Facebook
Twitter
Free Email Subscription
SubscribeUPDATE: This giveaway is now closed. Winners announced shortly!!!
I am bound and determined to make Bubby’s birthday cake this year! His birthday is on Tuesday…and we are having a small gathering to celebrate!
I’m a wee bit nervous about making his cake this year.
It’s not that I haven’t had luck with cakes in the past.
I have.
The probelm is that he asked for a “Super Why!” theme to his birthday. And there are no “cake pans” with detailed instructions for making Super Why! cakes, like there are for Spiderman and other cartoons. There are no “decorations” or “party hats” in the Super Why! theme, as it is such a young show! We will have to make do…and hope for the best!
I WILL, however, make him the best cake that I can…and in order to do that…I turned to the mama with 6 kids who has made a few cakes in her days, Jessica from Life As Mom! She does a Birthday Cake Roundup a few times a year for others to show off their homemade birthday cakes…and there just so happens to be one later this week!
She has also put together an e-book about cakes…She explains in more detail about her Pretty. Cool. Cakes. E-book…
I’m no expert, believe me. I’m just a mom who likes to make cool cakes for her kids. When they told me that I couldn’t make them pie for their birthdays, I had to get creative. My basic formula is to take what interests my kids, find toys and candy to go with the theme and then create a scene on top of a cake. Think third grade diorama and make it edible. It’s pretty much what the bakery does, only
- My kids have a lot of creative license in choosing a theme. The sky’s the limit in terms of themes.
- The birthday child gets to keep an entertaining functioning toy rather than a useless, plastic cake topper.
- I don’t pay a small fortune to celebrate with a festive cake.
Still not convinced you can do it? Then buy this book! (or sign up for the giveaway!)
This 34-page book includes photographs step-by-step instructions of thirteen different birthday cakes. Each one is based on a theme chosen by real live kids infatuated with fantasy heroes and storybook characters, just like every other child. Each cake can easily be adapted to your own child’s interests if ours aren’t his favorite. The many ideas represented here range from Star Wars to the Rainforest to Fancy Nancy as well as a few that will please older children, college students, and adults. But the best part of this book is the encouragement and inspiration it imparts.
You will see that it really isn’t difficult to create a festive, fun, and frugal birthday cake to celebrate the milestones in your family’s lives.
Jessica has graciously offered to GIVE AWAY 5 e-books…1 each to 5 lucky winners…details below!
AND…stay tuned, as she’s got some great surprises up her sleeve for later in the week…and I’ll fill you in on Wednesday night when I post the winners!
Giveaway Details
1. Contest ends Wednesday, July 15th at 5 pm EST. Winners will be announced back here on this post, and notified via email with further instructions.
2. Entry #1: Leave a comment just saying you want to win.
3. Entry #2: Leave a SEPARATE comment telling me in what way you promoted this contest (i.e., posting it in a forum, posting about it on your blog, Tweet about it, emailing all your friends, and/or subscribe to my feed by email or in a reader).
4. Entry #3: In another separate comment, let me know what kind of cake or what theme cake you’ve made (or attempted to make) for your kiddo’s birthday! Any tips or pointers would be helpful as well!!!
5. Winner will be selected by Random.org.
**NOTE: If you receive the email newsletter and wish to enter this giveaway, click on the title of this giveaway to get to the site and leave a comment on the site with your name and email address to be entered!
*Disclosure: I did receive a copy of the e-book in conjunction with this giveaway. I have found it super helpful and full of great ideas, tips and tricks!
{ 259 comments… read them below or add one }
← Previous Comments
I’d love a chance to win a copy of the ebook! Thanks!
[Reply]
I would LOVE to win this book!!!
[Reply]
chance #2 – I’ve made a few of the wilton type pans over the years where it is molded and you decorate appropriately with frosting. I took a Wilton class and it was a really fun thing to learn some new skills. We’ve also made simplisticly designed cakes that were fun – like a cake with green frosting and dinosaur toys to make it look rather pre-historic, a round cake in red and black with the piped on spider web and mini spidermans on the web, a cute chocolate frosted cake with a pink flower drawn on it. You can also buy the kits from the store bakery of specific toys in a theme to make your decorating easier and still have the tasty cake you make with the fun store decor.
