For Chace - Makeup Fundraiser Night

If I could redefine the word courage it would be Chace Topperwien and his family.   His parents are my heroes.   You can find out more about Chace through his facebook page.  I have followed his story (right back from the terribly unfortunate incident of his mistaken immunisation) as he is almost the exact age as my daughter Mila and it touched my heart back then.  To learn of his cancer was heartwrenching.

When I heard about their plight to the UK, I knew I wanted to do something to help raise what I could.  I entertained a few ideas but when my sister said she would like to help I thought why not just combine whatever talents we have.  She is a fantastic makeup artist (follow her on facebook) and while I'm on continued hiatus from being a lawyer I like to throw a party.

So throw a party we did.  It was a makeup demonstration night.  I themed it "What hue suits you?" (for anyone who doesn't know what "hue" means it is shade or tint.  According to my family this is not a word but according to me and the dictionary it is!!).  I went with a theme of pinks, reds & fushias teamed up against browns, caramels & golds to represent the most common makeup "hues!!".

I loved every minute of putting together the sweet treats table knowing this would be going towards such a great cause.  All attendees paid $30.  We also had a couple of silent auctions.  My parents auctioned a weekend for 4 their beach house accommodation and my mother in law donated some gorgeous jewellery from her very super cool Garden Art Studio.

At the end of the night all the sweet treats not eaten were bagged up for sale (coin donations).  It cleared the table and brought in lots more cash.  We raised almost $1300 in total.

I'd like to thank Denise at Dots n Spots for donating for the cause some lovely bits of party ware.  Also Alison Worth of Locavore (fine foods) for donating some lovely quince paste to be added to the sweets sale (they sell through the Saturday morning Cambridge markets).

I learnt to make these tissue pom poms from a Martha Stewart Tutorial found through the insanely gorgeous blog of Bella Cupcakes.  

My CRAZY good rocky road invention.  Cadbury milk chocolate & cooking melts mixed and melted, caramel marshmellows, honey roasted peanuts, hokey pokey and crushed homemade ricie slice.  

I don't rate the recipe I used for this red velvet cake.  I will try and conquer that cake another time.

I trialled a new piping technique for my buttercream icing.  Its not really what I was after but I was in a rush and still think the mini rosette was very cute.  I did this with a 1M tip but was recommended a 2D tip but couldn't find one for sale.  Bella Cupcakes has a great tutorial :)

Very cool dots n spots drinks dispenser.

I use my favourite ever chocolate cake recipe for these cupcakes.  I promise to separately blog the recipe along with the icing recipe.

Some of the volunteer models :)

All the scrummy goods going home with guests for $$$!!

The invite / flyer

Me and my Mum.  She was a model for the makeup and only has one eye made up with false lashes.  Love this photo :)  Love ya Mum.

Thanks to everyone who helped and came and supported.  All my love and well wishes go to Chace and family xoxoxox

Yum Easter / Birthday Cake

I did throw together a very small Easter afternoon tea at my Mum and Dad's lovely beach home. We got together to celebrate my sister in law's birthday and let all the cousins have an easter egg hunt together (which they never wanted to end - I had to keep running around re-hiding the already found eggs due to the degree of desperation they were all exuding every time we said it was over).

I found the recipe for this yummy cake in the latest Next magazine while I was at the hairdressers. I tried to memorise it but kinda didn't do too well. Here is my guessed recipe attempt which turned out so yum and moist!!

Date & fresh ginger cake with cinnamon cream cheese icing:

125g butter

1 1/2 cup of chopped dates

1 cup made up coffee

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup golden syrup

3/4 cup caster sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 finely grated ginger root (about a thumb size piece)

1 cup plain yoghurt

Once the coffee is made up let the dates soak in it until it cools a bit then blitz it in the blender with the baking soda and golden syrup.

In a bowl cream the butter, sugar and eggs then mix in the yoghurt. Sift in the flour and baking powder then add the ginger and the coffee/date mix. Mix it all until just combined. Bake at 160 degrees until it bounces to the touch.

For the icing mix a tub of cream cheese with 2 cups of icing sugar and 1 tsp of cinnamon.

tips - I always do 1.5 times a standard cake recipe to get a nice high cake (the above recipe is standard but the photo is 1.5 times). Add more ginger if you want it extra spicy. Add butter to the icing if you want it creamy and reduce icing sugar to make it less sweet. I always layer a cake with icing but on this occasion it made it too sweet so I wouldnt do it again with this particular icing. This cake would be so good hot with caramel sauce and icecream. YUM

More birthday fun...

