Modern Mommy: Willow's First Birthday

This post has been a long time coming. We celebrated Willow's first birthday a month ago and I'm just now finding the time to sort through photos and share the fun on my blog. This is likely going to be a common occurrence now that I'm back to work full time.

The Invitation

A black and white photo with simple circles was the design for the invitations this go round. I'd say my self taught Photoshop skills were a success on this one. Although I created the invitation on my own, I can't fully take credit for the design. I found inspiration by sifting through invitations on Shutterfly. But I will take a great deal of credit for birthing the adorable little girl on the card.

The Cupcake Cake

The cake recipe I used is quite possibly my all time favourite. It is the White Almond Wedding Cake found on Allrecipes.com. I added a few drops of red food colouring to make the cake batter pink and baked it in the form of mini-cupcakes and a few regular sized cupcakes.

I find it easiest to a make a cupcake cake by first figuring out the layout before icing the cupcakes. It took me a few tries to figure out how to make a bunch of mini-cupcakes look like the number one, but I eventually succeeded.

Here is my personal icing recipe:

Almond Buttercream Icing

1 cup butter, softened

1 tsp almond extract

3 cups confectioners' sugar

1 1/2 tbsp milk

Cream together the butter and almond extract. Add the confectioners' sugar and beat well. Add the milk, mix until light a fluffy. Add food colouring as desired.