Sophie's 1st Birthday Party

Sophie's first birthday party last weekend was by far my favourite party I've put together.  I'm not sure if it's because blue and white is my favourite colour combination or if because by now, after hosting several children's birthday parties I know what works for me and how I best organize things with as little stress as possible.  Either way, it was a wonderful morning celebrating the first birthday of our little girl with close family and friends.

Decorations consisted of a simple photo board, fabric bunting which I had sewn, jars of daisies wrapped in gingham ribbon, washi tape cupcake flags and checked tablecloths.  I also designed some bag toppers for the party favours which coordinated with the invites I had made.

We had some smaller tables set up under our patio but with the morning becoming quite hot, most guests congregated under the shady corner of our backyard where we had picnic blankets spread out, a picnic basket filled with baby toys and our sand pit close by for the little ones to play in.  The good old slippery dip was brought out at the end of the party too.

As for the cake and all of those fondant daisies I made, I'm not sure my photos do it justice.  I really wish I had a better shot that showed more detail as it looks smaller here than in real life and the icing was a pale lemon and not so yellow. I baked two simple butter cakes (I wasn't sure if one would be enough for all our guests) and smothered them in frosting before adding the daisies on at the last minute.

 

And as exhausted as we all were that afternoon (and the following day) we had a wonderful time celebrating.  Our mix of guests really made for a fantastic party, we had blue sunny skies (lucky considering it rained on Monday) and there was enough delicious food to go around... a perfect party combination in my books...

Planning Sophie's 1st Birthday Party

It's hard to believe, but in only six weeks time, our baby girl will be turning one, so over the past few weeks, I've been trying to plan and pull together ideas for her upcoming birthday celebration. We'll be doing something similar for Sophie to what we did when Grace turned one - a simple morning tea in our backyard and being in the middle of spring, I've used the sweet dress I bought back in April as driving my inspiration and decided to go with a picnic theme. Having seen both Nicole and Louise throw parties with a similar theme in the past, I'm looking forward to putting my own spin on all of the wonderful ideas I've come across so far.

At the moment my vision is for blue and white gingham, jars and jugs of white daisies, baskets and perhaps some bunting along with comfy picnic blankets and cushions placed under the shady area of our backyard for the little ones to play on.  I have lots of ideas floating around in my head and am eager to start making decorations and getting myself organized, especially as I'm thinking of hosting another Pink Ribbon Day fundraiser this year which also happens to fall in the month of October.

Do you have any suggestions for a picnic party?  Any ideas for a cake to suit this theme?

Image Sources (left to right)

#1  Caspix (via Style Me Pretty)

#2  True Love Photo (via Ruffled)

#3 Chelsea Fuss of Frolic

#4 Kirsten Ellis of Beaux Arts Photographie.  Design by Kelly Oshiro Events

Grace's 3rd Birthday Party

Well, with Grace's birthday party finally over for another year, I feel as though I can now relax a little.  I'm still not on top of housework and our sleep has continued to be very disrupted thanks to both girls having had head colds this past week and Sophie teething badly, but not having the pressure of a party (albeit a simple one) to put together, means this week will be much less stressful.

I kept Grace's birthday celebration as simple as I could and decided that my focus should be on the birthday cake.  After all, when I think back to my own birthday parties as a little girl, it's the cakes that I remember.  My Mum and mother-in-law also made a few dishes to help me out with the food.

The good old rainbow cake really was a bit of an experiment and I had all my fingers crossed that it would turn out in the end.  On Saturday evening as I was icing it, I honestly thought it hadn't turned out as well as I'd hoped.  I had already decided to just stick to four coloured layers to make things simpler (four was fiddly enough as it was) and so I bought yellow, green, pink and purple food colouring paste.  I also bought packet butter cake mix to make things easier still.  However, as I mixed in the purple, I suddenly wished I'd gone for blue instead as the purple looked shocking.  It was a real grey, sick looking shade and I hoped that perhaps once it had cooked, the colour might change and brighten up.  No such luck and so the purple layer found its way to the bin.  In the end though, my three layers was plenty high enough and I actually think any more would have been a bit too much.

For anyone on Pinterest or who blogs, a rainbow-style cake is a bit 'yesterday'.  But to my family who had never seen such a design, they were very impressed.  To make one like I did I used two packets of Green's Golden Butter Cake mix which I divided into four 8 inch round cake tins.  I doubled my recipe for buttercream frosting and so used 250g softened butter, 3 cups icing sugar and 4 tablespoons of milk and beat it for a very long time to get it nice and fluffy and smooth.  A palette knife helped ice the cake neatly.  This was exactly the right amount of icing for what I needed.  I layered the cake and iced it the night before, and kept it in an air tight container overnight.  To decorate the cake I just sprinkled hundreds and thousands on top and put Jaffas around the bottom edge.  If you like buttercream frosting, you will love this cake.  I'd like to try one with different shades of the same colour next.

