Monster High and Minnie Mouse Invitations in Photoshop

For my girl’s birthdays this year, I decided to let them choose whatever theme they wanted, with the aim to make as many of the party items as possible. Of course, Miss 7 chose Monster High as her theme, and wanted a disco party at the local RSL club. Since the club provides the food and entertainment, all I had to do was supply the cake, and make some invitations in the Monster High theme.
I wasn’t really sure how I was going to do this, until my sister started talking about ordering digital invitations, and printing them out on photo paper. She showed me some examples of Minnie Mouse invitations, and I quickly assured her that I could do them myself in Photoshop to save her some money. This is where the Monster High invitation idea was born.

Having used the basics of Photoshop in the past to play with digital scrapbooking elements, I knew I could just apply the same principles to the invitation process. I simple Googled “Monster High” in the image search, and saved all the ones I thought might look ok on an invitation. Of course, and image with the main characters was a must for Miss 7, as was the Skullette, and the Monster High School crest.

A bit of layering; a little resizing and free transforming; some added text; a few drop shadows etc, and within an hour I had this (excuse the blanked out contact details):

My sister was pretty impressed, and agreed that I could have a crack at making my nieces Minnie Mouse invitations, so I searched for some Minnie Mouse images, and came across some digital scrapbooking papers and elements that would be perfect. I purchased them, downloaded, and set to work. The end result was exactly what my sister was after, and again, i had the invitation done in under an hour.

Next on my list are the invitations for my other daughters birthday party next month. She is having a Rainbow High Tea for her 5th birthday, and I will also be using Photoshop to make her invitations, along with cupcake toppers and wrappers; name tags for goodie bags and drinks; and labels for platters of food etc.

If you think you might like to try making digital invitations in Photoshop, the following links have some great tutorials on how to do so. The instructions are easy to follow, and there are screenshot images to demonstrate the different steps involved.

http://www.madtuts.com/2010/01/create-a-professional-party-invitation-in-photoshop/

http://bloomwebdesign.net/myblog/2011/08/08/create-a-print-ready-invitation-in-photoshop/

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• Minnie Mouse Party (amultifariousme.wordpress.com)

My first time…..using fondant that is!

My eldest daughter is having a disco party at the local RSL club tomorrow, and her request this year was for a “Monster High” themed cake. I knew that fondant would probably pull off the look we wanted to achieve, but I had NO experience with it what.so.ever!

So, I decided to dive right in. I went halves in some supplies with my sister, as she will be making a cake in similar colours in a few weeks, and I set off on my fondant adventure. Please excuse the mobile phone pics…the camera seems to have gone walkabout!

I first baked 2 choc/rainbow cakes, using the same process that I outlined in a previous post.

Once the 2 cakes were baked, I chilled them, and trimmed the tops so they were relatively flat, then stacked them on top of each other, on the cake board, with a layer of buttercream frosting between them. I then coated the outside of the cake with the frosting, being careful to create an even coverage, and smooth surface.

While the cake chilled, I coloured my fondant.

I took a moment to print a template for the top of the cake.

When ready to cover the cake, I rolled out the blue fondant to form a large circle, big enough to cover the top and sides of the cake. I used the rolling pin to then lift it onto the cake gently. Sadly, I wasn’t gentle enough and there were some tears….ooops! I had to patch these up as best as I could, but they are still visible on the finished cake. I smoothed the surface with a smoother I purchased at the catering shop. I rolled out half the black, cut some strips with my pizza cutter, and used water to stick them on. I then put some ribbon around the base of the cake to hide the dodgy bottom edge 😉 I also drizzled some black writing icing down the sides.

Next I rolled the rest of the black, and cut around the template. I stuck this piece to the top of the cake with water. Then I cut out the next section of the template.

I stuck this on top of the black background, before cutting out the last piece at putting it on the cake.

I went around the edge of the scull with pink writing icing.

The finishing touch is one of my daughters dolls placed next to the cake.

Overall, I am totally thrilled with the results, especially considering this was my first time working with fondant.

One VERY useful tip I received from a cake decorator acquaintance, was to keep the cake in a plastic container with some Hippo moisture absorber to keep the fondant from sweating.