I cannot believe we celebrated my daughter’s 2nd birthday this weekend. Even though she won’t officially be two until a little before Christmas, we wanted to have her big celebration a little early so it was a bit separated from the holiday. So for our almost two year old we had a Snow White birthday party, per her request, with everything apple inspired. She was dressed in her Snow White best and was surrounded by family, not a bad way to ring in the big 2. Watching her this birthday from the last was a real eye opener as to how much she’s grown and changed in just a year. Something tells me I’m in for many more of those moments down the road, but for now I’m just going to sit back and bask in the start of the toddler years.
With a couple Disney trips under my little girl’s belt, it’s become pretty obvious that she loves just about everything Disney, but one of favorite friends in Disney World is Snow White. So when it came time to choose what direction her 2nd birthday party would go in we had a couple ideas and decided to let the birthday girl choose the winner. Without hesitation, Snow White was the winner for sure and the planning began.
There’s no denying that one of my daughter’s favorite features of the party was her very special Snow White dress. I’d been eyeing these uniquely adorable Disney dresses for quite some time, for a milestone photo or special occasion, but when I spotted the Snow White option I couldn’t think of a more perfect event than for her 2nd birthday. So as an early birthday gift from Mommy and Daddy, we snatched the very special Snow White dress made by Lover Dovers Clothing on Etsy. Because this dress was such a big hit with my little girl, I’m talking love at first sight not wanting to take off and constantly twirling around, I did an extra special feature on this dress with my little one making her vlog debut. Meet my little Snow White and find out why Mommy loves the Snow White dress too on our vlog.
With the birthday girl’s outfit picked out, the party ball was rolling and Mommy jumped into planner mode. First up was the invitation. Last year for our little one’s “it’s a small world” party I made these adorable postcard, front and back invitations with Vistaprint and I just loved the feel and look of them. I decided to go with Vistaprint again this year and do a similar front and back invitation, but this time with a moment of Snow White love on the front and a personalized design on the back, made by yours truly. The picture for the front was an easy choice for me, it’s one of our Disney favorites, but the back I had to put a little more thought into. I knew I wanted to incorporate the signature phrase from the movie so I decided to top the back with a mirror image to which I glued mirror scrapbook paper to, the picture above is an extra invitation that didn’t get the mirror glued on. As far as the invitation text below, I used an amazing authentic Disney text that was perfectly suited for this occasion and the rest I threw together with inspiration from the movie and my little one herself.
“Magic mirror on the wall, who is the fairest birthday girl of all?
With a smile that shines and eyes that sparkle,
is a lovely maiden who is turning two.
Bouncing brown curls and a heart as pure as gold,
“name” wishes to celebrate with you.
Come join us for “name”‘s royal celebration
on “date”
at “time” at The “last name” Cottage.”
With the invitations finished and sent off it was time to design a menu. We decided to just go with a sweet theme, with a few savory snacks on the side; keep in mind we have eight nieces and nephews that were going to be in attendance and plenty of adults that I just knew would all appreciate sweets galore to kick off the holiday month. First up, I knew I wanted to incorporate the magical kiss at the end of the movie so I decided to use a holiday favorite and make Magical Kiss Sugar Cookies. A sugar cookie with a milk chocolate Hershey kiss smooshed in the middle, sprinkled with some magical red sugar on top. These were a huge hit with not only the kids but also the adults too.
Next, I wanted to do something that was really kid friendly so all of our little one’s cousins could grab an easy but adorable treat. I used red candy wafers by Wilton, which are gluten free by the way, large marshmallows that were my store brand which were also gluten free, lollipop sticks, and Spice Farms chocolate sprinkles which as an added bonus were also gluten free. And voila! You have Marshmallow Apple Pops that look like little apples, some with and some without the chocolate topping. These were a lovely bonus for Mommy too, seeing as they were gluten free!
When I was perusing the candy/cake making aisle in one of the craft stores for the hundredth time, I spotted a 99 cents apple cookie cutter and just couldn’t resist making Apple Cutout Sugar Cookies. I decided to dip some of the cookies in a reddish powder sugar frosting that I made. To give the apple cookies that extra sparkle and shine, I just took the freshly frosted cookies and sprinkled them with the red sugar sprinkles. I added the frosted cookies and a few plain cookies to a cute basket that I thought would really go with the Snow White woodsy theme.
With a Snow White theme, I just couldn’t help myself with all of the apples, besides they are one of my daughter’s favorite and most requested food. One thing I knew I had to do was feature the actual apple itself and what better way to do that then to dip them in chocolate and roll them in sprinkles, behold my Chocolate Dipped Apples hold the poison. These were a huge hit and looked so pretty, a great touch to the sweets table that’s for sure.