Under the sea cake with divine meringue icing!

gorgeous fish cupcakes courtesy of Hot Cakes

Elmo

Dora enjoying a jelly shot

My sister went all out for her daughters' 'under the sea' combined 1st and 3rd birthdays which both fall in April. Such a fun day, the kids loved it. The cake was AMAZING the detail was so incredible !!! I was devastated I never got a closeup of the octopus on the side of the cake!! The visit from Elmo was such a hit with the kids and it was such a crack-up the look on Mila's face when she saw her cousin and best friend dressed up as Dora!!!

Way to go Gabes, your parties are so much fun!!!!! the decorations were fantastic!!! & love love love that you and Derek dressed up as Shrek & Fiona :)

Happy Easter

Easter nests

A big nest for big kids and mini nest for babies.

In the basket ready for delivery.

Just a quick post to show the little Easter treats Mila and I put together for her cousins and friends. I was lucky to have any eggs left to fill up the nests as she was sneaking them as quick as I could fill them!! She was a great help adding all the paper straw though:)

The little easter illusrations on the bag tags were free cupcake printables found at We Love To Illustrate that I cut out and added. I just LOVE free printables, its so cool when people share their clever things.

I will post a blog if I decide to throw any type of Easter get together - it will have to be very impromptu this year with everyone I know having a lot going on. A shame as I cannot stand to leave the Easter decorations in the cupboard! I'll just have to get them out anyway, and hope to bake an Easter cake. At the very least there will be lots of chocolate in the house. I am soooooooooooooo excited for Sunday as I've been on chocolate lent fast for nearly 6 1/2 weeks. Excited is an understatement.

:)

Fab Friday Finds

Found a fab find at Red Red Red interiors in Te Awamutu in their bargain bin ...this whole roll of Designers Guild fabric which usually retails at $350 per metre for only $80 for the whole thing. I LOVE the bold fushia, its just what I've been wanting to re-invent our lounge. So it will be either cushions, an ottoman or at the very least a new pinboard in the office in the very near future. Prob enough to even cover a new office chair.......

Stopped in at the always lovely Lily Pad Cafe for a quick coffee today and came across these gorgeous handmade cookies from a local company Kiwi Cookie Company. I picked the owl for Mila and the frog for Luka to take home as a treat. Only $2.50 each :) How great would these be for a birthday party? Often cookies are the part I find the most laboursome when I bake for parties so if you were looking to cut your workload then buying a batch of these would be ideal. It would be great if they would be willing to do custom cookies to match a particular theme. Hmmmm must investigate. They don't have a website but ph 0277562491 or email Maryanne.W06@gmail.com if you want some. So cute and I love local!

Tutu Teaparty

Mila turned 3 on Monday and we celebrated with a tutu teaparty. I decided on the theme by mixing her two favourite things at the moment - ballet and teaparties. She loves to host teaparties outside her playhouse for teddy and her dolls, and she pretty much lives in a tutu. I've even checked on her in bed at night and often found her asleep in a tutu over top of her pyjamas.

She declared she wanted her party to be pink and later decided she wanted yellow too. So pink and yellow it was. The only tulle fabric I came across at spotlight was more of a mango/apricot pink so I decided to throw this 3rd colour into the mix a bit aswell. That is how my parties seem to grow - from one idea and then as I come across things I add to it. I wasn't going to shop around or make further trips to spotlight just because they were out of 'pink' tulle. I just improvise because if I start agonising over not being able to find perfection then it takes the fun out of it. I just like to 'go with the flow'.

The party was a great success and the kids had soooooo much fun. All the girls looked adorable in their tutus. I've posted lots of photos below and some tips etc. You will see that I get a lot of pretty party things from Dots n Spots www.dotsnspots.co.nz they are a fabulous local online business with heaps of gorgeous goodies. Denise featured in the waikato times article last week - check out her great website.

A mixture of lovely lanterns. Some I've had in the cupboard for ages and the plain white ones from dots n spots.

