Dora Birthday!

Little Sis turned 3! For each birthday, I let the girls pick what they want on their cake and what flavor cake they want, then I do my best to make it. Someday, I'd really like to take a Wilton class, as I am entirely self-taught and it certainly shows! (I can't make roses to save my life, my writing is not very steady, and I cannot ice smoothly unless I am working with fondant!)

Little Sis decided on Dora for her theme. I made her cake and we also did something fun with her presents. I'll detail both below:

Presents:
I stumbled on this idea on a few different websites as I was searching for cake ideas. Here was my take on it:
Before the big day, I bought a Swiper beanie baby and made a map. (Not very colorful, but it worked. Some people made fun sets that go along with places Dora visits...since we weren't having a formal party, I just made a map through part of our house.)

1. I set the presents out on a bench, had my girls look at it before going downstairs to play for a bit.
2. While they were downstairs, I moved the presents to a different location and replaced them with a beanie baby Swiper (part of her present too) and a map I had made on the computer, rolled up and tied with a ribbon. Then we let the fun begin!

3. The girls came back up and immediately saw Swiper. We asked what happened to the presents and they realized Swiper "swiped" them. I had left Map right next to him, as I didn't want any tears because presents were stolen. I also said that Swiper must have stashed the presents somewhere else in the house and asked them who we needed to ask for help when we don't know which way to go!

4. They followed the map and found the presents! Little Sis was still talking about it at bedtime. Of course we had to read Dora books, with Swiper sitting nearby. HIGHLY recommend this fun game!

Cake:
I did some searching and ended up making cupcakes with Dora rings, along with a small cake with Dora's face on it. I had intended to write Happy Birthday, but didn't have much room (and also finished everything else REALLY late at night). Here's how it turned out...

I had intended to make the cupcake icing really pretty, but ended up short handed and just smoothed it over with a butter knife and added some pink sugar sprinkles.

For the Dora face, I printed a picture of her, taped it to wax paper. I used a tube of black Wilton icing to make her outline on the wax paper, then froze it for about 15 minutes.

Then I used the Dora Wilton color pack, dyed the icing, and filled in all of the spaces and put it back in the freezer.

Mistakes I made: First, had troubles applying it smoothly. Second, likely didn't apply the icing thick enough....I think it has to be at least a certain thickness for this freezing method to work and you really have to make sure you do not leave any gaps. Finally, I left mine in the freezer overnight because it was really late and I didn't want to wait another 45 minutes. I don't think this affected it much, but may try differently next attempt. If you do it right, you should be able to peel the picture away fairly easily from the wax paper. Parts of mine were ready to peel off easily, other parts were not. Instead of peeling, I just cut around it and laid it on top of the cake until serving time. (Which brings my final mistake...didn't level my cake. You absolutely must have a level surface to apply figures made this way. Since I kept the wax paper attached, it worked for me. Had I been able to separate it, the face likely would have cracked. Still can't believe I forgo to level both layers of the cake!)

Didn't quite turn out the way I had visualized, but Little Sis loved it and that's all that matters!