Good luck!
[Reply]
I want to win.. I twittered the contest.. and I’ve made a basketball theme cake a couple years ago.
[Reply]
Would LOVE to win this book. My son just turned two and I am looking forward to many birthdays to make cakes!
[Reply]
I am emailing my friends with your website link.
[Reply]
For my son’s 2nd birthday last week, I attempted to make a cake shaped like an elephant’s head. It turned out pretty good, but I definitely need more practice. The book would certainly help with my creativity!
[Reply]
I WANT TO WIN!
[Reply]
I’d love to win this book. I’m sure it’s full of GREAT ideas.
[Reply]
I’m a cake decorator. Not as a job, but as a hobby, although I think I’d like to start my own business. Go here to view my web site to see what I’ve done: http://loriescakes.blogspot.com/. The last one I did was a pirate ship.
[Reply]
Here’s a web site you might check out. This lady went ALL out. http://lifeslittlemiracle.tripod.com/
[Reply]
I would sooooo love to win this book. It is perfect timing as I have two little parties (5 and 3) coming up! Thanks for the chance!
*Shay B*
[Reply]
Would *L*O*V*E* to win this book!
[Reply]
I would love to win this!
[Reply]
The cake that I’ve been most happy with I made for my daughter’s 5th birthday. We were doing a horse theme and I made a plain sheet cake, dyed coconut green for grass and crushed up oreos for the dirt and put a fence around the outside from a farm set we had and added two horses, a plastic bail of hay and a feed bucket to the top. She said it was her favorite cake ever. What’s better than that?
[Reply]
I have made many cakes over the years. With an almost 12 and almost 15 year olds there have been a lot of cakes!
The first one that pops to mind is the year my DS wanted Thomas the Train for the theme for his 3rd bday. So I made a rectangle shaped cake. I iced the cake with green frosting to look like grass. Around the perimeter I made a blue and red train track out of icing. Then I sprinkled crushed oreos on the tracks to look like “dirt and coal” that you’d see around train tracks. I also did a track around the base of the plate it sat on. Then I purchased a few of the Thomas trains to put on the icing tracks and a few traffic signs for the middle of cake. (Like you I want the toys on top to be useful afterwards.) It was adorable!! He was so excited to lick the icing off the trains! lol I love those pictures. Ahh good memories.
[Reply]
How fun! I’d love to win this book.
[Reply]
I attempted to make 2 train cakes (separate cars on cookie sheets) for my twins’ second b-day. More time consuming than I’d counted on… but fun to use various candies to decorate.
[Reply]
I subscribed to your feed through google reader.
[Reply]
I want to win, thanks!
[Reply]
I almost always make homemade cakes for birthdays. A favorite was a pirate themed cake–a 9×13 sheet cake, frosted with white frosting. On the “sand” portion of the scene, I sprinkled brown sugar. On the “water” portion, I pulled out some of the cake and poured in blue jello (found the instructions somewhere on line, I think it was a “thicker” jello solution more like for jigglers). Then a package of pirate action figures battled each other on top of the cake.
[Reply]
I’d love to win this book. I make my kids cakes every year and they love to help make them!
[Reply]
I’ll share this with all my facebook friends.
[Reply]
I would love this ebook
[Reply]
I have made a tiger, and panda cake and then I did baseball cupcakes for my sons last birthday.
[Reply]
I’ve made cakes with trains (plastic wrap over the wooden tracks and a dot of frosting to keep the trains on the cake. I also did a winter wonder land cake recently w/ marshmallow snow men and Christmas trees made from frosted green bugles and pretzels for trunks oh and teddy grahams w/ fruit roll ups for the scarves. I was even able to figure out how to do a blue jello pond in the middle for the little teddy grams to float in
Oh and you can smash up some oreos for a dirt trail through your bugle/pretzel forest. The kids really had fun making this one!!!
