An Orange Tabby Cat Themed Birthday Party

The Party

My daughter decided that for her 6th birthday she wanted a cat themed birthday party. We had just adopted a 1 yr old orange tabby not 3 months prior (his name is Kirby), and my daughter is just in LOVE with him. Lucky for her, he is very docile and puts up with most of her loving, which includes hugging, kissing, carrying him around and smothering him with affection. I was able to find quite a bit of cat themed stuff out there, but most of it was hello kitty or animated cat stuff. Then I found this line of cat themed party goods that focused on an orange tabby as the theme....and I was off! This lens is dedicated to my search and the cat party that I threw for my daughter, including the invitations, decorations, cake, party activities and goody bags. Maybe if you are throwing a cat themed party soon it will help you with some ideas or links that weren't so easy for me to find.

These were a little expensive I thought, but they were so cute. And -- I have to admit, Hallmark did a wonderful job on them. I think I could have had them print on the back too, just I was concerned they would charge more (the website didn't indicate that though, so I was kicking myself later on). They came quickly, and really were just too adorable. I was very pleased with the quality, cardstock and color. Oh -- and they printed my return address on the envelopes too. I could have even had them mail them if I gave them the addresses to send to, but I wanted to have them in my hands and see what they looked like myself. I have no complaints and would use them again if they had the perfect invite.

OK...this line features an orange tabby, so I just had to have this one. Problem is, there are a few lines out there -- Glamour Kittens, etc...that have something ALMOST perfect, but when I saw this line, called "Cuddly Kitten", I just had to have it. I found, at most, 3 places online that carried it, and even then the selection was sparse. I don't know if it is semi-discontinued or what. Anyhow, I finally ended up getting it from http://www.partypro.com, who I had not shopped with before. They had a great selection of this line, WAY more than anyone else I could find on the web, and I looked and looked and looked! I was really happy with their packaging and how fast it came, no complaints there. The pricing seemed pretty good too. I ended up getting plates, napkins, the firework danglers (2 packs -- SO CUTE!), the garland (LOVED IT), mylar ballons, notepads (for goody bags), tablecover (CUTE!), pin the tag on the kitty game (big hit), stickers and treat bags. I found this site AFTER I found the invites above, and if I had found it first I may have ordered the invites from them as they were a lot cheaper. The only thing is that the Thank You notes they have don't feature the orange tabby, so I didn't get those.


Websites that Carry the Cuddly Kitten Line

This line was a bit hard to find. The old standards -- Oriental Trading and Birthday Express had either NO or very limited choices. I found that Party Pro had most of the items of this line IN STOCK, which wasn't true elsewhere. Their prices were reasonable too, and the quality wasn't bad at all. I didn't show the tablecloth in the pics below, but it is really cool -- and better represented by pics not on the Party Pro site.

Party Pro Cuddly Kitten Line

Best Selection of this line I found, this is who I ordered from. Don't forget to order extra purple and teal balloons, I forgot those and had to go buy them the AM of the party.


EZ Party Zone

Just found these guys, and they have a value pack. I didn't even see this site before I ordered my stuff. You have to specifically search on Cuddly Kitten to find this, Cat Birthday apparently doesn't turn these folks up. Too bad too sad for me, but good for you maybe!

Pretty Party Place

OK...Now I am feeling a bit lame. An even BETTER party pack selection. I'm not looking at the prices, but these guys appear to really be trying to get your business, huh?  I also found that these guys (Pretty Party Place) apparently sell through Amazon.com too. If you are more comfortable ordering through Amazon -- maybe the shipping is cheaper, dunno? Anyway, here is the link to that:
Cuddly Kitten Party Goods at Amazon.com

Cuddly Kitten Mini Pinwheels!!!!

You have to buy a case apparently (24), but wouldn't these be great for the goody bags!!!! OMG, I am so SAD I missed this!

Cuddly Kitten Necklaces

OK. At some point you have to stop spending, but aren't these adorable? My daughter would personally LOVE this I know without a doubt in the world.

Cuddly Kitten Stuff on eBay

I was able to find some unique stuff for this line on eBay that I did not see elsewhere, so while you're at it you might go take a look over there too. The week I was doing this blog I found some cheaper invitations that actually match this line. The vendor selling these had a lot of other items from this line too, and offered free shipping for any item beyond the 1st that is ordered.


Cuddly Kitten Birthday Invites. Package of 8. $3.99 + Shipping

Here are a couple of pictures from our party showing the "Pin the Tag on the Cat" (it's very large, much larger than I expected) as well as the Garland that we hung from the breezeway between rooms.

The Cake

Orange Tabby Cat Ice Cream Cone Sugar Cookie Cupcakes

Yep..that's a lot to say at once, but that's what I made!  I decided to make cupcakes in ice cream cones, and I wanted to make orange kitty cat ones. I googled around and looked at images of cat cupcakes, and found a design that I kind of liked. Then a friend of mine suggested (and she drew this picture) that I combine the cookie and cone idea to make the cats look more interesting. King of a 3D image, with the body being the cone and the head being a sugar cookie. So -- this is what I started from.

