Oh my stars! I have a 5 year old! How on earth that happened is beyond me. But it did. And he loves Olaf, that sweet and goofy snowman from Disney’s Frozen. (He was Olaf and Mr. F was Sven for our church’s fall festival) And I’ll be honest, I looked for weeks for Olaf party supplies that were already made. And there are very few, and most are still very girly. And there’s nothing with Sven, the amazingly awesome reindeer.  So it was time to get out my crafty-mama pants and get to work.

DIY Olaf Inspired Party

I started decorating the week before so I didn’t have to do it all the day before the party when family was coming in and food had to be prepared. I got 4 awesome icy-baby blue tablecloths from Amazon. (They were .97 each when I ordered) Two were for tables and two were for the photo area you see above. I bought a bag of loose pillow batting for about $4 at Walmart and it served as “snow” for the photo area and the food tables. That’s our Christmas tree there. There were little silver snowflake and snowmen ornaments we already had that we put on it with the snow. Olaf and Sven were gifts for Mr. T from family. The photo props were pieces I cut from construction paper and embellished with markers, then laminated with our *best* homeschool purchase ever laminator. I attached them to craft sized popsicle sticks with clear packing tape. There was a top hat, a red scarf, a yellow corncob pipe, a carrot nose, and a big blue snowflake. Easy peasy.  The awesome metallic blue and silver snowflake garlands all through the house were in a pack of 1 dozen from Oriental Trading. I added some paper snowflakes to the tablecloths with the same packing tape. It made a great decor “scene” and was fun for the kids (and the big kids). Poppy liked the hat the best!

We also had Olaf and snowflake balloons in the house and on the mailbox. I’ve found ordering the mylar balloons online and taking them to Party City to be filled is a lot more cost effective than buying them at Party City. Our snowflake plates and napkins  and paper straws were from Oriental Trading. We got our light blue and darker blue cups at Party City, as well as our white, light, and dark blue streamers. I made sparkly “trees” from glitter scrapbook paper I got on sale at Michael’s for the food tables. It all looked great, but didn’t cost an arm and a leg!

Allergy Friendly Olaf Cake

Yes, we have food allergies. So when Mr. T picked out a cake like this from our Snowman Party Pinterest board, I knew I had my work cut out for me. I used this tutorial from Rose Bakes to make marshmallow fondant (with Great Value brand marshmallows from Walmart because they do not contain blue dye) on Monday. It was super yummy! Betty Crocker’s gluten free mix is, in our opinion, the best tasting vanilla. We like Hodgeson’s Mill chocolate. Mr. T wanted both, so the head was chocolate with vanilla cuttings to form the “snout”, and everything else was vanilla cake. I used a 20×30 foam board from Michael’s for the cake, because none of the readymade cake boards were big enough. I just happened to find the last blue one! I used our snowflake cookie cutters to cut the board decorations from a silver sugar sheet.

The cakes got baked on Thursday and Friday and cooled. I used 2 springform pans and 2 mini-cake pans. The feet are one cake cut in half. The cuttings off the other cakes are what I used to make the snout part. I glued it together with homemade buttercream icing, let it all chill and then covered it in fondant on Friday.

I shaped the head by laying a sheet of paper over the greased cake pan. The grease left a ring on the paper so I could see the outline. I sketched out Olaf’s head shape, then traced his nose area, mouth, and tooth. I had already made the carrot nose from fondant so it could be drying. I used that to mark out where that curve needed to be carved. I cute out the head shape together, used that to carve the first layer of cake. Then I cut the snout section and used that to shape the cake there. Then I set aside the mouth and tooth part to used to cut the black fondant later. Every part of the cake got iced with buttercream, chilled, then covered with marshmallow fondant.

I had the hair sticks, arms, and coal finished Friday and laid out to harden some. I used a sharp knife to draw lines in the stick parts so they looked more like sticks. It had a really neat effect. The brown, orange,  and black fondant were Wilton and Satin Ice, and not gluten or dye free, but they came off easily when it was time to serve the cake. The body pieces were much easier than the head. They just required “flattening” on top and bottom. Saturday morning I assembled the cake on the board on the table. No icing needed since I knew it wouldn’t be moved. Then I used writing gel to write out the Happy Birthday message and made a snowball from leftover fondant to put the candles in.

The cake was the most expensive single part of the party (about $45 total), and the most time consuming. And Mr. T was thrilled with it. I can attest that cake decorating is definitely not my preferred profession, but he was so happy with it, I’d do it all again.

We made a “Pin the nose on Olaf” game with some laminated construction-paper carrots backed with packing tape and poster board. It was a hit! So was the toilet paper snowman game. The kids rolled each other and then taped on the coal buttons and carrot noses.

We got these fun Olaf stickers and had paper out so everyone could create their own Olaf scene, and we had our water table filled with snow. That was, literally, the coolest stuff ever! And all the littles loved playing in it on this beautiful 60 degree day on February!

Here’s some of our Olaf party food: I made gluten free Chex mix with rice and corn chef, Glutino pretzel sticks, gluten free soy sauce, and plain salt with extra herbs since most seasoning salt has yeast and Mr. F is very allergic to that. We also added in sunflower and pumpkin seeds and chocolate chips since we don’t use nuts. It was awesome reindeer chow! I made banana-blackberry snowflake gummies from this recipe base. It’s a favorite around here! And really healthy. 🙂 The brownie crackle cookies have been deemed “Olaf poop” by Mr. T and are his favorite cookie right now! It’s an awesome gluten free mix from Krusteaz.

The little “snowballs” are my own creation and sooooo good! Next time, I’ll put them in a mini-crock pot to keep them warm, though. I took Frigo mozzarella cheese sticks and cut them into 1/2 inch long pieces, rolled out Pillsbury gluten free pizza dough and cut it into 2.5″ rounds with a mini-biscuit cutter, rolled the cheese up in the dough, and placed seam side up on a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake them for 10 minutes at 350, bring the out and lightly spritz with olive oil, shake on some grated parmesan cheese, and place back into the oven for 2 minutes. Serve with marinara. These are little bites of awesome!

Here are pictures of our Olaf baby carrot noses with ranch dip and our super cute hot cocoa station, but to make yummy homemade hot cocoa mix, use equal parts powdered milk, good cocoa powder, and powdered sugar. Mix it well and serve it with crushed soft peppermints, whipped cream, marshmallows, snowflake sprinkles, and cinnamon for a great cocoa bar!

So what is the theme of your next big birthday bash?