If you know me in real life, you would know that I love to make birthday cakes for my kids. Growing up, my mom always made us some of the best cakes, so I wanted to do the same for my kids. It started with an elaborate Winnie the Pooh cake when my 6 year old turned 1.

Jessica at Life as Mom is having a birthday cake round up today, so I thought I would show off (again) some of my cakes from the last year. She is really creative with her cakes (and has lots of experience, since she makes cakes for her 6 kids). Life as Mom has also compiled an e-book of her cakes called Pretty.Cool.Cakes, and the e-book is on sale now through Sunday night for only $2.00.

On to the cakes. This year, my 3 year old was obsessed with Curious George and my 6 year old loves WallE. The 6 year old does not like cake (only the frosting), so he requested a cookie cake.
As you can see, the WallE cake has some imperfections. The cookie cake fell apart when I pulled it from the pan (I probably should have let it cool another day), and the WallE buttercream transfer had a bit of a mishap when it fell out of my freezer and broke the glass. But, I patched things up, and I knew that my son would still think it was great (and he did). Don’t worry about being perfect when you make cakes for your family. Just try for your best…and you’ll learn over time.

Both of these cakes were made using a Buttercream transfer. It’s actually really simple and it can be done ahead of time and placed on the cake right before you serve it.

All you need is a picture (printed in mirror image) from a coloring book or printed from online (I found mine on PBS Kids), a piece of glass, some chocolate, some frosting, and some decorator bags/tips.

Here are some other birthday cakes I’ve made over the years and here’s a link to a post with my buttercream frosting recipe.

Additional resources for homemade birthday cakes:

• Coolest Birthday Cakes
• Wiltons’ site – thanks Sabrina

Last night we had a 6th birthday party for my son.

Although many of his friends over the past year have had great parties at places like Chuck E. Cheese, bowling, a gynmastics center, and bounce places, I couldn’t bring myself to pay for the steep cost associated with such a party. I worried about setting a precedent for the party and then being expected to have a party like that every year (and for his brother too).

So, I wanted a frugal birthday party, but I wanted to try to avoid having it at my house again. We decided on a party at the park. With a summer birthday, you can do things like that . We decided on a Thursday evening to allow time to cool off a little (it didn’t really), and we hoped the park wouldn’t be so busy as on a Saturday.

Food – We ordered $5 Little Caesar’s pizzas, since we had the party during dinnertime. If I had the party on a Saturday, I would have had the party between 2-4 and just served cake. We also had juice packets that I had purchased on major sale a couple of months ago and bottled water (although I should have just brought our big camping water dispenser to have lots of water available).

Cake – My son doesn’t like cake (just the frosting), so I made him a WallE cookie cake…easy to make and very low cost

Entertainment – The boys played on the play structure at the park, ate pizza and cookie cake, opened presents, and threw water balloons at my husband.

Party Favors – Since WallE is apparently not very popular anymore, all the WallE stuff at the party store was on clearance. I purchased some WallE noise makers, stickers (gave each child a page of stickers), and I visited the dollar store. I splurged on WallE bubbles that I found ($1 for each child), and purchased other items with multiple items per package (dinosaurs and card games).

I think the boys (and my son) had just as much fun as if it were at a party place. I just had to do a little more work myself to pull it off .

What have you done to save money on birthday parties? For more frugal ideas, please visit Life as Mom.

Today my baby turned 3 years old. He insisted on having a Curious George cake, so that’s what he got (since I aim to please).

Rather than purchase a cake at the store (which doesn’t taste as good anyway), I made his cake using a Buttercream transfer. It’s actually really simple and it can be done ahead of time and placed on the cake right before you serve it.

All you need is a picture (printed in mirror image) from a coloring book or printed from online (I found mine on PBS Kids), a piece of glass, some chocolate, some frosting, and some decorator bags/tips.

Here are some other birthday cakes I’ve made over the years and here’s a link to a post with my buttercream frosting recipe.