I used a standard yellow cake mix and filled regular flat bottomed ice cream cones with the batter.  I have since learned a better technique than trying to spoon batter into cones (or even cupcake tins) -- put the batter into a large plastic freezer bag, seal the top, then cut a small/medium hole in the bottom corner and pinch it. Use the bag to "pour" the batter directly where you want it to go. Too bad I didn't know this trick back then, as things did get a little messy (as you can see). I could have filled the cupcakes higher with the batter, but I was afraid of creating a lip-like overlap on the edge of the cone.

I wrapped aluminum foil around the bottom of the cones and set them into a cupcake pan to hold them upright while they cooked. Big lesson learned here though -- do NOT wrap the foil UP the cone, keep it as LOW as you can. The foil will keep the cake in the bottom of the cone from cooking, and you will end up with a mushy bottom with raw cake batter and cooked cake in the top. Believe me, I had to do this 2X because of my mistake! :-)  The 2nd time, I kept the foil really LOW and had no issues. If you can come up with a better way of keeping the cones from tipping over, I'd be glad to take the advice. 
The image below doesn't actually show how I made the cookie cutter, but it shows me using it for the 1st time. This is what I did -- I laid down a cone on it's side and I drew the right sized "cat head" to fit the cone (and outline). I then used a lasagna pan to make the cookie cutter. I got that idea from a website that shows very clearly how to go about it. One thing I would change if I did it again -- I would make the cookie have a neck on it so that it would stab into the cone better and not be a "no-neck" cat.  I would also utilize parchment paper underneath the dough instead of rolling the dough out directly onto a floured table. (See my blog on Christmas Cookies for more on this subject).

Some links that show how to make cookie cutters out of lasagna pans:


http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Cookie-Cutters
http://www.ehow.com/how_4515739_make-halloween-shaped-cookie-cutters.html


Next, here are some of the cookies about to go into the oven, and then after cooking.  I used a generic sugar cookie recipe that I found online. My Christmas Cookie 2009 Blog entry has a really nice refrigerated sugar cookie recipe on it that you can also use.

I used store bought cream cheese frosting and added yellow and red food color gel. Another thing I know better than to do anymore. :-) See -- all these lessons learned the hard way that you can benefit from! If I do this again, I will NOT use store bought frosting, it is just too oily and doesn't come out good on cookies or even on the cupcake tops in my opinion. I would make a homemade cream cheese frosting or a butter cream frosting. Now that I have my handy-dandy kitchenaid mixer, that's certainly what I'll do next year. The buttercream frosting would most likely work the best -- as it dries with a crust and leaves a great surface for decorating.
Here's the frosting in the bowl being mixed with the color. Our cat is orange, so I went with that same color.

After the cookies had cooled, I frosted them with the orange frosting I had made.  The rest of the face parts needed the orange coat to dry before they could be applied, so I set the frosted cookies aside.

After the cupcakes had cooled, I frosted them with the same orange frosting. The coat of frosting on the cupcakes needed to be generous, as I was going to use some of that frosting to hold up the cat head that would be "stabbed" into the cupcake top.


When the cookies were dry, I used some leftover white cream cheese frosting to decorate the ears and the mouth area white. I colored some of the frosting with blue gel coloring and put it into a pastry bag with a med/large round tip, and used that to do the eyes - but you could also use one of the disposable frosting "writers" that they have at the grocery store. I used that to make blue eyes.  The red nose was made from a piece of licorice that I cut with a knife into a triangle. I drew the mouth with black frosting that I colored with black gel (same cream cheese frosting), and used a writer sized tip (I think a #2) -- again, the frosting pen would work fine here too.  For the pink part of the mouth I used pink tic-tacs that I cut in half and turned on their cut side to stick into the orange frosting, so that only the pink round part was showing.  On some of the cats I actually did black whiskers too with the same frosting that I used for the mouth. I was running out of energy and time at this point though, so most of the cookies didn't get whiskers. The ones I did do with whiskers were SO cute though!


After the cookies dried, I stuck them into the cupcakes by their "neck". This resulted in a somewhat chinless cat. Like I said, if I did this again, I would make the cat cookie cutter have a rectangular neck piece sticking down that would be left without frosting and act as a tab to stab the cookie into the cupcake.  The kids didn't mind though...I think I'm the only one who noticed.


The final touch was to add a red licorice whip off the back of the cone that acted as a tail.

The kids LOVED the cat cupcakes. I know I could make them better next time (always learn the hard way), but it wasn't really that difficult, just time consuming. I used supplies available from the local grocery store and Michael's.

BTW -- I know this one looks really haggard, but it was one of the 3 leftover from the party, I didn't get pics soon enough before the kids had attacked the stash. So -- this one is a REJECT, but still gets the point across of how cute they were!

This article has been reproduced at my new blog website and can also be found here:
http://www.bakingindallas.com/an-orange-tabby-cat-themed-birthday-party/