Happy Easter everyone

Happy Easter everyone!! Hope you all had a fantastic long weekend with family and friends. We had a quiet day today with our 4 girls with lots of Easter crafts and an egg hunt in the afternoon.
This Easter I was inspired to create an Easter table for our family based on Mandy Sutcliffe's characters "Belle & Boo". I purchased Mandy's book "Bubbles Before Bed to do book" especially for Easter and was so in love with all the gorgeous drawings and activities that I knew a Belle & Boo Easter table would be a hit with my daughters. The Easter table is actually quite simple with lots of crafty items that any crafter can replicate, all you need to do is go through what you already have in your cupboards and perhaps look at your old furniture in a brand new light. I re-used our old drawer unit (I used it for my nieces bird party last December and it now sits in my eldest daughter's bedroom) and gave it a green coat (Dulux celery) of acrylic paint followed by crackle medium to make it look more vintagy.

I had an old wine box lying around which I covered in celery green Kona fabric and then wrapped in left over celery wool. This was used to give my flowers more hight on my table.

The cake was very easy, bottom tier is choc mud covered in milk choc fondant, top tier raspberry buttercake covered in embossed raspberry fondant. The topper is a wooden Boo brooch I bought from the Belle & Boo online shop, while the cuff of the bottom tier cake is just fluffy wool wound around the cake several times (I first popped a cardboard (or you can use acetate) "collar" around the bottom to avoid fluff sticking to my cake) and then finished of with a crochet flower brooch I already had (look familiar Selina? lol).

Gorgeous blue hydrangeas mixed with pale pink carnations in one of my vintage tea pots, I used this as my table centre piece. I was lucky enough to get the very last hydrangea for the season as they now don't flower anymore.

Cute hand knitted hunting egg bags with Belle & Boo badge attached to each bag, yep hand knitted by me! Those who know me know I do NOT knit, so it was quite a challenge to knit these simple squares and then fashion them into bags :-) But I did it!!

Wool covered MDF letter E, I saw this clever idea on Bump Smitten, so hop on over for a free tutorial. Ceramic bunny from Bed, Bath & Table.

Boo cupcakes, pistachio cupcakes topped with Rose flavoured Persian fairyfloss. Boo topper created using Dress Up Belle & Boo range.

Boo cookies on sticks, all hand cut since I couldn't find a cutter that looked like boo. Milk bottle from Shoppe with Lily, make sure to visit Lilian, she has AMAZING items for dessert tables and if you can't find what you are looking for just ask her! Belle & Boo dress up dolls from the Belle & Boo online shop.

One of the Easter crafts we did was colour eggs in gorgeous pastels. Now as some of you may know I struggled to find white chicken eggs since it seems they don't sell many here in Melbourne, in the end I used white duck eggs from the Asian grocer which are the size of a 800gr chicken egg and colour beautifully. Very happy with our results!

Rose flavoured macarons, not my best results but they would have to do ;-) Tag from Belle & Boo (came with my Boo wooden brooch)

What the Easter bunny left for the 4 girls this morning, all in a lovely canvas Boo repeat bag.

My gorgeous flowers with a Lindt bunny yummmmmmm Will have to hide these away from the girls ;-)

Lemon baked cheesecake & cupcake set

I made this lovely cake set last Sunday for a father/daughter combined birthday for one of the mums in my mother's group. The cake is baked lemon New York cheesecake with lemon white choc panels while the cupcakes were mini lemon baked cheesecakes topped with butterflies, roses and blossoms.

Close up of the cheesecake cupcakes, aren't they cute?

Anyone want a glass of coke?

This is one of two cakes I had to make for 2 people leaving a company. The coke cake was a choc sponge cake frosted in choc fudge icing with black choc fondant, the coke label is made from edible paper. It's actually not that difficult to make, I baked 6 individual 4" cakes since its the same size as the coke bottle and the coke bottle top was shaped and then held in place with a wooden skewer and choc fudge ganache. This is to feed 15 people since the cake was the actual size of a 1.5ltr coke zero bottle.

Next up is this dairy and gluten free Moose cake, probably a bit more challenging to make due to the fact that almost everything on the planet contains gluten! In the end I rang around and even double checked with companies who made the colouring paste I was using to check if it was gluten free.

