Really...Hello Kitty?

"I want a Hello Kitty cake for my birthday" was the answer I received every time I asked Little Bit #2 what kind of cake she was wanting for her birthday party.  "Are you sure?" would be my response.  And I asked her a number of times because not only do almost 4 year old little girls change their mind constantly,
but this was one of those times I was hoping she would change her mind.  But of course, she didn't change her mind.  Instead she further developed the theme and said she wanted a Hello Kitty Pink and Purple Princess party to be exact.  I've never really cared for Hello Kitty.  I'm not really sure why.  If I had to pinpoint a reason, I think I would have to say because I'm a detail person and let's face it, there isn't a lot of detail on Hello Kitty.  I mean, she doesn't even have a mouth for goodness sakes. 

So here I was...faced with trying to incorporate a Hello Kitty Princess theme into the already well themed Babies for Babies petting zoo that I had ordered up from Cathy's Critters.  Our invitations were already ordered that said "Come Party with the Party Animals" which the hubs picked out and I thought they were quite cute.  But when a cute little almost 4 year old knows so decisively what she wants in a party, why should I deny even if I'm not a Hello Kitty fan.

Task at hand, I started about 5 weeks in advance scouring the internet late at night trying to find ideas.  I felt behind before I started.  There are some moms that make party throwing look like they do party planning for a living.  I haven't planned a party at home in a number of years and considering we recently moved, our house is not exactly fully decorated and all finished.  We barely have five pictures hanging on the walls with the rest stacked up leaning against the wall by the stairs.  And the more I looked, the more I felt overwhelmed.  So many cute ideas, but most way too hard for my limited crafting abilities.

And the cake, there were so many options of Hello Kitty cakes to copy on the internet. (My favorite websites for ideas came from this website Hello Kitty Birthday Cakes although there are literally unlimited websites with Hello Kitty cakes). Little Bit #2 looked online with me with a constant stream of "oohs" and "aahs" coming from her lips.  Looking at the cakes online made me feel completely inadequate as a cake decorator.  Sure I've made and "decorated" a cake or two over the years.  In fact, I've made a cake every year for Little Bit #1's birthday.  But since May is my busiest time of year at work, I've never taken the time to make Little Bit #2 (LB2) a cake.  This year I was determined to make her the best cake I've ever made.  I didn't want LB2 growing up thinking I loved LB1 more because I would always take the time to make her birthday cake every year.

And then I found it, the cake that looked sufficiently fun and detailed but still easy enough to do with my limited cake decorating experience (see right).  During the same week that I was scouring the internet looking for ideas, I was also procuring cake decorating supplies, printing out my Micheal's and Hobby Lobby coupons and going by them nearly every day to try to reduce the cost of this little project.  I started to make different frosting recipes in search of a very good tasting frosting to put on the cake.  I practiced piping with different consistencies of frosting and taught myself how to pipe shells and other patterns. I even decided that I would take a shot at using fondant since I've watched so many Cake Boss episodes where they make putting fondant on a cake look so easy a kindergartner could do it. My friend at work had given me a couple of Cake Boss books as a Christmas present, which I think is the whole reason I started down this cake journey for my daughter in the first place.

Now after reading this blog for even two seconds, you might figure out very easily that not only am I not a professional at anything (other than my day job of course), but that as far as cake decorating and party planning go, my experience is extremely limited.  I'm not here to pretend that I know something that someone else doesn't.  Any advice I might give at any point in time now or in the future would be really aimed at a person just like me who is interested in baking or crafts but really is just looking for a relatively simple project and some basic directions to produce a product that they can feel proud of a bit of without having to invest too much money or time. 

So now after all of that intro I'll get down to what I ended up with and in a future post, I'll give you a few more details on what I did and how.

Here is a picture of LB2's Pink and Purple Hello Kitty Cake.  Obviously I ended up going with the fondant icing which is not as easy or as hard as it looks.  My cake certainly doesn't look as finished or as well put together as the original inspiration cake, but overall, I was proud of this cake and believe if I can do this, then anyone who has any interest can do this as well.

Here are a few other pictures from the party as well.  I'll put more on those items in a future post.

We'll I'm up entirely too late for my day job and have not very successfully mastered the art of uploading pictures into the blog yet, so I'll call it a night and pick up where I left off later.

Thanks for reading!

MB