Y's Birthday Series: The DIYs

One of the things I want to be able to do for Y's party was to DIY something! Anything I can DIY to add a personal touch.


After checking out blogs after blogs on dessert buffets, I was inspired to do one. You can check out awesome dessert buffets here, here, and here. I only did a simple one.

DIY # 1 Tokens for Godparents
I'm not sure but tokens but godparents are optional? But still I want to give something to the godparents for agreeing to be ninongs and ninangs to my little Y. I wanted to give something they can use and also not break the budget for the party, so Human Heart Nature was perfect!

I bought shaving oil for the ninongs, hair mask and lotion for the ninangs then I wrapped them in a Kraft Box I bought from National Bookstore complete with ribbon, stuffed the box with Japanese paper, and stuck a thank you card. Easy peasy!

DIY # 2 Cupcake Toppers

I told BOS that I wanted to make our own cupcake toppers like the ones I saw at the blogs mentioned above. He liked the idea so he asked his designer friend Karin to make cupcake toppers for us (seen here). When we got the printed toppers, we made a prototype using a popsicle but we didn't liked how it looked plus if we're gonna stick it in the cupcake, we have to make sure it's clean! It's hassle to wash and dry the popsicle sticks so we opted to use a lollipop sticks instead.

I bought the lollipop sticks at Chocolate Lovers. I've searched Bakers Depot and Cooks Exchange to no avail. Bakers Depot was offering drinking straws to be used as sticks. I went back thrice pa! Sabi ko lollipop sticks, hindi straw! I initially don't want to go all the way to Chocolate Lovers because it's really not convenient to go to from where I live but we went back twice! Both times naman we were around the area so pwede na din! Ok, back to lollipop sticks. One pack (100pcs) was around Php35.

I don't know how the BOS found out about scallop punchers but one night while browsing Amazon, he saw one and asked if we could buy one to use for Y's cupcake toppers. Yes, we bought one just for Y's party, had it send thru Johnny Air all the way from US of A! We got it for free by the way, they had shipping and stocks issue and canceled our order then a few days after that the item was shipped! So it was sort of free, we just paid for the shipping. The diameter of the punched scallop is three inches, we bought two cartolinas from National Bookstore to make fifty toppers.



So here's how it turned out:

DIY # 3 Party Favors
Also inspired by the blogs I've read, we bought spice jars at Divisoria as containers for our party favors. We bought it for Php30 each. Finding the spice jar was a bit of a challenge. Finding candies in specific colors (orange, blue, brown) is more challenging! I went to a lot of groceries to look for candies, I looked in sulit.ph, forums, checked Candy Corner's website. None. Nada. It's either that or it was not approved by the BOS. We ended up getting candies from our decorator and bought more at Chocolate Lovers.

We bought ninety jars, filling the jars one by one with candies wasn't the hard part. Washing ALL NINETY jars was the challenge, and I washed AND sterilized all of them! I want to make sure it's clean since we're putting candies in it and giving it away. Mahirap na! After the jars have dried, we filled them with candies (the fun part!) and stick on the label! Et voila!

DIY # 4 Dessert Buffet 
We had around seventy guests, I prepared three kinds of desserts for the buffet (since there was also a chocolate fountain station and dirty ice cream which I'll also blog about later on) plus the cupcakes from Les Sucreries (which I'll also blog about).

Let's dissect the dessert buffet! Shall we?

Cupcakes - from Les Sucreries Cakes & Pastries, platters were borrowed from Mann Hann.
Popcorn -  from Chef Tony's Gourmet Popcorn, jar was bought in Robinsons Department Store for Php199.75.
Macarons - from The Cookie Jar. Flavor was buttercream with cream cheese I think... I had the colors customized. Ordered two weeks in advance.
Gigi's Custaroons - this was the hubby's request. Ordered it a week advance and picked it up at their Sta. Mesa pick up point. Platters were borrowed from Hi-5 Parties Event Planning and Design.
Two-Layer Cake - from Les Sucreries Cakes & Pastries also.
Single-Layer Cake - from Sugar Bliss. This was a very special cake as it was hand carried all the way from Tuguegarao and made with love by my friend. Check out her FB!
Party Favors - well those were made by me!

I had fun doing all these DIYs, despite the stress, panic and the whole hullabaloo looking for candies and checking if the puncher will arrive on time, and buying things on the last minute. I hope I get to do more DIYs soon or maybe a DIY party for Y next year.

I won't be able to do all these DIY stuff without the help of the BOS, and so *cue dramatic music* THANK YOU BOS for helping out on everything! From assembling the kraft boxes, sticking the toppers to the sticks, filling the jars with candies, and so many many more! Bow! *applause!!!*