Orange cake gluten & dairy free

250g of Tablelands dairy & gluten free canola

1 3/4 cups brown sugar

4 eggs

2 cups of Orgran selft raising flower (gluten & dairy free)

1 cup of Pauls Zymil dairy & gluten free milk

zest of 1 large orange

1/4 tsp of whole vanilla bean

Cream canola & sugar till well combined, then add your eggs one by one, beating after each addition.

Now sift in the 2 cups of flower and add the zest, vanilla and milk. Gently mix till combined.

Pour into a greased and lined 8' inch round tin and pop it in a pre-heated 180 degree oven. My oven is gas so it took 65 minutes to bake, make sure to check it after 50 min to see if its done.

Let cool and then frost with orange frosting

Orange frosting

2 cups of pure icing sugar

2 Tblsp orange zest

3 Tblsp Tablelands canola

enough Zymil milk to blend the frosting into the consistency of thick whipped cream

Beat 1 cup of icing sugar with all the canola and a small amount of Zymil milk for 5 min till whote and fluffy, gradually add the remaining icing sugar and enough Zymil milk to make a thick spreadable frosting.

My husband thought the bottle was real, he almost picked it up!! lol

Sunshine and smiles 1st birthday party

This is what I've been up to this weekend, getting ready for Lexie's sunshine and smiles 1st birthday party. Rather than making the entire party yellow and white, we've thrown in some soft and hot pinks to break the colour up a bit. Besides the sun is not only yellow, look at what gorgeous colours mama sun creates when the sun comes up or sets ;-) This gorgeous party was created around Parties by Hardie's printable sunshine birthday collection.

Since Simone, Lexie's mummy, would be making the doily bunting for the party venue (all 8 metres of it!!) I decided to add some fondant doilies to the cake design. The sun topper is actually made from coconut ice (pink) and then covered in white choc fondant that I coloured canary yellow. The cake was 8' round x 10' tall "rainbow cake, so one layer of raspberry, then strawberry, then orange and then lemon to simulate the sun rising.

For the flower pieces I bought some floral sponge balls, cut a 1/4 off the bottom so it sits flat, dipped them in water and then popped various shades of yellow and pink flowers till the whole ball was covered. Not only did the arrangements look lovely but they smelled devine too, not bad for a non florist who tends to kill plants by just looking at them ;-)

Some of the goodies on the table were these cute ice cream cakes. I saw them in my Bakerella recipe book and decided to make these with the leftover lemon and orange cake I had after carving and evening out my cake. The only difference is that my ice creams were covered in buttercream frosting and then topped with chocolate and sprinkles.

Here are the goodies that I made for Lexie's party, I was one busy bee in the kitchen these past few days!

Smiling sun cookies.

Yummy raspberry and lemon cupcakes

The party was held in a communal hall, here is a photo taken just after I completed the styling of the main table. It looked so pretty once everything was in its place. Some of the other food items we had were thermometres (breadsticks dipped in chocolate then dipped in yellow sprinkles), Sunset and sunrise home made lemonade, mini cheescakes with beach umbrellas, slip,slop,slap sandwiches, sizzling sausage and sunshine jelly cups.

Since it also was a smiles party I made these smiley pops.

The hall looked stunning in the end, Simone worked very hard making decorations and creating the rest of the food. Fantastic job Simone, well done.

Vendors:

- Styling by Just call me Martha

- Cake, cupcakes, smiley pops, sunshine cookies, ice cream cakes, mini cheesecakes and flower arrangements by Just call me Martha

- All lables, cupcake toppers and printable partyware from Parties by Hardie

- Glass bottles from Bed bath and table

- The rest of the food and decorations were created by Simone Nuroo

Axel's airplane birthday cake, cookies & pops

As most of you all know I LOVE and ADORE anything to do with Kikki K, in fact my husband keeps a close eye on my credit card statements to see how many times I visit my local Kikki shop and I am blushing to say it is a lot. Well imagine my surprise and sheer delight when Kristina Karlsson, the founder and owner of Kikki K contacted me to ask if I was free to create a cake for her son Axel's 3rd birthday. So after first thinking the email was a hoax and then promptly passing out at my desk followed by some squeels of delight I went about planning for the cake, some biscuits and some pops. Kristina created the adorable invite above and said Axel loves planes, especially Qantas and since Kikki K has a kids travel - RESA range, Kristina requested that everything be plane orientated. Since I was making 4 items for the table anyway (Kristina would be styling the party and table herself) I just could not resist creating a mini airplane dessert table myself. The only rule I had was that I had to use items I already had or handmake it myself to keep costs down. This is what I came up with.

