Jungle Pretzel Sticks

A few days ago I gave a little preview of a banner I made for my soon to be 2 year old nephew's birthday party. 


In case you couldn't guess, it's a safari/jungle theme!


My nephew has/had an obsession with The Lion King. If I had started decorations a few months ago, it would have been a Happy Feet theme. I am a bit worried though because he recently saw Kung Fu Panda and it seems to have replaced The Lion King... hopefully the switch won't be fully completed until after this Saturday.


Yesterday I went to Michael's to see if they had any cute animal cookie cutters. 


Instead I came across these:

Life: Designed

I am such a sucker for sales... This was on clearance for just $2.49. It suits the theme perfectly and I love chocolate and pretzels! I mean... my nephew loves chocolate and pretzels!


They require large pretzel sticks and just as I was wondering where to find such large pretzel sticks, I saw these:

Life: Designed

Man... they are making this way to easy for me. How could I resist?


They even had the chocolate candy melt. It's like they were just asking to be made. 


I almost bought the chocolate as well as edible paint. But my conscience kicked in and reminded me that I am a starving student. As adorable as the painted versions looked on the packaging, I just couldn't justify the purchase. Plain chocolate animals on a stick are still cute right?


But I did need chocolate. The ones at Michael's were looking a bit old...You know...when they have that white sort of film on them? That's not a good sign. And they are not cheap.


I ended up buying this at superstore:

Life: Designed

Yes.. that says 775g. What?! A girl's got to eat while "baking" right?


I'm going to make them Friday night.. I really hope they turn out. I've never used a chocolate mold before. Fingers crossed. I'll let you know how it goes!


In addition to these, I'm also thinking of baking sugar cookies. I LOVE sugar cookies. Yes...this party is slowly becoming all about me...


Good thing my sister also loves sugar cookies! Her kids will love them too, I'm sure. I haven't made sugar cookies in about 4 years but I remember them being really easy to make. I wanted to make animal sugar cookies but c'mon... I do not have the time, talent or patience to make something like this:

Source

Something like this would be great party favours for kids but this party my sister is throwing is for a small group of adults. So instead, I'm going to do something more simple and abstract. (That's my way of justifying not doing the really cool animal cookies).


I found a circle cookie cutter for 99 cents at Superstore and with icing, I'm going to paint zebra stripes on them. I would love to one day be able to make something like the image above but for now... I'm hoping I can at least produce cookies that look something like this:

Etsy

Again, my fingers are crossed. 


All will be revealed this weekend!