[Reply]
i’d love this book, please count me in!
[Reply]
i want to win please
[Reply]
I would love to win this book because I love to bake and always make my kids cakes for their birthdays. How I do the cake is a big deal every year for all of the kids birthdays!
[Reply]
I would absolutely love this book – pick me!
[Reply]
me. win. please!
[Reply]
I’d love to win!!
[Reply]
I just made a Big Red Car cake for my daughter’s Wiggle-theme party. Wiggles are discontinued as a party theme…so we made our invites, used red, yellow, blue and purple party-accessories, and I made the cake by altering a cake – shape made with a VW bug cake form pan. We printed out coloring pages, invented some games (jeff-sleeping tag; captain feathersword treasure hunt) and had a blast! the cake was a huge hit – my daughter is still talking about it! glad I was brave enough to try it! can’t wait for more tips!!!
[Reply]
I shared this site and contest on FB! And I subscribe…
[Reply]
The “neatest” I’ve done was just use a 9×13 cake and a 9×9 to make a butterfly for my 13 yo’s birthday last year. cut the 9×9 diagonally to make the wings, trim up the bigger one to make it the body. Lots of icing in the tubes to decorate it. It wasn’t the best but she sure loved that we tried!
[Reply]
I would love to win this! With 3 kids under 3 yrs. old, I have a lot of birthday cakes in my future =)
[Reply]
def want to win this one
[Reply]
i am a daily email subscriber
[Reply]
the best themed cake i have made was an snowman cake that stood up. it looked so cool…
[Reply]
Erin–
A couple of suggestions…I’ve been baking my girls’ cakes for every birthday and sometimes they request something with no cake pan. My daughter wanted a Hello Kitty birthday and surprisingly there was no pan…so I made it using a huge round pan and cutting the shape of her face out. It was super cute!
We’ve got a little cake specialty store that carries ‘edible images’ it’s basically a picture on edible rice paper. I’m sure you can go on the pbs website and print out some of the characters from Super Why and find a store near you that can do it. OR purchase some rice paper and print them on your own printer (that’s what the cake lady does in her store )
As for favors..since the show focuses on reading, spelling and such..maybe little bags with a dry erase board or chalkboard and magnetic letters, a little book, crayons, notepad, cute pencils..I’m sure all of these could be picked up from the dollar store. YOu could also try Oriental Trading…I just googled ’super why party favors’ and got a bunch of ideas…also try Ebay! Good luck!
[Reply]
i would LOVE to win this book. both of my boys birthdays are coming up and i am determined to make all the cakes this year.
[Reply]
i emailed a bunch of people about this giveaway.
[Reply]
I would love to win this book. I refuse to buy a store bought cake for my sons’ birthdays and every year I research cakes and design cakes before their big day. This would be a great help!
[Reply]
i have not made any cakes up to this point. up until this year i have been everything store bought. but i’ve changed almost everything else and am determined to make all the cakes for my boys birthdays. we have a huge family so we need at least two cakes per party. last year we got lucky and our parents bought the cakes but i’m making them this year. hoepfully they turn out ok. i’m sure they will if they have this book!!
[Reply]
I want to win the ebook
[Reply]
I tweeted it
[Reply]
I’d love to win
[Reply]
My favorite was for my oldest daughter’s first birthday. She was enamored of fish. She got a small aquarium as a present and the whole party revolved on this theme. I made us shirts (her and I) with fish painted on. There was a fishbowl of jello with fish stickers on the outside, but the cake was the best. There was a 9×13 frosted in a light blue (water), with green seaweed frosting, cookie crumbles for the gravel and a frosting goldfish. She and her 6 mo buddy each got their own mini loaf size cakes decorated the same way. I have made all my kids cakes until they were at least 5, it is a blast!
[Reply]
I made a train cake for my son’s birthday. Pretty simple, but looked cool. He liked it!
[Reply]
Entry #1:
Man, if ever a contest YELLED my name, it’s this one….I SUCK at making cakes and need DESPERATE help with them. PLEASE PICK ME!!!
[Reply]
← Previous Comments