from Harry Potter book 2

The quote above was one that helped to inspire the Library themed birthday party I recently threw for a friend who is studying to be a librarian. I posted inspiration for the party on a couple of different {Working on it Wednesday} posts. As I was pretty far in my pregnancy I did not create tutorials for many of the DIY projects in this party…. but, I will link to similar tutorials when possible and if there is something you see that I didn’t explain and you want to know more about it just leave me a comment!

The Cake

Centerpiece and Gift

Decor— We wanted to keep things fairly simple, yet still bring the library theme throughout the party so we used book pages and printables to decorate. I was given a few books that had water damage to deconstruct for the party. It was difficult to take them apart, but it helped that I knew the books were destined for the recycle bin otherwise. I used the pages for the table runner, paper fans, several strings of bunting and for the above mobile. I created the mobile without a tutorial, but with inspiration from an Etsy store.

Food— I decided to have desserts be the main attraction for the party. I served the desserts with wine, coffee and water. Desserts included: a layered birthday cake; chocolate mousse filled chocolate cups topped with a raspberry; “Shh-Kabobs” of angel food cake and strawberries with a dark chocolate drizzle; berry macaroons; marshmallow pops; cheesecake filled strawberries (not pictured); and lemon cake pops. I gave the desserts “literary” names and printed them with the same image from the invitation. 

The birthday cake was my first try at making a multi-colored layered cake. The colored layers came out beautifully and was quite nice to cut into…. I wanted to frost the cake using the ruffle technique, but at the last minute realized I lacked the proper frosting tip. I ended up using a round tip and feel like the tip, along with the frosting color, made the cake look like a brain rather than a pretty ruffled treat.