Your Royal Blogstress: Rhys' First Birthday Party

I hope everyone enjoyed the last post of Rhysie's first year in pictures. I know I have loved hearing your comments on Facebook and e-mail. I know I keep saying it, but I still find it hard to believe he is already one *sigh*.
He's got a new trick to show off, too: Standing alone (not pulling up or holding on to anything). He keeps doing it over and over and over. Practicing it seems, and the funny thing is, he is SO pleased with himself. He just beams with pride and awaits his applause. Here are two pictures I took with my cell phone yesterday.

See me Mommy?

Pleased.
Other than he doesn't know what to do with his hands once he's up.

So, getting to the party. I had a hard time trying to finally figure out what theme I wanted his party to be. At first, I was really, really in love with wanting it to be The Little Prince, as in the French book Le Petit Prince, but it apparently turns out that not many people know that book here in the States, and there were no invitations or anything to order other than in Canada. Bummer. So, I decided to go with a general book theme instead. I found an adorable invitation on Etsy. It was perfect. Perfect. Then I set out to make all of the decorations myself, taking our family's favorite children's books and photocopying them to make the banners.

I spelled out his name in gold paint over color copies of the GORGEOUS illustrations
from "On the Night You Were Born" by Nancy Tillman.
That book makes me tear up (and yes, I know I'm probably overly sentimental).

This was from "The Pokey Little Puppy"
and below "Scruffy the Tugboat"-
Classics, for sure!

Then here, I chose my son's, my, and my husband's favorites.
Some are classics and others modern, but all wonderful.

Rhys' name again.
I also wanted to choose a theme and decorations
that wouldn't be annoying after the party was over.
They are still there. Books are wonderful.

Rhys' "personal" "Very Hungry Caterpillar" cake

I'm going to take a moment for a How-To.

I haven't done one for a long time,

and I have been asked repeatedly lately

how I made my cupcake/cake toppers.

I hate fondant. So I make everything out of chocolate.

No mold, I paint. I color the chocolate by hand, too.

It goes a little something like this:

I start by sketching what I want the topper to look like.

I simplified it a bit, because I place this under parchment paper,

and you can only see bold colors, not fine detail.

I mix colors (oil based food coloring) into the white chocolate,

just like you would with paint. So,

I melt small quantities at a time.

My palette.

I kept the book open to use as a reference, but I free hand quite a bit.

I want it to be recognizable but my own,

if that makes sense, and I'm not one for doing things perfectly.

Perfect = boring (to me anyway).

This is the back side, or the side that is face down on the cake.

And here is the finished product, which was a labor of love,
sheer determination and bitterness to make it work.
(It cracked and I was not going to give up on it.
Thus is the nature of working in chocolate.)