I got a sewing machine for Christmas and it had its first outing this week. I used it to sew the tutu skirt for the cake. It took a while reading the instruction book to re-learn how to thread a machine but I got there in the end (with a few little helpers). A great tip I had for sewing a tutu is to use elastic and pull the elastic while sewing and then when you let go after sewing it pulls the tulle and creates the gathered effect. So simple. I loved the final product, it was just as I imagined it would look. I'm still a bit useless when it comes to getting a smooth fondant finish on the icing. I tried two layers this time to smooth things out but it was still bumpy. Ohwell, I love the homemade look and when i have time I'll google how to do it properly.

Chippie Bags - I Love how a simple bag and ribbon transforms something as plain as chips into something so pretty and fun for the kids. This is always the biggest hit with the kids.

Once again I got out my dots n spots bottles and straws. Another total favourite with the kids. They are such an affordable way to make a party so pretty.

Time to put the pretty heart shape cookie set to good use :)

I had a brainwave to make these tutu gingerbread ladies when I was making the tutu skirts for the invites. So cute. Just eating one right now as I write this :)

I whipped up some labels for the choccie bars at the last minute. So easy to pop over some Whitaker chocolate bars and what wasn't eaten got popped into the favour boxes.

Gorgeous yellow favour boxes from dots n spots. The pretty glass lolly jar is from dots n spots also.

These miniature preserving jars were a great find from Farmers. I used strawberry dairyfood and thick n creamy custard to fill them. They would look so cool filled with a mixture of pink and yellow m&ms but I'm yet to find a supplier of single colour m&ms.

I love making cupcake toppers they are a simple way to add some personal touch. If you can't be bothered, dots n spots has lots of gorgeous toppers.

This has become my signature icing - mostly because I have no idea how to do it any other way. I was a bit stuck when I realised the night before the party that I was out of piping bags and had to make do with cutting the corner off a sandwich bag. Time to invest in a good piping set!!!

Last year I did a striped cake for Mila's birthday cake but it was a choc and vanilla stack and only 4 layers high. This year she wanted a pink cake and I decided to stripe it in pink and yellow to match the theme. I made the first cake and without really thinking I decided to use some raspberry compote to colour it. Well it turned bluey/purple. I was also using a very dense cake recipe with alot of moisture and the colour seemed to concentrate in the middle. But ohwell, I decided to just improvise and for the other layers I stuck with a simple buttercake recipe and food colouring. But the purple stayed in the mix. Only burnt cakes make it to the bin in my kitchen (and we did have one!!! ha ha) otherwise if its still yummy it just has to work, and I think it worked pretty well. Butter is far too expensive these days to be throwing away good cake.

Homemade tutu invites. I love making the invites.

Well another party done and dusted. So much fun. I'm glad i'm getting slightly better at taking photos with my fancy Nikon camera, as these photos do a bit more justice to my hard work than the photos I usually take. This party was actually supposed to be photographed by a certain fabulous photographer for a certain fabulous magazine but unfortunately the photographer had to cancel at the last minute due to an emergency. Such a bummer as I'd so love to capture one of the kids parties with professional photos one day. Such a memory for them to treasure. Oh well - one day :)

I'm just trying to decide now whether to throw an easter egg hunt party for the kiddies. Not sure because we also have a combined birthday party for my two nieces over easter - could be too much chocolate for one weekend!! We shall see.........

Olivia

Back to Blogging!!!

I have decided to get back into blogging!! I haven't blogged in soooooo long because I've just been soooo busy with my kiddies.

I've just been featured with my beautiful daughter Mila in the Waikato Times (Sat 3rd March - Weekend). The article is about the new generation of stay at home mums who love to bake and throw a gorgeous party. It has inspired me to put some time aside to get back to my love of blogging and sharing tips and ideas. I've decided that I'm going to blog alot more about my love of everything, including parties, craft projects for the kids and of course still home interiors that make me drool :)

Above are some photos as shown in the waikato times of a little 'tea for two' tea party I literally threw together for the occasion. I'm throwing (well less throwing more putting together) Mila's tutu teaparty 3rd birthday party on Monday so I'll be back to blog on that along with a catch up on all the other parties thrown accross the year.

I also promise to post soon on the playhouse my husband and I created for the kids - along with a bit of a sneakpeek at the dollshouse renovation I'm working on.

Once again.....I have no idea if anyone reads this but its nice to have a place to share pretty things!! even if just one of two friends want some inspiration for the day :)