Raising up a Nautical Nerd: Pokemon Birthday Party

Pokemon. It is kinda a thing around here. Namely with my eldest daughter, Savanna. Past birthdays included: dinosaurs (twice), dragons, and now Pokemon. Can I tell you how much it tickles me that she has her own "things" she is into? I love it.

DahliaDesigns on Etsy made her invitations, which I then printed out onto cardstock and mailed with a few Pokemon tattoos to the guests. I could not recommend this vendor more, she had excellent communication (to verify all the info and spellings) and was quick with sending the image. 

Savanna adores Pokemon, but I was unsure if her five girlfriends enjoyed it as she does. I wanted to hand out a party favor that even a non-Pokemon enthusiast could make use of later. So I decided on charm necklaces (Origami Owl knock-off style). The lockets were half off at Hobby Lobby and the ball chain necklaces (from Etsy) were leftovers from a previous dinosaur party. SnaptoitCharms on Etsy has hundreds of different little trinkets to put in these locket style pendants for only $3.00 each. They even created two additional ones custom just for me at no extra charge, all I had to do was send them an image. I figure if they don't like Pokemon, the girls can take them out and put in whatever they want down the road.

The days of me sewing the girls' birthday outfits has passed  >sigh< But I knew she would need a fun, cool shirt for the big day! So where do you think I would find a Pokemon shirt?! TeeFury?! THAT old geeky place? That I only gush about every other month. Yeah. There. I let her pick out what she wanted and it ended up being this totally awesome Pokemon/How To Train Your Dragon mash up art. Did I mention that one of her previous parties was dragons? More specifically How To Train Your Dragon. Very fitting.

Party City got most of our business as far as decorations go, with some of her stuffed Pokemon as accents. Thankfully Pokemon is still pretty popular so the decorations choices were plentiful. That is not always the case.

I may not get to make their outfits but I do make a point to hand make their cakes. I have been able to use the same dragon/dinosaur shape in years past (and if she had chosen Charizard I would have been able to get away with it again). This year she wanted a Mew cake. Mew is pink so we chose Paula Deen's Strawberry Cake recipe with a tweak here and there.

Strawberry Cake (mostly using Paula Deen's recipe):

18 1/4 oz  strawberry cake mix (Paula uses white- but I like EXTRA berry goodness)

3 oz box of strawberry gelatin

10 oz package of frozen whole strawberries thawed and pureed (Paula uses sweetened but I find the icing so sweet that it tastes best with unsweetened)

4 large eggs

1/2 cup of vegetable oil

1/4 cup water

Preheat oven to 350. Grease 2 round pans (9"). In large bowl, combine cake mix, gelatin, berry puree, eggs, oil and water, beat at medium speed. Pour into pans and bake 20 minutes (or longer if your puree was really cold still). Toothpick method to check for doneness (is this even a word? Well call me Shakespeare, because I am using it). Cool. The cakes. Not me. But sometimes. 

Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting:

1/4 cup of butter (I used unsalted this time, but salted tastes nice as well)

8 oz package of cream cheese, softened

10 ounce package of frozen strawberries, thawed and pureed (you only need a little though)

1 teaspoon of strawberry extract (Paula uses 1/2 but again, with the berriness level... must have more)

dash of red food coloring if shooting for a certain shade of pink

About 7 cups of confectioner's sugar (I ended up using about 6 for the texture I was looking for)

In a large bowl, beat butter and cream cheese on medium speed. Beat in 1/4 cup of the pureed berries, add extract. Gradually add the sugar until desired texture. Add food coloring if desired.

I pulled up a photo of Mew and cut the first pan into a thin crescent and large oval. The second cake I cut into two thin semicircles and a small triangle. 

Use the large oval as the head, semicircles as legs and the thin crescent became the pointed ears. The small triangle was eaten, leaving the larger portion as the body. You must eat the small triangle. It is part of the instructions and we must follow instructions mustn't we? Plus a good cook must taste test. Isn't nice of me to just build it in?

I frosted, then outlined the details of Mew's body with black cookie icing. I saved some of the strawberry icing to be placed in a ziptop baggie for piping the tail onto the board. It looks scarily like intestines but yeah. I am not a professional. If this ends up on Cake Wrecks I will just consider it PR. So ha. Just remember to link back.

Seven little girls are easy to feed. They grazed on popcorn, lunch meats, cheese, fruits and veggies. We played some games like Silly String tag, toss the Poke' ball into the bucket and set off fun popping things from Japan (thanks Ashley!!). It was a fun and sweet morning for all of us.

Scarlette has mentioned a "whale" themed party for this summer... hmmmm... maybe she is part mermaid. Stingrays last year and whales this year? Though 5 year olds can change their minds, so we will see.