2 Sweet Twists on Birthday Treats!

Hello there! We hope your Friday is off to a good start. If you are looking for something to do this weekend, why not test out one of these 2 fun and unusual recipes to satisfy your sweet tooth. They are colorful and cheery takes on different snack foods, perfect for a party or celebration. Sure these treats are great for birthday parties, but don’t worry if your birthday isn’t this weekend… we won’t tell anyone!

Birthday Cake S’moreos – Who doesn’t love s’mores? And who can pass up an oreo? With this recipe from The Domestic Rebel you don’t have to choose! We think these s’moreos look fantastic dipped in white chocolate, but any colored chocolate would work well!

Birthday Cake S’moreos – Image & Recipe from The Domestic Diva

Birthday Cake Egg Rolls – Yup we said egg rolls! This creative recipe hails from the blog I Wash You Dry and is such a fun sweet take on a savory snack! These adorable little Cake Egg Rolls are covered in cinnamon-sugar for a sweet decadent treat.

Birthday Cake Egg Rolls – Image & recipe by I Wash You Dry

 

Which is your favorite Birthday Cake spinoff? We are kind of partial to the egg rolls!

3 Free Party Planning Resources

Planning a party big or small can be overwhelming. From the food to the decorations to the activities… there are a lot of aspects to cover. Today we’ve gathered some resources to help you keep organized while your plotting the details of your next soiree!

Party Planning Checklist by Handmade Charlotte. How cute is this printable?

Party Planning Checklist by Handmade Charlotte

Kids Birthday Party Planning Checklist by Catch My Party. This handy list is great if you are planning a party for your little one!

Kids’ Birthday Party Checklist by Catch My Party

Birthday Party Printables by delicateCONSTRUCTION. These four printables will have all your party prep bases covered.

Printables by delicateCONSTRUCTION.

Do you make a checklist when you are planning a party?

Happy New Year! Looking Back to the Best of 2012!

Image from the Huffington Post.

Happy New Year to all our readers and supporters out there! It was a fantastic year in 2012, we were able to help bring joy and relief to hundreds of kids in San Jose during their birthday months. And in 2013 we hope to reach even more :). With 2012 behind us it is important to reflect back on what was good, so today we have our top 5 posts from this past year! You guys really like to craft don’t you ;)!

Make A Birthday Wishes Top 5 Posts in 2012:

1. DIY Decorations: Paper Stars – A great tutorial for handmade paper stars perfect for a party or just because!
2. DIY Party Decorations: Pennant Banner – Both fabric and paper options abound in this post!
3. DIY Owl Crafts: Part 1 – Seriously adorable owl crafts at a variety of difficulty levels! Who doesn’t love owls?
4. DIY Crafts: Button Bracelets – So simple and so cute. These make great little gifts or packaging additions.
5. 3 Party Favor Packing Ideas We Love – And apparently you love these unique ideas too!

What was your favorite post this past year? And what would you like to see more of in 2013?

If you are interested in supporting what we do at Make A Birthday Wish or learning more you can go to our website by clicking here. Have a great New Year’s Day!

Have A Paper Holiday: 3 DIY Paper Crafts For A Homemade Christmas!

At MABW we love crafting, reusing, re-purposing, and putting a personal touch on special occasions. Today we’ve got 3 tutorials to share with you that will have you crafting most everything you need this Holiday season with paper!

DIY Recycled Paper Tree

We love this idea! Imagine using brown packaging paper, newspaper, or magazines to make mini versions of this tree? Can you say great centerpiece for practically nothing?!!!

DIY Tutorial for Recycled Paper Christmas Tree by Casa Sugar

DIY Star Wars Snowflakes or Garland

These snowflakes would make any nerd proud. Such a fun idea, you could try it with different colored paper too!

Free Printable Template from Matters of Grey

Free Holiday Gift Tags

These printables from Sass & Peril make adorable homemade packaging a cinch this holiday season!

Gift Tag Printables by Sass & Peril

Which is your favorite holiday paper craft? We are partial to the Star Wars Snowflakes 🙂

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Cupcakes for Fall Birthdays!

Pumpkin cupcake filled with caramel and topped with cream cheese buttercream (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

With summer leaving and fall beginning we are excited about fall flavored cupcakes! Today we have a recipe for gluten-free pumpkin cupcakes with orange cream cheese frosting—yum! Enjoy these at your next fall birthday bash, or just because it’s fall!

Cupcake Ingredients:

• 1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 tbsp molasses
• 1 tbsp honey
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup pumpkin purée
• 2 cups Red Mill’s gluten-free flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 tsp of pumpkin pie spice
• 1/2 cup buttermilk (if you don’t have buttermilk you can make it by combining 1/2 cup of milk with 1/2 tbsp of lemon juice or vinegar and letting it stand for 10 minutes before mixing in)
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans
• 1 cup raisins (your favorite variety—we love golden raisins here)

Frosting Ingredients

• 3 oz cream cheese, softened
• 2 tbsp butter, softened
• 1 tsp orange zest
• 2 tbsp fresh orange juice
• 2 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 3/4 cup chopped walnuts

Cupcake Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Place an oven rack in the center of the oven.
2. In a mixer (or using a large bowl and a hand mixer), beat the butter, molasses, brown sugar, and honey together until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. (Start on low-speed and increase to high-speed to get the mixture light and fluffy.)
3. Add the eggs, one by one, mixing well after each addition. Add the vanilla and pumpkin purée. Beat until well mixed.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients—the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and spices. Add the flour mixture and buttermilk alternately to the pumpkin batter, in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.
5. Use a wooden spoon to mix in the pecans and raisins.
6. Arrange paper cupcake holders in a muffin tin. Spoon the batter into the cupcake paper cups, filling them close to the top of the cups. Bake about 18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
7. Remove from oven to a rack. Let cool completely before frosting.

