Part One of the Lego “Agents” Party

For my son’s 8th Birthday party he wanted a “Lego Agents” theme.  The timing could have been better since it seems that Lego is phasing out the “Agents” collection.  Such is life.  However, Legos and Secret Agents by them selves will never go out of style.  It seems that every little boy in my life these days is planning a Lego themed party.
 
Lets start with the invitation.  I was trying to be clever, secret agent style, with the invitation.  However, I could not make it too cryptic otherwise some people might not have a clue what it was about.  Ha!  I had one mother call and RSVP and in her message she was asking if she got the date and time right because it wasn’t very clear.  OF COURSE IT WASN’T TOTALLY CLEAR!  WHO WANTS THE ENEMY SHOWING UP FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY PARTY! ;)  LOL  She is a very nice person and she got it exactly right too funny!  To make the invitation, I scanned in a folder and used Photoshop for the rest.  Cool right?……………….
Well, anyway I thought so. :)

When my son told me the theme he wanted he also asked that I make a cake that is a Lego Agent.  WARNING!!!  IF YOU MAKE A FANCY DETAILED CAKE ONCE, THEY WILL FOREVER WANT TO HAVE FANCY DETAILED CAKES.  I AM BEYOND THRILLED WITH THE FINAL RESULT!!  I have no formal training with cake making and decorating.  This was all fly by the seat of my pants with a consultation from my professional cake making sister over the phone with fondant questions.  (she is in another state or I would simply ask her to make the cake)

The cake portion of this was baked the night before and carved and decorated the morning of the party.  The colors aren't exact because it is VERY hard to get dark colors with frosting.  You have no idea how much blue gel coloring I added just to get the blue as dark as it was here.  I used pictures of the "Agents" Lego figures to give me an idea of how the uniform looked and added some details of my own.  Basically I didn’t worry about being exact but did try to replicate some of the details so that there would be no question about what kind of Lego Mini figure this is.  That and the Birthday boy was every excited and as always complimented me a lot.  I actually have fun working on the challenges his cake requests give me.  However, I do not want to do it for a living.

For the head I used a Styrofoam ball covered in royal icing and then covered in rolled fondant.  I cut the hand shapes out of floral foam and covered them like I did the head.  My little guy wants a Lego Indiana Jones Birthday party this summer so I wanted the head and the hands to last.  The fondant dries hard and will last a long time.  The body is carved out of a 9x13 2 layer cake.  For the hands and the feet I made two 8x8 cakes layered like the body.  The best thing about carving a cake is that you can let your child have a bit of cake while you are decorating it.  There was plenty of samples from the trimmings.  I don’t go hog wild for decorations all over the house.  I put much of my efforts into the cake and the favors and activities.  After all the cake can’t be baked until the night before and decorated the day of.  Gluten free baked goods are best when fresh.  

By the way I used Bob’s Red Mill cake mixes.  Two chocolate flavored mixes and two vanilla flavored mixes.  People were confirming that it was indeed gluten and dairy free while they were eating their cake.  Even Anjeanette had to confirm that it was dairy free (even though I always make gluten and dairy free cakes for my kids and it has been 5 years since I have made a “regular” cake.

The cupcakes were  a last minute addition.  I was looking at where to put the candles.  I had just spent a couple of hours sculpting the cake and just didn’t want to stab it with candles.  I think it was my Dad that suggested he should have cupcakes in his hands.  The light bulb went on and I decided it was the perfect solution to where to put the candles.  My son decided they were bombs.  :)  The down fall was that all the kids wanted the cupcakes.  The kids were disappointed that they were not allowed to eat the head and hands.  They still wanted to eat the fondant even though there was foam under it.   (I now have them packed away in plastic bags with silica gel packets in them to preserve them till June.  To keep them clean I put plastic wrap between the head, hands and the cake. 

Since everybody knows who’s party it was, I didn’t bother writing anything on the cake.  In one corner of the cake board I did write the number “8”. 

When I frosted the cake the cake board got a little “messed up” with frosting dropped on it and cake crumbs that were whipped off and left a wet mark.  Soooooo  I pulled out a large paint brush and “painted” the cake board with frosting.  I did wet down the brush a bit to thin out the frosting.  I was going for a background that looked a bit like sky.  Ummm I mean I totally planned on painting the cake board to make it look cooler than plain white cardboard. ;)

I came up with a secondary theme of Secret Agents for ideas for the the rest of the party.  Since that is basically what I think Lego Agents are.  So I put Google to good use and looked up “Spy Gear.”  I came up with a few sights that had some fun items for the kids to make.  You can go HERE or HERE for some great spy gear projects and more.  I printed up the best projects and put them in folders for the kids to take home.   That way their "spy" fun can continue after the party.  Plus there would be enough time to do all the fun things I found.  I gave one folder to each family (which greatly cut down on how many copies I needed to make.  Most of our guests come in twos or threes per family.)  The fun didn’t stop there……but that is for another post. ;)

I had planned on doing just one post for this party but……. it would have been a REALLY REALLY long post and I would have left a lot out.  The girls talked me into splitting it up and adding more details. 
That and I thought the cake deserved a post all on it’s own.  I wanted to do a happy dance when I finished just the head and then hands.  Seriously I almost starting calling people to tell them about it.  This is me doing something new and being totally sure about the fact that if it worked it would be super cool.  Then to have it turn out as good or better than I imagined just made me want to have a mini party to celebrate. ;)  Then the morning of, with my parents and the boys watching nearly every move while I sculpted the rest.  I believe they had fun watching.  Not to mention my boys coming by like little baby birds with their mouths open for some frosting. Only to be disappointed when I told them they had to wait till I was done decorating.  I used nearly a full tub of Wilton cake frosting.  No…not the little tub……yeah the big $12 tub that I got at 40% off with my trusty Michael’s coupon.

Ha! This post was a little long all on it’s own…can you imagine what it would have been like if I did one post for the whole party!?  I can’t wait to share the rest.
Katrina

Update: Bob from Bob's Red Mill Tweeted about my Lego Cake!  "Beautiful Lego-Agents cake using our chocolate and vanilla cake mixes"  Thanks Bob!

Technorati Tags: Lego,Agents,cake,party

Linking up to DIY Day, and Today's Creative Blog and The Girl Creative, and Blue Cricket Design, and WFMW, Life As Lori, Fireflies and Jellybeans, Somewhat Simple, Look What I Made, Twice Remembered, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Trendy Treehouse!