Love Bug Valentine Lady Bug Dinner Party

Since my Hubby is going out of town on Monday for 2 weeks and will be gone for Valentine's Day, we decided to have a dinner party tonight to celebrate the holiday as a family.

So we chose to have a Love Bug Valentine party based on Lady bugs.

It was a pretty simple set up with a red table cloth and black table runner down the middle.

Each place setting got a red charger (on Clearance right now at Walmart from Christmas), a white plate, and a red dessert plate.

I'm super excited about how cute the silverware turned out.

I purchased some black silverware from Walmart and used a pencil eraser and red paint to put red polka dots on each of the silverware to go with the theme.

I used some black napkins and the water bottle labels from my Lady Bug printable collections as napkin holders. 

Plus, each plate got a special treat consisting of our Love Bug candy topper and a bag filled with Lady Bug Oreo cookies.

The center of our table had more treats inside our Lady Bug cake party favor boxes.  (Lots of yummy M&Ms for the boys who stop by after!)

 The salt and pepper Lady Bugs were a fun find at Dollar general last summer and I am so glad that I found and actually bought them!

Plus, I scattered York Peppermint Patties with the free lady bug printable I shared yesterday for a little bit of fun along the table.

I used the Lady Bug cupcake wrappers to wrap some blueberry muffins since my family LOVES these.

I also had to include the Lady bug Jello Jigglers I made from the football mold.

And ALL the boys have been drooling over the Lady Bug cake balls all week.  I had to hide them so they would make it to tonight.

It was a simple dinner party, but turned out really cute.

You can purchase any of these and more Lady Bug printables in our store HERE.

Lady Bug Peppermint Patties Free Printable

Sometimes all it takes is a little thing to make a big impact on your party dessert table.

I purchased a case of these York Peppermint Patties from my local Sams Club and added a simple lady bug sticker to the front.

 

The sticker is a 1.5 inch size and completely covers the front of the patty making it look like a little bug.  I plan to use these cute bugs as decorating accents and sweet treats around the party tables in my lady bug party.

If you want to try, here's the free printable.

If you're interested in other sizes, you can get them from my online store HERE.  The ladybug is available in Hershey kiss size (3/4 inch), 1 inch, 1.25 inch, 1.5 inch, 2 inch, 2.5 inch, 3 inch, 4 inch, and 6 inch.

Hopefully, that will cover all your party treats in any size.

Simply print them out onto sticker paper and use an appropriate size punch to cut the ladybug circle out.  Pretty simple, but awesome!

Lady Bug Jello Jigglers

There are ALOT of really cute Lady Bug food out there if your planning a Lady Bug party.  I've been looking at so many lately trying to get ideas for my dessert table that I'm surprised this idea didn't come to me sooner.

When I was a child, we had Jello at our Sunday dinners.  My mom was the pro at making those jello rings with fruit inside.  It was one of my favorite parts of the meal.

I don't know why I have never really made Jello with diner before, but recently I "rediscovered" the joy and yumminess.  (Is that a word?)

And so have my kids...so we've had Jello alot recently.  Yesterday as I was making it for dinner, I had a brainstorm.

Why not use my football jello jiggler mold (you can see it in action at last years Superbowl party here) as a Lady bug?

So I got busy making some strawberry jello jigglers.

When you pop the jigglers out of the mold, I REALLY recommend placing the mold in a little bit of warm water to help release it.  In my case, I used some VERY warm water and it melted the NFL and Jello designs off the sides of the helmet. 

When I went to the store this morning, I bought some of this sparkle gel to try and make the dots on my ladybug, but it turned out BAD....really Bad.  Like this bad...

He looks a little like a porcupine...a masked porcupine.  Maybe he's a Superhero in disguise...if so, then he has a problem with Kryptonite or something because after 10 minutes, he looked like this...

A pretty sad ladybug.

So instead, I filled the cap of a decorating bottle with cool whip.

(I didn't fill the whole thing because it was a "little" difficult to get the cool whip into the bottle and I didn't want to waste any that could be eaten later.)

I used the cool whip to add dots on top.  Then I added ovals on the front for eyes and a little half circle for a smile.

I wish I could have found some of that Chocolate cool whip at my store, but I'm not sure if they even make it anymore.  The darker color might have made it look less like a porcupine and more like a ladybug, but what do you do?

And I'm not sure my party guests will even care!

After all, who doesn't love jello in whatever shape it comes?

Lady Bug Cake Favors

I sat down this morning to write my post and got completely distracted by the thought of this cute ladybug!

She "slammed" into my thoughts and I just had to spend the day making her.  And despite the time, effort, and learning curve to design...I LOVE how she turned out!