Additional resources for homemade birthday cakes:

• Coolest Birthday Cakes
• Wiltons’ site – thanks Sabrina

Do you make your own cakes? How do you come up with ideas to decorate them? For more frugal ideas, please visit Life As Mom (who also happens to be great at making cakes).

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about making your own birthday cakes to save money. Well, the FishMama at Life as Mom is hosting a Birthday Cake Roundup. If you’re interested in seeing some really cute cakes for future ideas, visit her site. Here are some of the cakes that I’ve made over the years…

Let’s face it, birthdays can be expensive. Not only do you have gifts to purchase, but you have to have a cake, too. If you buy your cake, it can be really expensive ($15.00 or more). Or, you could make your own cake. I can usually purchase box cake mixes for $1.00 or less, when I find it on sale and use a coupon. I also make my own frosting, which is another big cost savings there.

But, you’re worried that you have to have fancy cake pans, or you have to have all kinds of cake decorating experience. That’s not true. I’ve made my share of cakes with fancy car-shaped cake pans, etc, but you don’t have to have that. With a little creativity, you can turn a cake made in different-sized glass bowls into a turtle (see below). Here’s where I got my idea. Or, you could print a coloring page off the internet and trace it into a Batman (or a Boz). It’s called a Buttercream transfer and here are directions on how to do it. As far as having cake decorating experience, all you need is a little practice making stars (the most basic cake decorating stroke).

For even more fun, you can involve your kids in making and decorating their own cake. Not only do they have a delicious (and frugal) cake for their birthday, but they probably had a blast helping you out in the kitchen. The cake may not turn out perfect, but what’s more important – the perfect cake picture or the fun your child had with you in the kitchen? Besides, pictures of cakes are always quite forgiving . Mine always look better in pictures than they did in real life.

To help you get started, here’s my recipe for buttercream frosting (made with the new trans fat free Crisco).

1 cup shortening (trans fat free)
1 cup butter
2 tsp. clear vanilla (if you want the frosting to be white) – Wilton sells the clear vanilla
2 lbs. powdered sugar
4 tbsp. milk

Mix the shortening and butter, then add the vanilla and milk. Slowly add the powdered sugar. Then blend for about 5 minutes.

Photos by Me .

Heather at Freebies 4 Mom has a great post on companies where you can get freebies for your birthday. My birthday is in January, so of course I looked at the list. On a side note, one of my favorite restaurants closed in June…to rub it in, they still sent me my postcard for a free meal for my birthday . They still have another restaurant open in my city, but it’s over an hour’s drive away…not worth it for a free meal.

Here’s the link to the birthday freebies list.

My older son is only 5, so he hasn’t been invited to too many birthday parties so far…but I know it’s coming. For the birthday parties that he was invited to last year, I struggled with what to buy for the birthday boy. I didn’t really know them very well, and I didn’t really know what they had or didn’t have (and neither did my son). I really hated to spend more on a birthday present for a relative stranger than I budgeted for my own nieces and nephews. For some of the birthdays, the birthday happened to coincide with a toy sale, but not always.

My solution this year was to start shopping for toys during the periods of time when toys are on clearance. I bought some toys for nieces and nephews during the after Christmas sales for birthdays this year. And this summer and fall I’ve been stocking up on the clearanced toys that retailers are trying to get rid of in order to stock their toy department for Christmas.

My son has a July birthday, so I was in Toys R Us for his birthday gift and noticed that the whole store had tons of clearance, plus you got an additional percentage off the clearance price (20%?). Then, I shopped Target during August when they had a huge clearance sale. Now, KMart has lots of toys (including board games, like Pictionary) on clearance with an additional 20% off. I’ve bought Christmas presents for most of my younger nieces and nephews, as well as random birthday presents for the future at huge bargains!

Next week, I plan on talking about how I save on cards by making them myself. What works for you when saving money on birthday and Christmas presents?