Hello Kitty Birthday Party!

What do these have in common?

• Hello Kitty
• my trip to Japan in 1993
• sushi
• Japanese Bento-style lunches
• my daughter, Brittany
  

Brittany's 12th Birthday Party!

     My daughter, Brittany is SO creative!  For months now, she's been planning a very special birthday party...and now you are able to see what she designed and planned for months and months!

     She has always loved real food, toy food, miniature food, cooking in the kitchen, pretend cooking in the play kitchen (when she was a toddler and preschooler)...basically, anything to do with food.  And her specialty over the last six months has been making miniature foods, or replicating real foods with clay or other food ingredients.  Here's what she came up with, completely on her own.

Hello Kitty Birthday Cake

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     We ordered a plain vanilla sheet cake with icing borders on the edges.  Brittany was inspired by "Cake Boss" episodes, so she made a Hello Kitty face out of homemade marshmallow treats and then covered it with white fondant.  She used a combination of candy melts and a small tube of black writing icing to finish the decor on the Kitty.  I wrote the text on her cake for her.

Dessert "Sushi" and "Sushimi" snacks

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     She designed her own sushi to place on the cake and also made extra to serve as snacks!

     For the green sushi rolls, she encased homemade marshmallow treats around pieces of Swedish fish candy, and then surrounded the sushi roll with thin fruit leather.

     The red tuna sushimi was made by forming homemade marshmallow treats into a rectangular shape and then placing a thin slice of red gelatin on top.

Bento lunches (or dinner, in our case)!

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     Brittany decided to introduce her friends to Japanese Bento lunches!

     When we were out of town in November, my aunt recommended a large Japanese market for us to visit.  We found these darling, inexpensive bento lunch box kits, and bought one for each of the girls coming to the party. 

     They spent quite a bit of time making all kinds of cute treats for their bento dinners:

• shaped rice balls (Hello Kitty, rabbit, and teddy bear shapes) with ham and cheese cutouts for decor
• egg "people" with large smiles!
• "Little Smokie" octopii
• Tiny sandwiches filled with jam and other goodies
• and then filled in the extra spaces with tiny grape tomatoes

A little translation laughter for you:

     We had a good laugh before the party when we realized that the translation on the little box containing the fork, spoon, and chopsticks said "Mix & Mate" instead of "Mix and Match."      A-hem.        :)

     We also served sushi with the bento dinners, and hot dogs for the faint of heart.

A fun Japanese beverage:  Ramuné

Photoshopped by Kelsi

_     At the Japanese store we visited, we were also able to pick up a couple of packs of Ramune (ラムネ), which is a carbonated soft drink originally sold in Japan. The bottles are made of glass and sealed with a marble.  The original Ramune flavor is lemon-lime. The word "ramune" is derived phonetically from the English "lemonade". Ramune soda is very popular in Japan. Ramune comes in some unusual flavors, such as wasabi, kimchi, octopus, and curry...but we only bought STRAWBERRY. 

:) 

If you're new to Ramune, you might find it tricky to open the bottle; it comes sealed with a fun marble that acts as a stopper. Can you get the marble out without breaking the bottle?  Brittany made a video to show how to open up the Ramune bottles:

Hello Kitty polymer clay craft!

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_     Brittany designed this polymer craft for the girls to make!  She doesn't recommend using Sculpey III because the clay shows fingerprints even worse than regular polymer clay.  After the girls' projects baked in the oven and cooled (it took 90 minutes due to the thickness of the Hello Kitty faces), they used paints to

add the facial features.  Most any kind of water-based or oil-based paint would work for this.  Aren't they darling? 

Hello Kitty and Japanese Decorations:

     Here's where my 1993 trip to Japan came into play!  Brittany asked me to search through the items I was given during my trip to Japan, and then use some of the brightly colored, children-themed Japanese decorations to help decorate our living room and dining room.  Fun! 

Hello Kitty Gifts:

 

     What's your most favorite themed birthday party you've ever been to, or hosted?

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Julieanne
Joy In Our Journey.com

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