This Lady bug is a set of 12 party favor boxes when set together correctly form a fun design to match your lady bug party theme.

And do you not just LOVE the way the side of the cake turned out?  I can't get over how cute the little bugs and different sized red and black dots look together.  So fun!

Okay, so I guess I'm done "patting myself on the back" and thrilling over this fun design...here's how to make them.

Print out each of the 12 different boxes onto card stock.

Cut around the outside solid edges to make your cake pieces.

Using a dull knife and ruler, score along inside edges of slice and along dotted edges and tabs.

Be sure to cut slit in the back tab along the solid line.

Fold edges and cake pieces along scored lines.

Glue front tab and fold cake pieces together to form the front of the triangle.

Glue bottom tag and fold bottom together to form cake slice.

Fill each cake slice with candy or party treats.

Fold back tab into slit to close cake pieces.

Arrange cake slices into a circle shape with design showcasing a cute cake perfect for your next party!

Now each guest can take home a piece of the cake as a party favor!

Pretty easy with ALOT of impact.

You can purchase the cake download HERE

or have us do the hard work and purchase them to be mailed to your party HERE.

Lady Bug Chocolate Covered Oreo Cookies

Since it's Cookie Friday in my house, I spent the day making chocolate covered oreos.  (My kids think I'm the best when I actually let them eat some!) 

But I didn't make just any oreos today, I had to try my new Lady bug mold.

I think they turned out SUPER cute!

You can now find these HERE in my online shop at Kims Kandy Kreations.

Lady Bug Cake Pops

I will never be Bakerella. 

Well, okay, I admit, I'm her every night in my dreams.

But in reality, it will probably never happen.  It's just not where my skills lie.  But, I do have a good time trying.  And these Ladybug cake pops were no exception.

I started these cake pops the regular Bakerella way.

Bake the cake.

Add the frosting.

Mix.

Form balls.

At this point, I gently squished the ball into the plate to make it flat on the bottom side.

Then I dipped them into chocolate melts.

Using the red candy melts, I dipped one side at a time.

I dipped them at an angle to allow the chocolate to shine through in a "V" shape.

Using melted chocolate, I added a face and dots to my lady bugs.

To finish off the lady bugs, I added green food coloring to a bag of coconut and shook it up to color it.  Then I placed my lady bug cake balls on a bed of "grass".

Lady Bug Candy Cone Favors

Usually when I start work on a party, I have a basic idea of where I want the party games and dessert table to go.  I have to admit, with this Love Bug Valentine party, I'm just going with the flow.  I'm not sure where it's going to take me, and my blogging ideas, so I hope you'll just go with me the next few days.

I have a vague idea of the party in my head, but no real specifics.  So I've been spending a lot of time on Pinterest and searching my favorite party blogs for ideas I can adapt to my Valentine Party.  (Probably WAY TOO much time lately, but hey, it's all for the greater good right?)

With these candy cones, the idea came from a reader's request for the Angry Bird candy cones to be made as downloads so she could make her own.  So that got me thinking...why not make a whole set to go with my Love bug theme?

So I did.  But I couldn't decide which design I liked the most, so I made a few different ones.

I made the Lady Bug candy cones with 3 different designs in both red with black accents and red with white accents.    I guess I need some help figuring out which ones will work best with my party table.

But they are SUPER easy to make.

I gathered my supplies.  I used my printer, cardstock, glue gun, lollipop sticks, ruler, pen, and a dull knife for scoring.

I then printed out the candy cone onto cardstock and cut around the outer edges.

Using my dull x-acto knife, I scored the inside lines between each of the triangles.

It helps alot to fold all the edges into a cone shape, expecially the white tab on end.  Make sure the tab is folded into the correct spot, expecially down at the bottom.

Using a glue gun (I use mine for EVERYTHING and ALWAYS have it plugged in), place a line of glue along the white tab and quickly press the cone together.

To make the bond secure, I run a capped pen along the glued edge on the inside.  This helps to make the glue stick and to lay flat.

To add the stick to the cone, I use a lollipop stick and place a genrous amount of glue around the entire top edge.

Carefully drop the stick down inside the cone with the glue side up.  Using your finger (I have a low temp glue gun so this hasn't burned me yet), carefully push the stick down through the bottom of the cone until the glue acts as a plug.

To make sure the glue holds, I firmly squeeze the bottom of the cone where the stick, glue, and cone meet.

To finish these candy cones, fill with small candy, popcorn, or other treats and serve!

You can get the Angry Bird candy cone file in our store HERE

and the Lady Bug candy cone file HERE.

More designs of these popular cones coming soon!