Sitting down after the party yesterday afternoon, I was so happy with how it all went.  And while a lot of things I had planned didn't eventuate (rainbow tags for the favour bags, a 'rainbow' of helium balloons and a rainbow skirt for the birthday girl), it really was a perfect, simple, good old-fashioned birthday party.  The weather was gloriously sunny and warm, we had a good number of guests where I felt like I had the chance to speak to everyone, the cake was a hit and Grace enjoyed herself. 

Pink Ribbon Day Party

Each year for the past few years, I’ve held a fundraiser to raise money for Pink Ribbon Day and breast cancer research. Pink Ribbon Day usually falls in October, but with my due date being the 18th of October, I decided to hold one in September instead. I tried to be sensible however, keeping my guest list small and sticking to a small number of dishes (two of which I had others make, one of which I bought).

My lovely friend Lyndell managed to take some photos for me so I could focus on being a good hostess, so here are some details from the party…





For the food, as I shared with you all in my Party Planning Tips post a while back, I tried to balance my sweet and savoury dishes which included

- Finger sandwiches (chicken, chives & aioli and cheese & cucumber)
- Chicken and mango balls
- Homemade sausage rolls
- Fresh fruit
- Scones with jam and cream
- Lemon and pistachio slice
- Mini raspberry melting moments
- Mini chocolate mousses

This would have been the perfect amount of food for the 14 guests who were coming. With all the extra plates people rocked up with (despite my saying to ‘just bring yourself’) we had plenty.



For the main table, a piece of floral fabric left over from Grace’s quilt made a table runner and fit in well with the Cath Kidston napkins I showed you a sneak peek of in Monday’s post. All my dishes were served on white or glass platters. With the same scanned pattern I used on my invites, I made some little signs on Microsoft Publisher to label each platter. Above the table, I hung a string of fabric bunting which I quickly whipped up using scraps of material. You can see it in the background of the shot below where Grace is ‘riding’ Asha and in the invite shot above.

As for flowers, I used two jars of snapdragons on the main table along with two floating red camelias from our garden. On the drinks table and smaller tables around which guests were seated, jars of pink ranunculi made a pretty show.



As gifts for each guest, I ordered some more of those pretty bags I used at my Teatime Treats Cooking Club from Etsy store Jade L’il Craft and filled each with packets of seeds (some were flower seeds, some were vegetable seeds depending on the guest). A little label and some washi tape to seal the back finished them off nicely and I displayed them in a little fabric covered box.



To raise money for breast cancer research, I held a little raffle. The prize was a geranium plant and was won by one of my aunties who has the most beautiful cottage garden which I thought was quite appropriate.



Overall, it was an enjoyable morning (after the chaos of last minute setting up and food preparation) and the weather held off for us so we could enjoy the sunshine outside. Thank you to my guests who brought along a plate, to my Mum and best friends who helped me set up, prepare food and clean up afterwards and especially to Lyndell for taking these gorgeous photos for me and letting me share them with you all here on my blog.

Be sure to check back on Friday for my party related giveaway…

All photos © Lyndell (except the dodgy invite shot which I took)

Partied Out

Hello everyone! Thank you all so much for your messages of congratulations for us expecting another baby. All your kind words, well wishes and prayers mean so very much.

On Saturday, we had a day of birthday parties with my twin nephews' 2nd birthday party on Saturday morning and a 30th on Saturday night. My nephews' party was held at a park overlooking the river in Bicton and the cooler weather made for a lovely morning outdoors. The party had a 'frog theme' and my sister-in-law did a wonderful job of planning things. Grace had a ball and wouldn't take off her party hat until we got home. She also loved her frog mask (until she realised it made it a bit hard to eat birthday cake!)

What did you get up to over the weekend?

Pink Ribbon Morning Tea Fundraiser

On Saturday morning, I held my Pink Ribbon morning tea to raise money for breast cancer research. I organized as much as I could on Friday and was so exhausted by the time evening came around that I ended up falling asleep in the middle of watching my usual favourite Friday night lifestyle shows. However, this meant I was not stressed yesterday morning and was cutting the last sandwich just as my first guests arrived.

