Girl Scout Journey Celebration

My daughter's Junior troop recently completed their Journey to earn their Get Moving badge.  They spent the last year diligently working on it, learning about energy and conservation along the way.  The Journey concluded with an event at a local park to celebrate their accomplishment.  Because I love parties, I volunteered to assist the mom leading the event.  She was gracious enough to let me be her collaborator on the project.  It was so much fun to share this project with her - thanks, T.!  We are kindred party-planning spirits!

To honor the journey, we stuck with an earth and conservation theme and worked to bring in lots of color as well as upcycled and reclaimed elements with some pretty vintage touches as the cherry on top and is that a run-on sentence or what?

Food
Dirt cups:  Chocolate pudding and crumbs with whipped cream, enclosed in mason jars - the ultimate eco-friendly party tool.  T. gussied them up with cupcake wrappers on the lids for a punch of color.  She stacked them in a beautiful dark wood crate, which I totally covet!

Earth cupcakes:  Modified from this post (skipped the heart center), these were a hit.  Topped with a simple buttercream, they were quick, easy, and festive.  Side note - when I tinted the batter, I wasn't thinking and did more green than blue and it irritated me all day that my ratio of "land" to "water" was skewed.  Did I mention that I'm a geek?  Anyhoo, regarding the frosting - I did hear from some girls that the frosting was a bit too sweet.  Does anyone have a buttercream recipe that's less sweet?  Mine is 2 sticks butter, 4 cups powdered sugar (which I reduced to 3 cups), and a splash of milk and a bit of vanilla.  My favorite frosting is the cooked frosting recipe listed here - it is TO DIE FOR, but I was worried it wouldn't hold up in the heat - even the buttercream got a little flat and melty and buttercream is MUCH stiffer than this cooked frosting.  (And in case I wasn't clear - this frosting = AMAZING.)  But if you make it, do yourself a favor and do not use store-brand butter.  Name-brand butter only.  You may also want to do a practice run before trying to make it for an event.  There are some traps that can make things go very wrong.

Fruit Skewers:  T. and I split them up and each made half.  I really liked that approach because we ended up picking different fruits, which made for a nice variety in terms of taste and color.

Decor
The food table was covered in a blue cloth (originally, it was covered by T.'s creamy vintage lace tablecloth, but the high winds knocked over a pitcher of lilacs that some idiot put on the table (moi!), so we had to improvise.  Food was arranged around the aforementioned crate (me want!) and accented with some pretty pansies and a sweet little doily.  In lieu of water bottles, T. brought a beverage dispenser filled with cool water.  We supplied plastic cups which were cobbled together remnants from other parties.  We also made sure to bring recycling bins to the park.  The paper straws added a nice pop of color.  The final touch was a simple banner that T. put together with twine and vintage napkins - the napkins were draped over the twine and pinned in place.  Even in teh high winds, it held together nicely.  The vintage napkin banner was just the right little touch to bring some vintage elegance to the setting.

The girls sat picnic-style on blankets spread under trees to enjoy their treats.  The idea was to have jugs and jars of lilacs scattered around, but it was just too windy.  The lilacs were grouped in a pretty basket and used to accent the food table instead.

 Activity
In keeping with their focus on recycling, the girls made jewelry from reclaimed hardware.  We have a Tool Thrift Shop in town where donated items are resold at low prices.  All proceeds go to a local senior living facility.  I was able to find a ton of washers in various sizes.  A quick coat of primer and they were ready to be enameled with nail polish.  I found several sets of mini bottles at Big Lots and Marshall's and the girls went to town making unique pieces.  We provided hemp twine in bright colors to string the finished product.

Awards
The event concluded with the leaders talking with the girls about the highlights of the Journey followed by passing out their patches.  For a fun presentation, the patches and a seed packet with a vintage-inspired label were bundled into a colorful bandanna hobo pouch tied with jute twine.  Because the whole troop earned the same patch, there was no need to personalize the bandanna pouches.  In retrospect, we should have considered handing them out rather than letting the girls pick their own.  I noticed that while the leader was speaking, some of the girls were more focused on creeping closer to the bandannas to ensure that they could be the 1st to pick their color.  Oops!

Egg Hunt: Food

Our first neighborhood egg hunt was very successful despite the snow.  (Our apologies to the kid looking for the white eggs.  Oops.)  We got lots of compliments on the idea and how it brought everyone together to spend time with one another and chat.  I've always wanted to live in one of those neighborhoods where people hang out together all the time.  This isn't that neighborhood YET, but I've realized that I can help to make it happen if I want to.  Be the change you want to see in your neighborhood, one party at a time.  That's a direct quote from Gandhi, people.*

*OK, maybe I tweaked it a bit, but I think that Gandhi would have loved a good block party.

Anyhoo, here's what I made...  and please disregard the unsightly siding on my house.  Superstorm Sandy did a number on it and it's been too cold to repaint.  We are getting vinyl this summer, hopefully!

FOOD

This was so much fun and I was very proud of my little economies.  I tried to get variety by using some of the same ingredients in different ways.  For example...