Dan and I had decided pre-planning to make cupcakes for the guests and order a special small cake for our little girl to save a little bit of money. I’m really glad we did because we ended up with a gorgeous cake that couldn’t have been more special for the birthday girl and equally as beautiful apple inspired cupcakes that won over the masses. For the cupcakes themselves I decided to go with red velvet for obvious reasons of course and triple chocolate for the chocolate lovers. To differentiate between the two I decided to decorate a little differently between both sets. For frosting, I colored white buttercream to this gorgeous red color, piped the frosting on, and topped all of them with those delicious looking red sugary sprinkles that made them shine and sparkle. The Red Apple Triple Chocolate Cupcakes were topped with a small piece of pretzel stick and green chocolate curls to give that stem and leaf feeling of the apple.
For my Red Apple Velvet Cupcakes, I went with the simple red frosting and red sprinkles and just let them shine and sparkle on their own. You might have noticed the awesome cupcake stands that I was using. These are actually birch rounds that I picked up at the craft store. They’re about two inches thick and a foot or so wide and added that woodsy feel that you obviously see plenty of in the Snow White movie. This party would’ve been amazing in our backyard that has a couple gorgeous trees but seeing as we have a winter birthday I really wanted to bring some of the outdoor feel inside. With these wood rounds and wooden baskets I managed to do just that.
Finally, onto the birthday girl’s special little cake. I had some idea of what I wanted but with the help of pinterest and the amazing cake decorators at Classic Cake in New Jersey we were able to put together a really spectacular cake that fit perfectly in our budget. A 6 inch vanilla cake with chocolate buttercream filling was covered in yellow fondant and draped with royal blue fondant around the top, subtly reminds me of Snow White’s dress. With a few gold accents making it extra elegant, we also decided to add a red satin bow at the base, one of my favorite parts of the Snow White look and one that I love to put on my little one anytime she allows for a headband. Finally, to top it all off, the signature red apple was added as the topper with a gold 2 on the center. I was thrilled with how the cake turned out and I just love working with Classic Cake. I should also mention that they offer some gluten free treats too; my husband surprised me with some gluten free macaroons as my sweet treat at the party since most of the party food was not gluten free. They were a perfect surprise for Mommy and the cake was an even better one for our little girl.
With all of the food made, it was time to finish decorating and get the show on the road. I used that apple cookie cutter from the cookies and red paper to make these apple cutouts that I strung together to make apple garland. On either side of the apple garland, Dan hung red streamers which really finished off a fun backdrop. I also decided to add a snowy, light up tree to the table to tie in that woodsy feel. A great addition!
I made these apple shaped signs to label all of the snacks for our guests. I wanted to have chalkboard kind of signs so I used my daughter’s black construction paper and white crayon and went to town. Another cute addition that I didn’t really have to bake were the Miner’s Jewels that I packed into a basket on the table. These were the perfect favor for the kids and a cute idea tying in the dwarves too. I picked up some muslin favor bags that tied at the top and stuffed them with jolly rancher candies, a jewel like candy for sure but also one that was friendly for my nephew with food allergies.
With a cake stand that I already had, little one’s cake was proudly displayed front and center with all of the other treats on either side.
Without further ado, here’s the final product of our Snow White table. With red, yellow, and blue balloons floating around the room and a giant red two attached to our little girl’s birthday seat, the decorations all pulled together perfectly. But, one of my favorite decorations that I put together was the storybook banner on the front. I took our large Snow White book and made copies of the pages. I cut the pages into pennant shapes and strung them together with red satin ribbon. I also made a miniature version to string along the front of little one’s birthday booster chair too. It was a perfect final touch to it all and I couldn’t have been more excited for our little girl to see it all put together.
Little one ended up loving all of the snacks, decorations, balloons especially, but just the party as a whole. With cake coming first, she ended up really not liking all of the attention and turning very shy, pretty unexpected since she greeted everyone with warm hugs. But I must say she is her mother’s daughter since apparently I too at that age wasn’t a fan of being the center of attention. No worries though once the birthday song was sung, the birthday girl lifted her head and gave some cake a try, very daintily I might add, just as she did on her first birthday. But without a doubt, present time was the highlight of the night. Her reactions were priceless, so innocent and genuinely happy and excited over every single gift, even squeaking out some thank yous here and there. With some warm hugs and kisses goodbye, the party came to a close and bedtime drew near. It’s sad for me as her mom to see another birthday pass but I couldn’t be more happy and in love with this adorably precious little girl that seems to be growing and changing so quickly. It was another birthday for the baby book and one that we’ll always remember.
Sincerely,
Lindsay
