Tangled Birthday Partylife magazine photographs

Tangled Birthday Party

Like many girls, Minnie is a HUGE Rapunzel fan! She has been so excited to have a Tangled Birthday Party for her 5th birthday. Here is our party:

THE CAKE:

I have to say the cake was the trickiest I’ve ever made! The reason it was so difficult was the weight of the tower. I started out making a rice krispie tower (covered with fondant), but it was too heavy and fell over – leaving me with a hole in my cake! I should have taken a picture so you know those kind of disasters happen to all of us, but I was so frustrated at that moment I wasn’t thinking about that.

The finished cake is 6.5” round cake on top of a 8.5” round cake on top of a round cardboard cake platter. I frosted the entire base with green butter cream frosting.

Buttercream Frosting

1 cup butter – I use Target brand salted at room temperature
2 cups Crisco (I use the blue box)
1/2 teas salt
1 teas butter flavoring (in a jar by vanilla)
1 teas pure vanilla (not imitation – Wilton sells clear vanilla great for a pure white cake)
1/2 teas almond extract (in bottle by vanilla – this gives it that wonderful “ooh what’s that flavor”
2lb bag powdered sugar
1 TAB meringue powder – this makes it fluffy & great to decorate cakes
1-2 TAB milk (as needed to achieve desired consistency

Mix all ingredients together in mixer until smooth. Tint as desired. I like these true color food coloring or these all natural ones.

The flower, leaves, hair, tower covering, roof shingles, etc. are all edible & delicious! I used Marshmallow Fondant. The tower was from this set & I added fondant to alter the shape, and to cover the tower & ice cream cone roof.

Marshmallow Fondant

1 regular size mini marshmallows (12-16 oz)
2 lb powdered sugar
1/2 cup Crisco
2-3 Tab water

In microwave safe bowl melt marshmallows & 2 Tab water for 1 minute; stir. Continue 30 seconds at a time stirring until it is completely melted (about 2 1/2 minutes)

Add powdered sugar & stir. Use Crisco to GENEROUSLY grease counter & hands (take off any jewelry). Knead fondant dough until it is smooth (adding 1-2 TAB more water if needed). Feel free to use the entire 1/2 cup of Crisco, but no more. After 5-8 minutes you can add food coloring as needed and wrap in plastic wrap. You can use immediately or keep wrapped for 7-10 days. When ready to use you can microwave it for 5-10 seconds to get it pliable again. When making flowers allow them to harden before placing on the cake.

DECORATIONS

The party room had simple DIY flags strong across the room. In the middle I had 9 DIY lanterns hanging up. I used 2 pieces of yellow printing paper to make the lanterns. The square ones (folding horizontally) were our favorite. I hole punched the top for the string and hung a glow stick across the string to light them up. It was so beautiful!

We turned the dinning room into The Snuggly Duckling with this super cute DIY sign on the doorway. The table had a simple white table cloth and some cardstock duckies on the table announcing the daily specials.

The little guests were just served cake & Lemonade punch as the party was strategically from 3-4:30pm. For the family, we served dinner including - Tangled up Pasta (with tomato & Fettuccini sauce), Berry Spinach Salad, and homemade Braided Bread. It was simple, cheap, and DELICIOUS!

GAMES:

First off we played Maximus’ Apple Picking Game. The kids got to pop balloons. Inside the balloons there was a sticker per guest (9). The stickers I made using this nifty machine had a Tangled Picture & number and were to tell us what activity we were doing next. The kids loved being part of deciding what came next!

All Tangled UP! The kids got all tangled up in yellow crepe paper “hair”. Originally they were in groups to tangle up, but at the end we tangled the tangled groups up all together. The kids thought it was GREAT!

The kids followed directions to find their own frying pans (simple DIY using black paper plate & black plastic spoon with tape). Then they found their “lanterns: (balloons with glow sticks inside). Then they played a game – help Rapunzel & Flynn keep the lanterns floating in the air! The kids LOVED the frying pans & this was a lot of fun for them to get out some energy.

The last activity was a recycled pinata! We had a pinata from an earlier party that hadn’t burst so I attached a Flynn Rider Wanted Poster (find one in Tangled Preschool Pack) and tada – free pinata! The kids used a frying pan to hit it! This was loads of fun. I had bags of party trinkets for each kid in the pinata – made it way easier when it actually burst open! Plus then I used some boy stuff for the boys in stead of tangled brushes & what-not!

Craft:

I precut craft foam to make these simple DIY Pascal Party blowers as a craft. I got the pink blowouts from Amazon. Then it was as simple as glueing, taping, and drawing for the kids (ages 3-7).

Favors:

Finally, before they left I sent them home with some braided homemade playdough. I used this simple no-fail recipe here and tinted the yellow hair with lemon flavoring & added glitter. I used a packet of grape playdough to make the flowers smell like grapes. It was a huge hit and so simple to make!