sweets for the sweet...handmade chocolate party favors!

so lady m's birthday is coming up. friday, in fact. she'll be two. and i'll feel old. and proud. she's an awesome girl. i mean, freaking awesome. you gotta meet her. 

so. 

her party. 

i'll be posting some details about it this week. but we're having a tea party. an {i} love birds tea party, to be exact. there are two things she loves. birds. and tea parties. so why not celebrate both, right? agreed. 

my primary goal for this party is for it to be wicked nice without a huge price tag...so i'm thrifting/sale-ing most of it. and cutting back. the guest list is limited (sorry, other friends, we had to...my house and wallet are only so big), the decor is mostly thrifted/repurposed/awesome, and the favors...well, they're all handmade. i like that more, anyway. sometimes those little favor bags get jammed full of things that kids will never use. stuff for stuff's sake. and i didn't want to go there this year. 

as one element of our homemade favors, we're making chocolates. my rad sister had the idea to let the lady paint her own chocolates...so not only is the favor homemade-it's m-made...

the same sister (did i say how awesome she is yet?) found this cute little mold. it has two birds, a heart and it's made for chocolate...that's what we like to call a homerun, folks...home.freaking.run.

so.

we melted some candy melts in the colors of the party in the wilton ceramic melting bowls and got some paintbrushes, and let the lady do her thing. ps. the wilton bowls are poo. don't waste your money. at all. sorry to say it, but it's true. they claim to keep the chocolate melted for up to 1/2 hour and they maybe lasted 5 minutes (that's being super generous). the only thing they were good for was that they were the perfect size for the lady's hands. 

surprisingly, this was an easy project with minimal cleanup. we gave her a few brushes and 3 different colors. let her paint away for a while. 

and then we poured melting chocolate on top of her designs. 

i gave her a plate to paint on while we did this. 

because. 

well, the lady has a weak spot for chocolate. 

see?

for those that are coming to the party, i should let you know that i only let her eat her paint once we were done with the molds... because, while it is made with lady m love, no lady m saliva went into the making of the chocolates (but who knows, it could be brilliant...)
she was so helpful. she even cleaned up after herself...hmmm...i might have had to redo her work. but i loved the thought behind it. 

and here's the final product. it's a little hard to see the details. but it's her work. all of it. i daresay, if jackson pollack ever attempted chocolate-making, it's what his might look like. can we say prodigy? i think so.

things i've learned:
1. wilton. sorry. we used to be friends. but you let me down, man. if i could return these little bowls, i would.
2. seriously, i need to get into some edible finger paint. i actually had time to sit down and relax for a bit while she painted (that doesn't happen much, people)... and it was so easy to clean up.