Crafty Tuesday: Dumbo Birthday Party

Birthdays are my favorite days.  I will admit, I go above and beyond on birthdays.  I blame it on my past hobby of scrapbooking and the basic essentials that I kept.  Add a very talented a crafty mother-in-law who travels 3,000 miles to visit the girls on their birthdays and well, I just can’t help myself!  My younger daughter just turned four (sniffle – where does time go?) and she wanted  a Dumbo themed cake.  Dumbo was released in 1941 and there is very little Dumbo related anything out there.  Even the Disney Store is barren.  So that means one thing……..CRAFT!

I searched and searched some more for ideas for Dumbo cakes but nothing really screamed “make this” to me.  Then my mother-in-law suggested a custom cake topper with a picture of Dumbo.  Brilliant!  I am just going to say what you all are thinking “Isn’t Dumbo copyrighted?  Who in their right mind would want to work with you?”  The though crossed my head numerous times too.  I set out and contacted three companies I found while searching the web and three businesses on Etsy.  Out of all of my requests I found one business willing to help me.  With the help of another friend skilled in Photoshop we were able to create the custom Dumbo cake topper above.  The Dumbo is actually a coloring page that my friend filled in while using the paint bucket tool in Photoshop.  Pretty clever, right?

My daughter was THRILLED to see her cake in the morning!  The cake was super easy to make.  I stuck two round cakes together, frosted with homemade frosting, put the edible cake topper sheet on, piped the edges, and was DONE!  Huge props to the scalloped IKEA cake sheet (called Drommar) that I put under the cake for an extra decorative element.  I do have new respect for people who do this for a living.  That little cake made me break a sweat.

Since I had a high quality Dumbo image I decided to make a shirt out of it too! I found the iron-on papers at Target for about $8.00. It actually took two attempts to make the shirt since I held the iron on too long for the first one and the shirt yellowed where it should have been clear. Lesson learned!

We added a new tradition to our birthdays – SILLY STRING FIGHTS!!!  Oh my gosh, there is no better way to elicit laughter and real smiles than with a can of Silly String!  We used Silly String from the Dollar Store and I think for the next birthday party we will use one name brand and one generic brand to see which one is really better.

And a party wouldn’t be complete without goody bags.  I found gray bags at Party City for 79¢ each.  My first attempt was definitely an elephant and not Dumbo.  It was cute, but not what I wanted.  

So I asked my mother-in-law for help. She came up with a really awesome idea! But we were working on this really late the night before we needed them so we ended up just printing a picture of Dumbo and gluing that on to the gray bag. Easy and Perfect!

Overall, the Dumbo theme was a huge success.  With a little creativity you can certainly make an old party theme look brand new!

If you are looking for more party inspiration check out the Care Bear birthday party complete with the most awesome Rainbow Cake EVER, the Elmo Birthday party post with adorable Sesame Street Goody Bags, the Minnie Mouse birthday party with super easy to make Minnie Mouse invitations, and the Tinkerbell Tulle wands we made as party favors.

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