It is fun to celebrate becoming a teenager, but parents are often unsure how to bridge the gap between cute and cool when it comes to their teens’ parties.  Clair, of Calamity Cakes in Australia, shares her son’s 13th birthday party and says that she let her son and his friends be her guide!  Clair says, “the brief from the boys was: must be fun, funky and have cool music and a cool venue”. Clair hired a groovy local cafe and three 15-year-old dj’s to get the party started.  Clair added a small dessert table for the 60 guests to get their “sweet fix”- and she used themes her son and his friends liked…music, graffiti walls, and longboarding. 

The cake that Clair made reflected her son’s interests at age 13 and also bits and pieces of his childhood.  Clair says, “…the cake was an absolute labor of love (and stress) for me… countless hours of design, baking and creating – and I loved every minute.”.  The cake is amazing- notice the stack of records, the details on the “jam box”, the graffiti artist…

Clair had her son and friends create a backdrop for the dessert table- using a splatter-paint technique and a little bit of guidance…

They added vinyl records along with lots of cups of Jell-O and lollipops in red, yellow, and orange!

The DJs spun the records while the kids danced~

And, Clair even made sure the dessert table had a glow to it- backlighting on the table turned up the cool factor~

Clair also says, “…thirteen is an important step away from childhood, so I wanted to include things that were reminiscent of childhood whilst still being teen-friendly and quick and easy for the the 60+ kids to get their sweet fix, with a funky edge. Red, yellow and orange jelly cups and swirly lollipops, with a towering topsy turvy cake were the perfect answer”.

Thank you, Clair, for sharing your son’s party!  The cake you made is astounding, and I know you loved making it special for your new teen!  Something tells me having a mom like you makes him even cooler!  I think you found the key to planning a teenage party…find out what they like and be creative!

Photography -Brett Ellenport at Bell Creative
> https://www.bellcreative.com.au/index.html
> Cake – Calamity Cakes
> Lollipops – Little Big Company Australia
> Edible images – Little Dance Invitations
> Venue – Malt Cafe
> Dj’s – Triplex Dj’s Melbourne

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