor.  Add more graham crackers if mixture is too sticky.

[caption id="attachment_1366" align="aligncenter" width="560"] Mermaids need water! Or at least a little pool of gelatin to dip their fins in.[/caption]

To create the moat/mermaid pool I used the jiggly recipe from some blue gelatin.  The recipe called for a lot more than I needed, though, so if you do it cut the recipe in half or more.  I iced the entire inside of the pool so the gelatin wouldn't soak into the cake.

We also served fish crackers and Swedish fish.  The girls loved it!

This cake was so fun because I didn't have to be precise, especially compared to doing the Lego cake!  The messier, the better with this cake.

Eagle Scout Cake

A few years ago I promised a few of my Scouts any cake of their choice if they earned their Eagle rank.  They have begun cashing in!  Our latest Eagle scoured the Internet and asked for this classy design.

[caption id="attachment_1310" align="aligncenter" width="362"] Vanilla, red velvet, and chocolate tiers covered in mm fondant with white chocolate fleur di lis.[/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_1312" align="aligncenter" width="427"] Our Eagle and his parents with myself before cutting into the cake. They worked as hard as he did for Eagle![/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_1311" align="aligncenter" width="440"] Most of these boys start out smaller than me. Clearly that doesn't last long![/caption]

Congratulations!!

A Cake Pull & Wedding Topper

The only two specialty cakes I made in 2012 were a quinceañera cake and a wedding cake.

In March I made this cake for a 15 year old girl who wanted a cake pull included in her quinceañera party.

[caption id="attachment_1267" align="aligncenter" width="560"] Red Velvet Cake with mm fondant. Disregard the white bow I decided to switch out![/caption]

The whole idea of a cake pull is so neat to me.  I can't wait to use it for one of Elizabeth's birthdays or bridal shower!  The young lady whom I made this cake for chose each charm to represent a specific quality/fortune (like a horoscope/fortune cookie type thing).  At the party each of her closest friends simultaneously pulled a ribbon to see which charm fate had chosen for them (no one knew where I had placed each specific charm!).  Fun, huh?  I kept the charms off the fondant and cake by placing the top tier on a cake board and a piece of parchment paper between the charms and the bottom tier.

I also made my first wedding cake for a friend who was married New Year's Eve.  The cake had to travel to Utah and be stored for a few days so I did not assemble it, which means no pictures.  It was a two tiered square cake covered in white fondant.  The top was chocolate cake, the bottom was rice cereal treats.  They were to be stacked askew and then wrapped with a few strands of black thin ribbon.

I did, however, get a picture of the topper.  Aren't they cute?

[caption id="attachment_1268" align="aligncenter" width="451"] Snowmen Wedding Topper, as requested by the winter bride.[/caption]

UPDATE (yes, very nearly right after I published this..): below is the finished, assembled cake.  The bride stacked the tiers and added the ribbons and dots.  So glad it made the journey safely!

[caption id="attachment_1273" align="aligncenter" width="243"] Winter Wedding Cake[/caption]

Thirty Four

Chris and the kids came up with the best cake design ever for my birthday yesterday (even if I couldn't eat it because it had yucky whipped frosting)!  Jeffrey Dallas, baby!  No, it didn't come with any hot Kool-Aid or a plate of Akbar and the birthday song is not stuck inside my head . . . Oh, well.  At least Jeffrey here didn't move for the red-eye flash.  Other than that we really didn't do anything.  Chris can make up for it when we go to Florida in April, all expenses paid by his work (he was a top customer service score-er last year!) and stay in a nice hotel.



More Cakes!

Here are the other cakes I've made this year.  I had a lot of fun discovering another creative outlet and I am excited to keep up with our new tradition.

PIONEER DAY 2011

Bonnet cake I made for the stake's Pioneer Day celebration. They did a Beehive House theme, hence the honey bee. It was vanilla cake with wedding icing and marshmallow fondant.  The bee is made of mm fondant with gelatin wings.

MATTHEW'S 8th BIRTHDAY

Matthew's requested Super Smash Bros cake. Chocolate cake with chocolate icing covered in marshmallow fondant. Fondant characters, pirouette cookie and graham cracker pagoda, and rice cake tower.

BRANDON'S 13th BIRTHDAY

Brandon asked for a Zelda Tri-Force cake and even designed it himself.  Chocolate cake with buttercream frosting and mm fondant.

Seek The Higher Ground

I can upload pictures again!  Yay!

Our Stake's Boy Scouts did a week-long priesthood encampment this summer with the theme, "Seek the Higher Ground".  The deacons tented at base camp, the teachers did rock climbing, and the priests did a high adventure canoe trip. This is the cake I made for our ward's Court of Honor following camp.