Do you recognise the backdrop? Yep, I recycled Anya's canvas frames from her polka dot party I styled in July last year, I even kept the fabric just added some felt fluffy clouds (I blanket stitched them on my machine, added some fabric adhesive membrane and ironed them onto the canvas), a felt airplane and some cute stitching (running stitch) to spell out Axel. All felts and materials used I had lying around in my sewing baskets. The "tablecloth" is actually a scrap piece of Cath Kidston fabric I had lying around, it was an exact match to the canvas.

Here are the goodies Kristina bought as favours for her guests. Cute mini suitcases from Baby's got style, (probably cleared out all their stock lol) bag tag, colouring book + pencils and pencil case from Kikki's RESA range along with an airplane cookie I made. This was popped in the "baggage claim" area of the party table.

Here is Axel's birthday cake, its a cross between Planet cake's airplane cake and a Qantas jumbo. The body of the cake is vanilla buttercake, the wings are made from biscuit covered in vanilla Satin ice, while the tail and tail fins are made from fondant. The engines were made from coconut ice since I needed somthing solid yet edible to hold up the heavy wings. In the end this cake weighed a tonne!

The mini suitcases are also something I already had, they were left overs from Imara's back to school party. I re-used them here to add hight to my items.

The cloud cookies were one of the items created for Axels' party, I thought they were rather cute. The tin is recycled I just added some striped paper I printed using the invitation as my inspiration, very simple yet effective.

The drink bottles are also recycled from a previous party, I used some blue cordial + water (called it Jet fuel) to fill them up added some blue stripy straws I had lying around (cheapie ones from Coles) and a cute airplane cutout that I printed out and handcut then fastened to each straw. The airplane cookies were for Axel's party table and favour suitcases.

Marshmallow propeller pops were another item for Axel's party, these are just plain white ones dipped in white chocolate (coloured red) with fondant propellers. The square foam stand was a spare I had lying around, once again I printed out some stripy paper to dress them up.

I had the pleasure of meeting the lovely, warm and genuine Kristina while delivering all the items and I must say Kristina did a stellar job in styling her party room, the decorations were gorgeous and the table just perfect and beautiful. I am hoping to see some of Axel's party pics in the near future, if I do I might snaffle some to pop on my blog ;-)

Now for a nano break, and onto the next party........

Babushka 1st birthday cake for twins

This weekend I had the pleasure to work on a babushka birthday cake for twin girls. Although I've made this cake before I must say this cake was different, for one it was HUGE, well 43cm tall and 29cm wide in my book is huge lol and the design was fun to do. I was given the above invite as inspiration and this is what I came up with.....

I loved doing all the love hearts, the cape was handpainted while the apron was heart cutouts.

This is the finished product, isn't she cute? I hope the twins like her ;-) I used red satin/vanilla fondant for the red dress (best tasting red fondant I've ever tasted!) and white chocolate fondant coloured pink for the cape and white for the apron.

I know she tastes lovely, caramel mudcake with caramel fudge buttercream icing (I had some off cuts lol) but I am fretting if she will be enough to feed 80 or so people, yikes! Fingers crossed xx

cheers,

Leoni

xxx

Annike's tea party - Kate Landers competition entry

Hello everyone, it is with great pleasure that I finally share the pics of my daughter Annike's 6th birthday tea party that I created back in November 2010. As some of you may remember, I entered a written party design/concept competition back in September on Kate Landers's blog, Kate asked contestants to submit a written party design for a 1930-1960 children's birthday and I received 2nd runner up (yay). Kate has just revealed her vintage doll tea party shoot which incorporates the designs and ideas from the winner and 4 runner ups and Kate has done an INCREDIBLE job of pulling togehter this utterly DEVINE party. Please hop over to Kate Landers's blog to have a read, it has the most amazing details and gorgeous pics, I am sure you will love it as much as I do.

For my design entry I actually decided to re-create the tea party for Annike's birthday on the 6th November 2010 seeing as I went to all that trouble to "dream" it up. So here it is.......

