Superhero Party

It's a Superhero Birthday!
My kid turned 4! WHAT!!!??......way back in October - but it takes me forever to actually get these blog posts done.
(it could have something to do with me having a rather new baby and their daddy being deployed - I'm busy to say the least)

So normally I would throw loads of time and energy into planning an elaborate party at my house (or my parent's house), but this year I needed a slight break from my hectic life and booked the party to happen at a karate dojo.

It was a FANTASTIC idea and if you live in the Orlando/Oviedo area, you can look into it too.

The Dojo Karate Center

They did an amazing job.  I dropped decorations off the day before and the staff decorated, played games with the kids, and had a little bounce house for them.  My son even got to "cut" his birthday cake with a ninja sword!

I did put in some time on this party though - lest you think I'm chickening out.  I had to bring a cake - and I did our own invitations.

Here are the invitations.  I made them to look like a Daily Bugle newspaper (the newspaper name in the Spiderman comics) 

Now without further ado....have a look at my FIRST attempt at decorating a cake with fondant! It turned out awesome - if I do say so myself.

Don't freak out...I found that working with fondant in general is surprisingly very easy.

I watched a couple tutorials courtesy of the Cake Boss: HERE and HERE and HERE

These videos are less than 5 min long each and were hugely helpful and informative.  

The only part of this process that caused me anxiety (and honestly I almost trashed it) was the Hulk fist.

HERE is the tutorial I attempted to follow for creating the Hulk fist.  It's entirely made of fondant with no cake inside.  It was not edible once it hardened. 

Decorating Bottom Layer: I covered the whole thing in red fondant and cut out yellow angled pieces of fondant to stick on the front with icing.

The front of the Iron Man layer is...yes...a light; stuck onto the cake with icing.  It's battery operated and purchased at Ikea.  Though, I have seen these types of push button lights at Party City as well.

Decorating Middle Layer: I covered the whole thing in blue fondant and cut out loads of red and white squares.  I stuck the squares all around the cake with icing.  I made the Captain America shield out of fondant, but in hindsight should have just used a toy shield.

Decorating Top Layer: I covered the whole thing in red fondant.  I did have to use some minimal artistic skill to pipe the webbing on with black gel icing.

The Spider on the Spiderman layer is plastic - I did not attempt a fondant spider.

I made the cake layers the day before the party, but did not assemble the Avengers (see what I did there) until the morning of.

I cut an X shape in the top of the Spiderman layer, and stuck the Hulk fist on there to look like it's bursting through.  Hint: I put the Hulk fist on a plastic chop stick (you could use a skewer) and stuck it straight down the top through all the layers as a brace.

I also made loot bags and filled them with superhero goodies.  I bought plain colored bags from the dollar tree and decorated them to look like superheroes. Here's how they turned out.

you may have noticed I went all MARVEL...no DC :)

If you have any questions about how I made any of this...do not hesitate to comment below.  I'd love to help out with any advice I can provide. :)

and finally... here's my Spiderman having some bounce house fun!