Party Disclaimer: I love having parties. The best part? Getting ready for them. My main advice is that if you ain't having fun, then don't do it! Having a party can be super stressful if you don't plan ahead and if you are trying to create a bunch of crap you saw on Pinterest that you're not really excited about. IF you are excited about the crap you saw in Pinterest, then do it! But most importantly have fun.

Choose 2 or 3 "projects" to do to make the party extra special. For this Frozen party, I chose to do awesome-photoshopped birthday invite of my girls as princesses, an Elsa Barbie cake, and an Olaf piñata. Here's how:

1. Photoshopped invite: I put my girls in their princess dresses thinking I would get an adorable picture of them both smiling at the same time. Yeah right. Instead I took the funny pictures of them in character wearing their dresses and put it over a Frozen scene. Added text, some graphic elements & filters - and Bam!, Awesome Invite. Don't know how to do that? Call me. ;)

2. Princess Barbie Cake - There are a lot of videos on how to make one of these by baking your cake in a bowl to create the shape of your dress. My sister used to do wedding cakes, and she said that's not that great of a way because it can come out uneven. INSTEAD, bake a bunch of sheet cakes, and freeze them. Then, stack the cakes, cut a hole in and insert barbie (w/ hip joints wrapped in plastic). Then shave the cake into a dress, and frost. We made marshmallow Fondant (1 bag marshmallows, 1 bag powdered sugar) to create the dress this video and Fondant Snowflake Cutters to create snowflakes for the cake and cupcakes - but you could just use regular frosting. In fact, if you want to keep it fun (and in my case, not hear your husband say a bunch of potty words while I made him roll out fondant that wouldn't stick together... ) then just use regular ol' frosting. But, if you are over ambitious watch this video by Ann Reardon.

3. Olaf Piñata. If you've never made a pinata, It's a lot of fun but super messy. You just mix flower and water to a glue -like consistency and dip in strips of paper. You glue these strips in a thin layer around a balloon (or several to cut and create final shape), wait till it dries, and repeat until its a few layers. Once it fully dries, you pop the balloon, glue together with a hot glue gun the shapes you need (we used to circles, and cut the top of of one). I added a layer of duct tape around the thing and create a loop to hang the piñata. I also added more duct tape where I saw fit to make it more difficult to break. Use hot glue to decorate with tissue paper to decorate. Because we had a bunch of two year olds, they got to hit it with a foam sword (did nothing) and then I had my hulk-of-a-brother bust it open with one swing with a stick. Pixie sticks went flying ten feet in the air, and needless to say, the princess guests were thrilled...

Other things we did: Goodie bags with bubble and Frozen tattoos (no more candy please!), Frozen Punch (Mix 50/50 Hawaiian Punch w/ Sprite), and a Blue Chocolate Fountain.

To Make a Blue Chocolate Fountain: Add Wilton Candy to your chocolate fountain. We used three 12 oz bags and then added about a half cup of Vegetable Oil to help it run Smoothly. We used Marshmallows and Oreos to dip in. Note: DO NOT ADD NON-OIL BASED DIE TO WHITE CHOCOLATE. Adding a non-oil based liquid to chocolate will cause it to cease up.

That's all for now! Hope you're party is magical. And, well - hire me if you want that awesome invite! ;)

Brenda Fleming | New Mexico Art