I couldn’t really avoid using pink to decorate since it is the colour associated with this fundraiser. However seeing as the last three parties I have organized have incorporated pink somewhere in the colour scheme, I tried to create a pretty spring inspired table instead which was mainly white with the addition of a few bright colours. This year I decided to keep the numbers smaller to have a more intimate party and so while I did add a few special touches to the table, I didn’t go overboard. I managed to take some photos to share with you all using our new DSLR (which I am loving) so here are a few details…



I made the invites myself on Microsoft Publisher. I used a photo I had previously taken and manipulated it in a photo program to give it more of a ‘painted effect’.




Instead of selling Pink Ribbon merchandise, this year I decided to hold a raffle to raise money. I bought a pretty white hydrangea plant as the prize and sold tickets to enter.




The only decorations I used as such were three accordion paper flowers which I stuck to the wall in the corner for a burst of ‘pink’. They were easy to make using decorative paper (thin paper worked best) and you can make these yourself using the tutorial by Disney of Ruffles and Stuff featured at City Cradle Design.




When I woke yesterday morning, there was quite a strong breeze outside, so I made the call to hold my morning tea indoors rather than out on the patio (luckily our windows had been cleaned earlier in the week for the first time in months so we could still enjoy the view of our garden). I covered the dining table with a white linen tablecloth and placed a table runner which is embroidered with bright spring-like blooms down the middle. I used white crockery and white platters for all the food.




To brighten the table, I bought a bunch of ranunculus which I divided between two jars I had covered in textured white paper. I was initially searching for a pink bunch which I couldn’t find when I went to buy them. However, I am actually glad I came home with the bunch I ended up with as the mix of colours really added to the spring colour palette I was aiming for.






As a gift to guests to thank them for coming to my party, I made some pretty little boxes which each had a Cath Kidston soap inside. The boxes I used were ‘no-glue’ boxes which I had discovered on the Internet a while back and saved in my ‘to make’ folder. I used the pattern on the Lil Magoolie blog as a template and simply traced around them on white card (I used quite sturdy Bazzill card). I glued a decorative Cath Kidston print onto the boxes and tied them with pink embroidery thread using a very small punch to make the holes.











For the food, I made sausage rolls, finger sandwiches (chicken and chives with aioli and curried egg and lettuce), chocolate brownies, powder puffs and jelly cheesecake. I will share the recipe for these powder puffs later in the week for those who are interested.





I really enjoyed putting together this year’s fundraiser and liked having a smaller, cosier gathering. It was a great excuse to plan and put together a little party for such a worthwhile cause and I hope I may have inspired some of you out there to host something similar yourself next year.

Upcoming Pink Ribbon Fundraiser

Image credit: Elena (via The Sweetest Occasion)

Around this time last year when I first began blogging, I was in the middle of organizing a Pink Ribbon morning tea to raise money for breast cancer research. This coming Saturday, I am once again having a little fundraiser and so this week I am focusing on preparing things for the day.

While last year I had over 25 guests, this year I’ve decided to hold a smaller more intimate family gathering with my eight guests seated around the one table. I will have a ‘drinks station’ where tea and coffee can be made, however I want to be able to place all the food in the middle of the table.

As per my recent Party Planning Tips post, I have a little timeline I am working with this week to ensure things are organised and to minimise the number of things I have to do on Saturday morning. Another thing I like to do when planning a table for a party is to do a ‘mock run’. Saturday’s morning tea will be held outside (weather permitting) but I have set up our dining room table at the moment with the dishes I will be using and a few place settings to get an idea of space and how I will arrange things on the day.

I will be sure to share some photos once my little event is over. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with some pretty images that have caught my eye on The Sweetest Occasion (a recent favourite blog find) as I've been searching for inspiration for my event…

Image credit: Ruffles and Stuff (via The Sweetest Occasion)

Image credit: Slim Paley (via The Sweetest Occasion)

Also, just a reminder that if you haven't already, don't forget to enter my giveaway which I will be drawing on Saturday evening...

Baby Shower Photos

Hope you are all having a lovely week. Today, I finally sat down to download and browse through the photos I'd taken at my cousin's baby shower on the weekend. However, I found I didn't have as many good shots as I'd hoped I would. I seemed to have focused more on the guests than on the party details but I've managed to choose a few photos to share with you all to give you an idea of how the party looked.

My cousin really liked the decorations I had used at Grace's 1st birthday party so I re-used some of those and stuck to a similar style invitation. We also used the floral fabric centrepieces from the Pink Ribbon morning tea fundraiser I held last year. I made the cupcakes with polka dot flag toppers but apart from that, my Aunty and a few other guests made the remaining delicious dishes.

Here's the few photos I managed to scrape together...