This sweet guy turned 10 at the beginning of the month! My heart is still quite in shock that my first-born is now in double digits, but I’m so very proud of the smart, funny, courageous young man my Little Drummer Boy is becoming.

We celebrated the big 10 with a small “friend party” at a local gym, and decided on a “magic” theme. I had a great time painting and designing some invitations and trappings for my favorite client 🙂 so I thought I would share a peek at some of the preparations.

We used a magic hat and wand in the watercolor invitations, so I decided to go with that theme for some of the snacks. We made pretzel stick magic wands and chocolate-covered marshmallows sitting on oreos to create top hats. For the party centerpiece, I built a “magic hat” cake, complete with a bunny appearing out of it — fun times with black gel icing! We made mustache and bunny iced cookies, and I also had fun decorating some sheet cakes as playing cards for the card trick effect.

Now, I’m not a baker or a cake decorator, or even a great food crafter. I don’t really consider myself “good” at that kind of thing,  but I had a couple of crazy ideas to go along with the magic theme, and I had a really great time fleshing them out for us to enjoy. As moms, I think sometimes we try to hold ourselves to a standard of perfection in our pinterest-crazed world. During our prep time, I found myself thinking, “this looks so home-made,” as if the less-than-perfect icing was somehow a negative thing. The smiles on my kids’ faces were a good reminder that it really is the effort — the act of loving through doing and making — that counts most toward making memories. Not how smooth the icing is! So, with that disclaimer, here are a couple of peeks at our magic creations…