Frosting Directions:

1. Beat the cream cheese, butter or margarine, orange peel, and orange juice until creamy. Beat in confectioner’s sugar until blended and smooth.
2. Spread icing on cooled cupcakes and sprinkle with walnuts!

What is your favorite fall flavor?

Related articles

• Pumpkin Spice Latte Cupcakes
• The perfect fall kickoff – Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
• Pumpkin Poppers

3 Party Favor Packaging Ideas We Love!

The standard plastic party favor bag is so overdone. For your next party or event why not give one of these ideas a try! We love the simplicity and unexpectedness of each of them!

Party Thank You’s Filled With Candy

This adorable idea came from Ashley, creator of the great blog Make It and Love It. To see how to make these sweet little favors click here!

Party Favor Pails

We love the idea of having an assortment of candy for people to choose from and make their own goodie bag! The idea and photo come from the blog Celebrate the Big and the Small.

Party Favor Cones

 

A free template for these adorable party favor cones are available at Martha Stewart’s website. Click here to see the tutorial.

Which is your favorite party favor packaging?

 

3 Adorable Animal Themed Party Recipes

We couldn’t help but fall in love with these three adorable recipes. They are so creative and tasty, we think they should definitely be in the running to dominate the menu for your next party! The first recipe is for pinata cookies from She Knows. These are a little labor intensive to make, but the results are amazing and super fun!

Pinata Cookies – Click here for recipe!

This next recipe from the blog Six in the Suburbs is a little simpler to prepare, but just as adorable as the pinata cookies.

Caterpillar Grape Kabobs – Click here for recipe!

Not everybody is a fan of deviled eggs, but it’s hard to pass up these cute chicks from Squidoo! They would be great for a farm themed party!

Chicks Deviled Eggs – Click here for recipe!

Which recipe do you think wins the tasty and adorable award?

2 Crafty Ways To Wrap Gifts!

Buying wrapping paper, boxes, and bags can get expensive, and let’s face it—kind of boring! So we want to share two great tutorials on how to create your own gift boxes and gift bags from common materials that will be fun to make and add some pizzazz to your gifts! The first tutorial comes from Jessica Jones, a designer and author of the adorable blog, How About Orange. Her blog has a fantastic collection of DIY tutorials, free printables, and other great resources—we highly recommend you check it out. Today though we want to share a link to her tutorial detailing how to make gift boxes from paint chips—brilliant!

DIY Paint Swatch Boxes

Materials:

• Large paint swatches
• Double sided sticky tape
• Pen
• Exacto knife
• Cutting mat

Instructions:

Click here for step by step instructions and the template created by Jessica Jones!

The next tutorial comes from the website Instructables, and was created by a woman in Anchorage, Alaska. We love the idea of repurposing cereal boxes into gift bags! these bags will be super sturdy, and could even be a fun birthday party craft!

DIY Gift Bags From Cereal Boxes

Materials:

• Empty cereal box
• Scissors
• Hole punch
• Tape
• Ribbon
• Pretty papers to wrap the box in

Instructions:

Click here to view the step by step tutorial (pictures included) for creating beautiful gift bags from cereal boxes!

Which wrapping idea do you like? If you make any of your own boxes, bags, or paper, share your tutorials, pictures, or ideas with us! We love featuring crafty people on our blog!

Easy Party Recipes: Apple Sandwiches with Granola & Peanut Butter

Today we wanted to share an adorable and easy recipe that is sure to please party-goers of all ages. The recipe comes from Whole Foods and manages to pack in a good bit of protein, fruit while leaving your sweet tooth satisfied. We’ve been obsessed with fresh peanut and almond butter lately and have got some ideas for how to customize the ingredients to suit your unique taste buds.

Apple Sandwiches with Granola & Peanut Butter – Serves 2

Ingredients:

• 2 Small apples, cored and cut crosswise into 1/2-inch thick rounds
• 1 Tsp. lemon juice (optional)
• 3 Tbsp. peanut or almond butter
• 2 Tbsp. semisweet chocolate chips
• 3 Tbsp. granola

Directions:

1. Brush the apples slices with lemon juice to keep them from turning brown (if you aren’t eating them right away).
2. Spread one side of half of the apple slices with peanut or almond butter then sprinkle with chocolate chips and granola.
3. Top with remaining apple slices, pressing down gently to make the sandwiches.

Variations:

• Consider using dried fruit in place of chocolate chips
• Use an interesting granola like Nature’s Path Pumpkin Granola
• Substitute granola for crumbled graham crackers
• Swap Nutella for the almond or peanut butter

What ideas do you have for changing up the ingredients?

DIY Decorations: Paper Stars

These awesome paper stars are an easy DIY party decoration, or great for everyday home decor! The materials are cheap and easy to find, and the tutorial we found makes the whole process easy as pie!

Materials:

• Origami paper or other square paper, such as 12′ scrap-booking paper
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Glue
• String or ribbon to hang the stars

Instructions:

• Follow this great picture tutorial for detailed visual step by step instructions!

Some fun variations include:

• Using old newspapers or magazines to make the stars.
• Mixing and matching sizes to create a pretty cluster.
• Adding embellishments such as gems, glitter, buttons, anything your heart desires!

This craft is simple enough it could even be a fun birthday activity for the kids! Do you have any great DIY decorating ideas to share?