Birthday Surprises

It was my boyfriend's birthday and I wanted to make it special for him. He truly is the most amazing man I know, and I wanted him to feel as amazing as he makes me feel every day. He is one of those people that kind of just shrugs the idea of birthday celebrations off his shoulder, but for me?!?! No way! I was determined to make a big deal out of his birthday and celebrate it as best as I could. I sat their racking my brain and searching the internet for some fun and unique ideas. Since he lives out of town, presentation was key. I wanted the presentation of his gifts to be perfect.... just like him. As I looked, I found a couple ideas for a Beer cake which seemed pretty fun, so I went with it.

I began by going to the craft store and purchasing 2 round cardboard circular platters to use as the base for the 1st and 2nd tier. I then chose the scrapbook paper I wanted to decorate it with as well as ribbon to glue around the edges. After creating the bases, the fun part began. I had seen most of the beer cakes made fully out of beer, but for him, I wanted to spruce it up a bit. I grabbed three different 12 pack bottles of beers that he liked and filled the first base, alternating two kinds of the beers. For the second tier, I used the third kind of beer and also added a few bottles of liquors that I knew he liked, topped with a giant bow. It still was missing something though. So I decided to run to the gas station and purchase some scratch offs. I had a few wooden dowels on hand and taped the scratch off lottery tickets to them. My joke is always that I won the lottery the day I got him. Also.... let's be honest. Who doesn't love scratch off's? The final touch was just adding some curly ribbons and stickers, along with the candles. Overall it turned out great, and he loved it which is all that matters.

The last part of this birthday celebration was the actual birthday cake itself. My boyfriend has a thing for squids and octopuses, so I figured maybe I could somehow incorporate that into the cake as well. The hard part about this is finding a cake that had an octopus or squid on it, and actually looked good. As I looked online, I found many sad and failed attempts at this type of cake, but then I found a local bakery shop called Cupcake Crazy who seemed very excited for the challenge. Because it was just the two of us, I was not needing anything big or extravagant. I just wanted a good looking cake for my good looking man. After speaking with Karen and Nini at the shop and giving them an idea of what I was looking for, I honestly could not have been happier with the result. Their pricing was fantastic, they did the order for me in a rush, and their service and end product was absolutely perfect.

All in all....... it turned out to be a great birthday surprise.