The BSA emblem is molded and colored white chocolate against a painted cookie (from the back view it is a sun.)  The grass is colored shaved coconut and the canoe is made of rice cereal treat covered in painted fondant.  The boys' hair and white water are made from buttercream icing and EVERYTHING else is fondant.  All the fondant is "marshmallow fondant".

The back side of the cake.

The boys up close.

I'll be posting the others cakes I've done since June shortly!

Celebrating Chris

My husband, Chris, is a pretty creative guy.  He writes music, plays the piano, and invents games.  When he was in college way back in the '90's he recorded many of his songs onto cassette tapes {remember those?}with a Walkman placed on top of a piano.  High-tech, no?  The purpose was just to get them recorded before they were forgotten because he never actually writes down his scores - he keeps them all in his head.  So the quality of the recording wasn't very important at the time.

Chris on Father's Day 2011

The tapes are now a favorite of my oldest son and I imagine the mp3 files we've made from them will likely be a cherished by all of as a family heirloom.  So in honor of all those songs and their composer I made him a cassette cake for his birthday last month.

Cake covered with buttercream frosting and marshmallow fondant.  The cogs are snipped pieces of marshmallow and the writing was done with cake pens.

Chris treats the games he creates in much the same way he does his music.  He'll spend hours playing with the kids to tweak rules but then rarely takes the extra step to share them with others.  He's made everything from yard games to card games.  Lately he's been playing a game he created on old cards that he re-purposed.  He and the boys seemed to have worked most of the bugs out last month so I decided THAT would be his Father's Day gift.

Brandon and Sam explained all the rules to me so I would know what the game needed.  They had been calling it "Throwdown" since you throw down cards but we changed the name to "Attack and Stack".  It was easier for me to work with graphically, is a better representation of the game, and doesn't conjure up images of WWF or Miley Cyrus.

After designing the cards and logo I published the cards for the game through Heritage Makers with my friend, Kathryn.  I special ordered dice from {where else?} Vegas and found the perfect little box to put it all in, 'Rules' sheet included!

We sat down for Sunday dinner on Father's Day and had him open his cards and gifts.  We LOVE games in our family so it's not uncommon to receive a game as a gift.  He thanked us and put it aside.  The kids giggled uncontrollably as I suggested he read the rules for the game, right then and there.  The "huh?" look on his face was priceless.  I wish I had videoed his reaction when he finally realized that it was his game!

Chris loved the new name and graphics.  He couldn't stop looking at everything and asking questions about how we pulled it off.  We played twice that day and again the next day.  I even got a text on Tuesday AGAIN thanking me and stating:

Sam is Eleven!

I'm still playing catch up but I'm getting closer to having this blog up to date...

In April Sam turned eleven.  He's been into skateboarding lately and after seeing Elizabeth's cake he had his own request: a Plan B skateboard.  That was his only theme-type request.  All he wanted after that was to play at the park with all his friends.

The idea for the cake came from Family Fun's website.  Instead of just frosting I used a thin layer of butter cream icing and marshmallow fondant.  The letters, trucks (hardware that holds the axles), and tiny screws are made of fondant.  The axles are fondant covered pretzel rods and the wheels are mini chocolate covered donuts wrapped in the Kroger version of Fruit by the Foot.  I added chocolate jimmies {a.k.a."sprinkles" to the non-New England linguist} and green and silver sugar crystals to the Plan B logo "B" to make it stand out.

Turning eleven means moving up from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts.  Sam was presented with the Arrow of Light award during a special recognition and cross over ceremony in May.  We are so proud of you, Samma-lamma-ding-dong!

Turning 5 is the Bee's Knees!

I do not go "all out" for birthdays.  My boys don't usually want a theme and even if they do they usually want to keep it to the invite.  They are all for just a plain cake and time to go crazy with friends.

Elizabeth, on the other hand, has been to a few parties with themes and was itching for her 5th birthday to come around so she could have her first big girl party...theme, games, special cake and all!  In March she got her wish...

Her nickname is Lizzy B, or Lizzy Bee if you will, so that's where we started.  What?  Doesn't every mom create a custom clip art graphic for their child?

Honeycomb-ed it up

to create the perfect Queen Bee outfit, complete with {poorly}homemade black sparkly tutu.

Brandon helped with the welcome.

The party we started by playing musical chairs and darn it if I couldn't find my CD with Flight of the Bumblebee on it!  George Winston's Linus & Lucy filled in just great, though! When someone got "out" they were rewarded with their goody bag,

one for the Queen Bee and six for her friends!

Inside they found something to make them bee-utiful and something for the next game...

"Honeycomb Hopscotch"!

Also in their goody bags was a sandwich bag containing the parts to make a "Buzz-oo".

Then it was time for cake!

You can find the directions for this beehive cake at Family Fun and the recipe for the icing at AllRecipes.

I think everyone had a wonderful time.

Especially Lizzy Bee!