For my daughter’s first birthday I went all out with the pink elephant theme. It started with the invitations, which I got customized on Etsy, and then added hand-punched elephants in pink shimmery paper (mounted on 3D adhesive squares), plus tiny pink rhinestones for a little sparkle. The invitations were handed out in pink shimmery envelopes, and I actually had to go out and buy a special pen to prevent smearing of the purple ink I used to address them. And that was just the beginning…
Allie’s cake was four layers high, in pink ombre, and was topped with a homemade bunting made out of pink fabric scraps (that match the bunting decorating her bedroom).
There were also pink polka dot elephant cookies, pink macarons, pink candy popcorn, meringues, candy kisses, and pink Pocky. Everything was presented either in clear glass apothecary jars (from TJ Maxx, so much cheaper than anywhere else), or on homemade glass cake stands, made by gluing glass candleholders to glass plates with my trusty E6000 adhesive. Oh, and at the last minute I picked up a papier mache elephant and painted it pink to put on the table.
And of course, we had to do a cake smash photo shoot (which was several weeks after the party, but hey, still fun!). The background is just a big piece of pink fabric, binder-clipped to our bookshelves, and I got the wooden letters on Etsy and painted them white to use as props. Yes, I’m aware (now) that the E was upside-down…
She’s wearing a custom pink and gray tutu, and her shirt has a pink elephant on it with “I’m One!” embroidered underneath. Etsy is awesome. And yes, the smash cake is pink on the inside too. 😉
The scary thing is, this party is arguably NOT the most elaborate one I’ve thrown for her birthday…
It's All Frosting... 
What a cute party! Love the ombré cake
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Hi! I absolutely LOVE this theme! My daughter will be turning one and I’m hoping to recreate some of these items, if possible. I was wondering if you have a recipe or a tutorial for the pink ombre cake and the pink elephant sugar cookies? I’m really excited about this theme! Thank you in advance! 🙂
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Thanks so much! I had so much fun planning the adorable party (and now my kid is almost seven!)
For the cake I used Rose Levy Berenbaum’s white cake recipe, (https://pastrychefonline.com/white-cake/) though I can’t remember now how much I scaled it up to get my four layers. Each layer is 7″ in diameter and it made a pretty big cake. I used Americolor gel food coloring to color the batter, dividing it equally into four bowls and adding increasing amounts of gel to each bowl– I think I used “Deep Pink” as the color with some “Fuschia” to get the darkest shade. You definitely want to separate your batter first so you get equal amounts of each color.
For my frosting I used the recipe I posted here: https://itsallfrosting.wordpress.com/2015/09/15/faux-fried-ice-cream-cake/ . It’s the best frosting ever, though it never gets perfectly smooth so keep that in mind for decorating.
The sugar cookies with glaze icing are from the recipes I posted here: https://itsallfrosting.wordpress.com/2015/04/17/spring-watercolor-cookies/. Definitely freeze your cutouts before baking them so they hold their shape in the oven.
To ice the elephants I piped around the edges of the cookies and then zigzagged inside the line with pink icing, then let it ooze together (using a toothpick to fill in blank spots, then piped some white glaze dots (use white food coloring to make them stand out more) right on top while it was still wet so they’d sink in. Once the glaze had set I added a little extra food coloring to the remaining pink glaze to make it darker, piped in the ears, and the eyes were drawn in with edible food markers the next day.
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