... I used one box of cake mix to make both cupcakes and cake pops.  Cupcakes are topped with homemade buttercream (you can make a delicious ton with just 2 sticks of butter, some powdered sugar, and a splash of milk - it's super easy and you will get mad props from your peeps for making homemade frosting) and both cakes and pops use sprinkles from the dollar section at Target.  Link to printables is posted below.

... and I used a bag of Oreos to make both Oreo truffles and Oreo pops, also topped with $1 sprinkles.

I love them on the bed of Easter M&M's - so colorful and who doesn't love edible decor?  By the way, the glass tray was a thrift store find for $2.00.  It's actually a candle plate.  I bought it because it's very shallow and therefore wouldn't require a ton of filler. 

I used my old standby of marshmallows to fill things out a bit for a buck.

Plus I found a bag of cotton candy at the Dollar Tree and that filled a bowl nicely, also for a buck.  Incidentally, the candy jar here and the fishbowl holding the Bunny Tails are also thrift store finds.

I wanted some height and whimsy and more peeps, so I skewered some chicks on kebab sticks mounted in a styrofoam ball.  Iridescent Easter grass from the Dollar Tree was a great, cheap bucket filler.  I added height with a sturdy box covered in Dollar Tree wrapping paper and a sheet of scrapbooking paper.

I wanted to mix it up and have some things that weren't too sweet as well.  Baked Cheetos and Veggie Straws fit the bill and went over well.  I lined the basket and tin with waxed paper to 1) avoid grease stains on the cloth basket liner and 2) ensure that nothing harmful leached from the tin into the food since I wasn't absolutely certain if it was food-safe.

My most time-intensive treat was my parfaits in a jar.  I loved the spoons tied to the jar with the same yarn used for the pennants.  It was very practical because I didn't have to put out a separate container for utensils.  Check out this post for details on how I made this treat:  Parfaits in a Jar  They were a big hit.  I did notice that people were taking them home rather than eating them there, so if you make them yourself, be prepared to bid your jars adieu.  The cake pedestal that holds them was an after-Easter-sale purchase at Target a few years ago.

For drinks, a big jug of water and a tin bucket full of Orangina.  And a pretty jar of colorful straws.  I know that plastic straws are soooo passe, but I like the vibrancy of the colors here.  And I liked the price as well - $1 at Target.

I used a great set of free printables found on Catch My Party, designed by Autumn Leah Designs for the cupcake toppers and food signs:  Chick Printables

The "Keep Calm and Peep On" free printable was found here:  Peep On  It wasn't quite 8x10, so I trimmed it and mounted on cardstock to fill it out.  I popped the whole thing into a frame from Ollie's.  I use this frame for a rotating series of seasonal art.

Parfaits in a Jar, Cake Crumble Tips and a Tasty Mousse Mix

A coworker was kind enough to give me 8 of these adorable jars.  Walmart sells sliced peaches and pears in them.  I just think that they are the cutest little things and wanted to find a way to use them on my food table.  And then it hit me - parfaits in a jar.  Perfect!

I spent some time Goo Gone-ing the label stickies and I used a Magic Eraser to scrub of the inked lot/expiry info - it worked like, well, magic.  The good people at Mr. Clean don't lie.

I washed everything well and then painted the lids with 2 coats of brown acrylic paint (because I have a lot of brown for some reason).  The base coat color is irrelevant and only serves to cut down on the number of coats of chalkboard paint I needed to use.  Chalkboard paint is more expensive so I always try to get by with one coat.

I filled the jars with alternating layers of chocolate cake crumbs, chocolate chips, and chocolate mousse.  Here's my super-frugal, efficient tip for those cake crumbs.  Whenever I make a cake that involves trimming it or say I make 2 cakes from a box mix and I only need one, I don't toss the extra bits - I throw them into a zipper bag in the freezer.  This way, I always have cake on hand for dishes that don't need a full cake recipe, like a trifle or a parfait.  Try it! 
Now, regarding the mousse...  I have made chocolate mousse from scratch before.  The first time was a huge fail (because I grabbed half and half instead of heavy cream - oops!) and I ended up with chocolate soup.  But now that I think about it, I recovered gracefully by heating up the soup and BAM - it became the best hot chocolate ever, so I'm changing that to a win.  Life gives you lemonades, people.*  My second go-round with mousse was a bit more successful, but required more time that I had last week, so I bought one of those box mousse mixes near the pudding and Jello mixes.  It was actually very good.  Oetker Dark Chocolate Truffle Mousse  I recommend it if you are in a pinch.

So, back to details.  The parfaits were prepped, lids were applied to jars, "Parfait" was written on said lids in chalk, and the whole shebang was finished off by tying on purple spoons with multicolored yarn.  I wanted baker's twine, but it wasn't in the cards, and yarn worked just as well.

I grouped the jars - 4 at a time - on a cake pedestal.  I had to put out the other 4 jars like 5 minutes into the party because they were a huge hit.  I did notice that people were taking them home, so if you do this, be prepared for your jars to walk.  I'm cool with it, though.  My coworker really likes sliced pears.

*I have a friend whose husband always thought that the quote was "life gives you lemonades" instead of "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade" and I think that is the cutest, most uplifting story.  I love positive people and I strive to be more like that.