Monday, May 26, 2014

A Narnian 10th Birthday

BigBoy's birthday was yesterday and he asked for a Narnian themed celebration. He just read the books on his own for the first time this year. He'd listened to the audiobooks before when he was too little to really remember them. Now, he's read these beautiful stories and they have endeared themselves to him.
Rain's gift to him… hand made gift tags decorated with Narnian characters and scenes.

~ The Decorations ~
It's not Narnia without a lamp post, right? We found this one at Hobby Lobby on clearance and plan to use it outside with some citronella candles this summer. For his birthday, we used an electric candle.
Red tablecloth, greenery, ribbon and streamers. We left some of the snowflakes up from Sunshine's birthday yesterday to show the winter thawing into spring. I used BigBoy's wooden shield and sword to decorate the table. Tinfoil and a paper lion transformed it into King Peter's shield.
I made this banner at the last minute the night before his birthday when our printer miraculously wasn't acting up. Free Narnia font can be found here.

~ The Cake ~ 
"Why! it's a guinea-pig," said the girl. And it was--- a fat guinea-pig, nosing about in the grass. But round the middle of the guinea-pig there ran a tape, and, tied on to it by the tape, was a bright yellow ring.
Don't you love that guinea pig? BigBoy sure did! 
While his general theme was Narnia, BigBoy specifically requested that his cake reflect his favorite book of the series… The Magician's Nephew. Usually when I make a cake, I like to Google search and see if I can find an inspiration cake to alter or copy or just get some ideas. Do you know how many Magician's Nephew cakes there are on the internet? Two. Now there are three…
The pebbles are chocolate candy rocks that we found at a local store in the bulk candy aisle. The grass was made using a Wilton grass tip and the trees are just plastic ones that you can find in the model section of the craft store. The green fluff leaves were falling off like crazy so I sprayed them with hairspray and let them dry over night. They didn't shed any more after that. The guinea pig is a Schleich piece and the ring tied on the back came from one of The Professor's LOTR LEGO sets. The pools are made with sparkle gel frosting, blue and white, swirled together with the back of a spoon. 

~ The Cuteness ~
Photo bomb!!!
~ Some Gifts ~
One of his gifts from us… Narnia themed Stratego. I had to find this on Ebay since it's not made anymore. It's only a two player game, but they are having a blast with it. 
Yes… he was winning at this point. Can you say "smug"?

His other favorite gift…
In fact, he received two copies… below is my husband auctioning off the extra copy to the clamoring siblings who were offering weeks of chore duty to get first crack at it. Yeah… we are book nerds.

Happy Birthday to you!
 Happy Birthday to you!
 Happy Birthday, dear BigBoy!
 Happy Birthday to you!
We love you!