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02 November 2017

A Starry Night 13th Birthday Party

A Starry Night 13th Birthday Party

Ahhhhh, the Starry Night birthday party for Miss Fab's 13th - what a great night it was. It's about time I shared this party with you, aye? I mean, it's only taken three months!
Turns out, this is most likely the very last party that will ever be hosted here, but more on that another time...
For now here is a magical, star-studded birthday celebration that a bunch of 13-year-old girls thought was super-fun, cool and cute. We hit the spot just right with decor. We had some ironic "throwback-to-our-childhood" activities, and we had some adventures up a hill. All in all a great time was had by all, and it was also very very pretty...

Starry Night Party dessert table
Glitter Jar lanterns

Navy and silver; a scattering of starry confetti over a navy blue sheet. Jar lanterns lathered in glue and dipped in glitter. Stars everywhere...

Starry Night Party - star cupcake toppers and giant marshmallows

Star Garlands (Ali Express); confetti plates (Wish); star napkins (Kmart); Cupcake cups and star glitter (Pop Roc Parties); Giant marshmallows (the Warehouse); star cupcake toppers were homemade (by the birthday girl and her crafty pal Ruby).

Starry cupcakes - with blue geode sprinkles from Kiwicakes

We made two types of cupcakes: The beautiful white-frosted ones with the star topper (below) and these ones (above), which were blue and white marble cakes, with navy blue buttercream decorated with blue geode sprinkle mix (from the amazing "mixologist" at Kiwicakes).

Vanilla cupcake with silver star topper - simple awesomeness

This was a mid-winter birthday party outdoors, which is always a risk, but happily the sun shone, and later on actual stars came out. Still a brisk night, but the roaring fire and cosy blankets to snuggle under made sure nobody felt the winter's chill.

Firepit made from an old concrete washtub
Blankets to snuggle up with; glowsticks and sparklers to play with
jar lanterns - just lather with gluestick and then dip in glitter...
Firepit all ready and blazing...

To entertain the masses, we supplied sparklers (left over from last year's Guy Fawkes) and glowsticks. But the surprise hit was the Silver Star Pinata (twelve bucks from Kmart - I couldn't make it for that).

silver star pinata from Kmart
Teenage girls get a kick out of smashing a pinata ("like when we were kids")

The guests - now so old and wise in their newly hatched teenageness - thought it was a hoot to "throwback to our childhood" (said without an ounce of irony).

birthday girl takes a swing at the pinata
jar lanterns all lit and lookin pretty

For fun with teens just add fire, in any form. Be it toasting giant marshmallows, lighting sparklers or letting off sky lanterns up a mountain - fire is fun.


For even more fun, climb a mountain the dark. Being blessed with a beautiful starry night, that's what we did - we climbed our local hill to let off sky lanterns. When I planned this party, I had visions of a teenage version of that scene in Tangled... but sadly I'd bought the cheap sky lanterns and they were total crap. They just wouldn't light!

We persevered trying to light one for about half an hour... one lantern kinda caught light, floated sideways for a few metres then took a death roll and burst into flames (oops)

(The one that finally got away)

We tried one more time and *finally* successfully launched one lantern skywards, at which point we ran, giggling and screeching, back to the cars. It was an adventure in the dark on a starry night. Money can't buy that. (But money can - and should buy better sky lanterns).

starry night birthday cake

By now it was definitely time for cake.

This one was made to the birthday girl's exacting specifications ("simple please mum; a marble cake; and can I have an ombre effect?")

The thing that totally made this cake was the beautiful sprinkle mix from Kiwicakes. Sandra (Mrs Kiwicakes) is what is known in the biz as a mixologist. This "blue geode" mix of hers was perfect for this cake...

starry night birthday cake with blue geode sprinkle mix on top - from Kiwicakes
There's that ombre effect up the sides (of my slightly wibbly wobbly cake)...

You know I've never pretended to be a pro-cake maker. For some reason my cakes are always a bit lopsided no matter how hard I try, but thanks to the coolness Sandra sends me, they look amazing nonetheless.

To save time (and effort cos I hate mixing buttercream) Sandra sent me a pre-mixed tub of blue buttercream frosting, which I added a bit of black food colouring to, darkening it to a more "navy/night sky" shade. Smoothing some of the original colour around the sides and blending it gave it that ombre effect the birthday girl asked for.

Here's a collage of the cake process...

Marble cake process collage

Outside? An ombre night-sky masterpiece Vincent Van Gogh himself would approve of; inside? a swirly marble cake in blue and white. So easy to do (just make your favourite vanilla cake mix; separate into two bowls, then add blue gel food colouring to one bowl of mix. Put blobs of colour randomly into a greased cake tin, then use a skewer to swirl the colours together and bake.

Repeat process for a two-layer cake. Sandwich together with buttercream. Slather the whole thing with more buttercream; use your latent artist skills to smear the sides with an ombre effect... and then sprinkle on your night sky...

Just enough sprinkles to turn our cake into a starry night masterpiece


The birthday girl loved it. And I am in love with the geode sprinkle mix.

Happy 13th birthday Miss Fab!

That's it. My baby girl is a teenager, her party was epic (our adventure up the hill was talked about for days) and the candles were "dabbed" out.

It's hard to believe that this might be the last party post I write?!
I'll explain soon. But in the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this one (I know we did).


Starry Night Party

MISS FAB'S OTHER GIRLY PARTIES
Baking Birthday Party
Fancy Nancy Party
Fairy Party
Garden Fairy Party *Just because*
Paris Party - (La Cafe de Paris)
Royal Ball (Princess) Party

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