Owl Themed Baby Shower

I recently hosted a baby shower for a dear friend who absolutely LOVES owls, so picking a theme was quite easy. As it needed to be gender neutral we went with a colour scheme of peach, mint, and turquoise, as the nursery also follows similar colours. We had plenty of delicious savoury items such as parmesan cookies with pesto and slow roasted tomatoe's, roasted garlic and cannellini bean crostini, brushetta, Danish meatballs and Sweetcorn fritters. For the sweet tooth we had lemon tarts, chocolate peanut butter tart, buttermilk pannacotta's, butterfly cakes, white chocolate and raspberry mudcake.

 

For the favours we gave each guest a owl cookie and a bag of chocolate covered popcorn.

 

 

Beer's of the World 40th Birthday

We recently celebrated my brother-in-law's 40th birthday. He is an avid home brewer and loves his beer so the theme naturally became about that. The beer tasting sheets, stickers and beer signs were from an October fest printable pack on Etsy.

For each countries beer we had a matching course of food, including mini sliders, paella, polish sausage, sushi, fish and chips, maple and bacon chicken, chilli dogs and meatballs. My husband did an awesome job of the food and I would have loved to have had some photos but my 4 month old decided that was not the night he wanted to be babysat and had to make an appearance at the party. So no photo time!

Peter Rabbit 1st Birthday Party

I cannot believe my youngest nephew has turned one already! We had his first birthday party last weekend, although the planning for this one has been awhile in the making. I started in January to give plenty of time since I knew I wouldn’t have much time to party plan with a newborn after March! The theme decided on was Peter Rabbit and the decorations incorporated lots of fresh veggies and Peter Rabbit printables.

 

 

The Peter Rabbit cut outs, paper used for the food cards and the paper garland were all from Digiscrap Delights on Etsy. The font used on the food cards is called Storybook.

 

 

I am in love with my new vintage wooden crates, which were a bargain $10 each at a nursery called Maples On Canterbury in Kilsyth. I used terracotta pots and bases from Bunnings to make the cake stands. The orange and white striped straws. spotted cups and lolly bags are from Emerald and Ella. The silver watering cans and tins are from Ikea.

The cupcakes had a cream cheese frosting and I used bought orange fondant to make the carrot toppers.

 

 

 

The cake was made by my sister. She placed two cakes on top of each other and then covered in vanilla icing dyed with green food colouring. She then used desiccated coconut dyed green to cover the cake. On the top were brown sprinkles to resemble the dirt veggie patch. My friend Lesley made the Peter Rabbit, Gemima Puddle Duck and Jeremy Fisher figurines, along with the small vegetables for the veggie patch.

 

 

 

Here is the gorgeous birthday boy in his cool mustard skinny jeans and flannie!

'You Are My Sunshine' Baby Shower

Well it has been quite a long time since I have posted anything; once Christmas was over it was then a count down until the birth of our first baby. It’s also been quite busy since! I have a few family parties coming up over the next few months but until then and to try and get back into the swing of things I will post about my baby shower put on by my sister and Mum. The theme was ‘You are my Sunshine’ and I think they did a fantastic job!

 

They incorporated some every day baby items into the decorations – such as baby bottles as vases and a baby bath as a drinks tub. There were also balloons tied to heavy items such as large parcels of wipes and baby shampoo – great idea as it doubles as a gift for the Mum to be. One can never have enough wipes.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas Cookie Bake Day

What a great way to spend a nice Sunday afternoon  - a Christmas baking day. We gathered our recipes, ingredients, wrapping, ribbons, tags and bags and got to work. This was our inaugural Christmas baking day (a new tradition we have decided) so we may have set the sights a bit high with the amount we wanted to accomplish. But we know for next year to pick just a few things to make to allow time for the packaging up at the end of the day. It was a bit of organised chaos as we mixed, kneaded, rolled, baked and then packaged.

First up was the Shortbread, followed by the Peanut Butter and Almond Cookies

 

My friend Mille is Danish so next up was a recipe from her repertoire – Vaniljekranse. 

We attempted raspberry marshmallows – and they worked beautifully! This would be great to give as a little gift along with a jar of hot chocolate with a cinnamon quill or a mini bottle of Bailey's to make it a little more indulgent.

Very rich Dark Chocolate Truffles - you only need to make very small balls of these! We added a dash of Maple extract as well. We also made Coconut and Chocolate Macaron Biscuits.

  

We ended the day by packaging up and embellishing all of our goodies to give away as presents. We thought we needed a little celebratory drink – this Maggie Beer Sparkling Ruby Cabernet makes a great non alcoholic alternative at Christmas. Happy Baking.