Over the Rainbow

We decided to have a little birthday party for Taylor. She was cheated out of one last year when she was in the hospital for nearly a month. So this year I was determined to more than make up for it. Not in numbers. It was small, Taylor can't always handle too much commotion. Just a few of her friends. It was small but mighty. The love-to-entertain side of me came out in full force and I had a lot of fun putting this all together. Marissa had decided a while ago that she wanted to be Dorothy for Halloween. I never thought I'd find a costume, so I went to the fabric store, bought an authentic Dorothy costume pattern and lots of blue and white gingham. Then I thought, this would be a great theme for Taylor's birthday party! I thought I would do her up as the scarecrow. I decided that it didn't seem right for Marissa to be dressed in the leading lady's costume, when it's Taylor's party. Then I came across a Dorothy costume at Walmart, complete with sparkles. So it was settled, they would both be Dorothy! Here's the guest of honour...

And here is Dorothy #2, in the dress that I made myself, pretty happy with the way it turned out. She's wearing it for Halloween, then it'll be added to her dress-up clothes, big sister loves to play dress-up!

I googled, I read blogs, I searched, and all the pieces came together. I had a great time making a pair of sparkly ruby slippers. I had an old pair of heels that are way too tight and never get worn, that were perfect for the project. Add some spray adhesive and red glitter and call it done. But the pictures don't do justice to how sparkly they were!

Guests could 'Follow the Yellow Brick Road' up to our doorstep and pass by where the house landed on the Wicked Witch of the West! How fun is that?!

Next up on the 'To Do' list was loot bags. This was fun too. I made Tinman heart necklaces, Lion badges of courage, Scarecrow Doctor of Thinkology diplomas, and Dorothy ruby slipper cookies. I found little baskets at the dollar store for each loot bag and made liners out of the extra gingham I had.

I even made party hats, a birthday banner and tablecloth out of the gingham with accents cut out of red glitter cardstock! And what wasn't gingham was rainbow. The party was at lunchtime, so I did a big fruit platter in rainbow colours, a rainbow veggie platter, and homemade 'yellow brick road' Mac & Cheese. A tray of the ruby slipper cookies. And you know how in the movie, Dorothy gets water on the Wicked Witch of the East, then she melts? Well I made green punch with a black witch hat set on the side of the punch bowl with "I'm melting!" written on the side. Cute right?!

I couldn't come up with a blue or purple veggie for the rainbow theme...can you?

The melted witch punch was fun, but waaaay too sweet!

The masterpiece however was the cake. I took my inspiration from an outstanding rainbow cake that my friend Janella made for her daughter's birthday earlier this year. It took me nearly the entire day before the party to create but I was giddy every step of the way. And in case you're wondering, I didn't use copious amounts of liquid food colouring to get the rainbow colours, just small amounts of Wilton gel icing colours. You can get them at Michaels in loads of different colours. They're awesome. So here is a collage of the creation of the rainbow cake...

I used gumballs to decorate it, the colours were so vibrant! Here's the masterpiece all by itself...

But the best part was taking the first piece out and seeing the rainbow inside. It was impressive! But it sure is tricky getting a 6-layer piece of cake out. The cake was close to 8" tall.

Taylor was fascinated and totally fixated on the cake and all the candles as everyone sang Happy Birthday to her...

And here I think she's just saying, "Okay you know I can't eat this, do you really need to rub it in my face?"...

And here's a few shots of us with the birthday girl after the party was over. I love the one of her with Daddy, she gave a quick little smile right as I clicked the camera!

I may have gone a little crazy with this party, but the past few months for Taylor have been groundbreaking, and the little girl emerging from the fog of seizures that she's been under is more aware, perhaps even more than we realize. And I wanted to do something really special. She deserves special.