A Book Party

   

 

  

 

Another year, another simple party by a time poor mum. Rather than invest in flowers this year, we opted for much loved balloons ("boons"). Ivory, blush, peach, coral, grey. Colours inspired by the book Bonjour Camille. The flowers strung over the table were all I could find in my garden (they're probably weeds). I had the wonderfully talented illustrator and wordsmith, Mer Mag draw me a custom image and used it to make a mini book invitation. I cut out the same image and used it as a cake topper on one of the 2 cakes I made from 3 packet mixes. I threw an IKEA curtain over the fold-up table as a tablecloth, made a fruit salad covered with yoghurt, berries and honey; a green salad; graciously accepted the nannas contributions of sandwiches and cat cookies. I pulled our old cot out of the garage and this as used to hold gifts and handbags and Elsa wigs! We tied balloons onto it and each kid picked a colour and drew a face on their balloon. We brought down the kettle and sang Happy Birthday in the sunshine with cake and tea.

Supplier list
Balloons and '2' cake topper from The Party People
Illustration by Merrilee Liddard of Mer Mag (invitations were made by modifying the template mentioned below and printed on Canson paper (25 sheet packet) from Lincraft)
Fruit paper cups, napkins and checked dessert plates from Lark Store
Fruit paper plates, green striped straws and tassel horns from My Messy Room
Template for cat/houses used as lolly bags from Lucille Michieli
White pews and vintage school chairs used as kids table & chairs available for hire from me!

p.s. my sister also did a lovely post on her blog here

Sweet Magazine

The lovely Sam from Dunne with Style invited me among other creatives to contribute to issue 4 of Sweet mag. Sweet. This issue was 'for the boys' so this was my gentle hint at a teepee/Indian theme, featuring feather cupcake & gift toppers, Love Mae wall wolf wall decal which I have loved since forever and a bow and arrow cake. My colors were pale green and grey. Boyish but still gentle and pretty.

Piper's 1st Birthday Party

I was remarkably relaxed about Piper's birthday. Perhaps because she's too young to give feedback.  I think limiting it to family only helped a lot as BYO coffees and a plate of muffins would kept everyone happy, so the pressure was off.  I had wanted to make her a flower crown and dress her in a little not-too-pretty romper.  I wanted to make a dream catcher with scraps of white lace and orchids. I wanted edible flowers in the salad and atop cup cakes. I wanted to finish renovating the exterior of the house and blah blah blah, the list goes on. But in the end, we can only do what we can do.  

I work long hours and as it all-too-often happens, time caught up to me and energy was lost to me, so I had to pare back my plans. Thanks to a beautiful friend (heartfelt thanks must go to Elizabeth for the beautiful cake bunting and party hat); a party dress purchased on line (and on-sale); a Saturday morning at the markets; an afternoon of baking; and an evening of printing and snipping - a beautiful sunny day was created for our beautiful girl.

Once I decided on the adorable Kelli Murray invitations (delivered by hand or left on doorsteps and tied with fine gold thread and sweetpeas), I had the basis of my colours (creamy/muted pretty) and cuteness.  That little owl's face, I just loved. So she was cut out and pasted on straws and sat in little quilted preserving jars awaiting ginger cordial.  The tee pee straws were made for sipping sparkling water from mini bottles. A dispenser for cordial and pretty paper cups and plates for the kids followed.  Making only a large salad I delegated the food duties, buying quiches and taking up Piper's nan on her offer to make sandwiches.

Mr took the bubs for a walk the day before so I could bake a blood orange cake (that's how I got the pink coloured icing - I was after white but embraced my mistake) and a choc-vanilla layer cake (this one was from packets) topped with fresh flowers with the left over batter made a little teepee cake for Piper's 'smash-cake'.

As I don't have drawer fulls of plates and cutlery, napkins (Fine Little Day from Lark) were used for quiche and cake and vintage saucers and cake forks for salad. Paper cups (left over from our wedding & labelled thanks to a sheet of sticker paper from my mum's office) served us well for tea and coffee.

I thought our babe would be too young to understand, but she soaked it all in and knew it was her special day. There was a little bit of magic in the air.

Buzz + Woody

My clever sis hosted a Toy Story party for her little critters' 4th birthday. This is what she pulled together.

Linen Kids

Have you ever seen a more sophisticated and civilised kids gathering? image from here

Turning 2

This is my nephew Noa's 2nd birthday shindig - isn't it cute? He loves the minions from the Despicable Me movie and my sis pulled this little setting together. She made minions from Kinder surprise eggs and I made the little felt ball ones with googly eyes.