This is the invitation by Style me Gorgeous we sent out to Annike's friends, folded in pink envelopes and topped with a yellow paper doily, I purchased mine from Details, Details! Back in August if you purchased the party ware from the "The Beauty Full Collection" before the end of the month 100% of the sales would be donated to Paradise Kids.

For my submission I did a 1950's vintage tea party, most of my items were handmade or 2nd hand as I did not have a large budget to work with. After doing some initial sketches in my ideas book I chose pink, white and yellow as my colour scheme as I fell in love with the fabric Verna Mosquera ROSES AND HYDRANGEAS Lemon that I saw on Etsy. I ordered several yards along with some co-ordinating fabrics so I could make my ruffle table cloth, cover and old chair and do other crafty items for the birthday party. A couple of weeks before the party I started collecting all the chairs for the party, all were bought 2nd hand from Ebay some for only $5!! Bargain! I didn't touch them as I liked the shabby chic mixed feel the chairs evoked. My eldest daughter Anya and I made the doily bunting from cheap white dollar shop doilies ($2 for 72 various sized doilies) hand dyed and then stapled onto some twine, easy peasy, idea from Martha Stewart

I also collected all the mis-matching 2nd hand china from Ebay, they had some gorgeous pastels for sale at the time I was buying so I snapped them up. I used left over paper doilies as placemats and to dress up some of my serving plates. Scones, jam and cream were homemade by me, white cake plates are from Provincial Living.

Here you can see the birthday girl and her friends enjoying the tea party.

I bought this lovely 2nd hand tea trolley from Ebay, once again I didn't touch it as it was already painted white and looked shabby enough to my liking. I decided to do a biscuit/cookie dessert trolley rather than lolly table for this party, I bought some glass jars (Provincial living, but the dollar shop also sells them) and asked my eldest daughter Anya to label some doilies which we then tied to the jars with twine. We had double choc cookies, Anzac cookies (An Australian/New Zealand treat), Macadamia cookies and short bread cookies. I also made some raspberry flavoured Macarons, a plate of high tea sandwitches and bought some tea pot shaped cookies from Dolls at the Mount, they were delicious! To cover the windows I covered them in black cardboard and wrote the verse "I am a little teapot short and stout, ......" in chalk, it looked really cute.

Here is part of the birthday cake, I wanted a teapot and Annike wanted a fairy teapot cake so we compromised and I made a fairy teapot house complete with fairy sitting on the handle. The cake was raspberry sponge filled with raspberry buttercream icing covered in white chocolate fondant, Annike's favourite.

This is the 2nd part of the birthday cake, since Annike also wanted a rainbow cake, its a rainbow coloured sponge cake (strawberry, orange, lemon, raspberry and chocolate) filled with vanilla bean frosting. I made the teacup, saucer, No 6 topper and fairy from modelling paste, edible chalks, gold lustre dust and Wilton pastes, so it was all edible.

Here is how the two cakes looked together. Vintage white cake stand from Domayne, crystals were later added by me.

Here is the birthday girl Annike, the very talented Maureen from MKsNeedlemania at Esty made Annike's matching birthday dress, isn't it gorgeous? Thank you Maureen, I love it!

I picked up this lovely wrought iron chandelier from Ebay, it went perfectly with my table. All the flowers were generously donated by my friend Sara, her lovely garden was overflowing with roses and I was allowed to just pick whatever I needed (thank you Sara xxx). White teapot is from Provincial living, pink teapot vase (I used some vintage teapots as vases lol) is a 2nd's buy from Ebay.

Ofcourse what is a tea party without yummy cupcakes, so here is a pic of some yummy vanilla and strawberry cupcakes topped with fondant flowers. The gorgeous damask cupcake wrappers are from Kat and Nat from The Cupcake Wrapper Co. Love your products ladies, absolutely LOVE them xxx Cupcake stand is from...yep you guessed it, Ebay lol, once again I added the crystals afterwards to add some bling ;-) (Annike begged me for some "daimonds" because she wanted her party sparkly lol)

Close up of the teapot cookies from Dolls at the Mount, Gingerbread covered in icing sugar, they tasted homemade so super yummy. Hope you enjoyed looking at this party as much as I had hosting it. Thank you Kate Landers for allowing me to be part of such an incredible experience, I loved every minute of creating this party!

Please also say hello on my Facebook page, Just call me Martha, I would love to hear from you.

xxx

Leoni