afternoon tea party

 On Saturday I hosted an afternoon tea for some of our local home schooling mothers.

 
Seven of us were able to enjoy a lovely afternoon tea together on my veranda.

Of course I got into party decorating mode to make everything look pretty!
I borrowed the bunting from The Girl's room and strung it across the veranda.
The day bed is also dressed in one of The Girl's quilt covers.
(you may notice Bella and Maggie testing it out for comfort in the background!)
My Grandmother's antique embroidered tablecloth graces the coffee table.
Some pretty fabrics were used to dress up other areas as well.

The tea cups were placed on the tea trolley that I also put some lovely aqua polka dot oil cloth on.

I covered the servery with a vintage white sheet- to hide all the uglies underneath and then put this pretty oilcloth over the top.

I made some cute little labels for the different teas and milks I put out,

and for those who wanted something different I put out a selection of herbal and flavoured teabags to choose from.

 

Above the servery window I draped one of my doily buntings.

I have made so many of these and they sell so quickly that when I made this one I decided that I was going to keep it just for ME!

I covered the drawers that will one day be "redeemed" with a sweet cherry print.

It is amazing how some scrap fabric can transform something and cover up the ugly!

B3 helped me with dressing up the lemonade bottles by cutting the doilies in half and then stamping lemonade on each one, before I glued it on and tied some baker's twine around it.

The straws were left over from The Girl's birthday party.

I placed the lemonade bottles with some lovely homemade sugar-free lemonade and some refreshing mint and cucumber water onto an aqua tray.

The flowers were from a cheap mixed bunch I got at the supermarket and

supplemented with some cosmos from my garden.

These one's on the coffee table were put into an old Mason jar.

Of course now you should be seeing some photos of the pretty cupcakes I made and the mini quiches I forgot to serve and all the lovely food, only in all the excitement I thought I had taken the photos earlier, but obviously hadn't!

So that's all folks!!!

mexican fiesta party

When we decided to combine B1 and B2's 18th and 16th birthday parties  

(lots of the same family and friends would be coming to both so this just made it easier),
I looked for a way to make it easy on everyone (particularly moi) cooking wise,
I didn't want to do a BBQ for a large number of guests and then have to prepare half a dozen different salads, a sausage sizzle was a little too casual, so it got me thinking about what would be easy and involve minimal preparation but still be yummy.

I hit on the idea of serving tacos, minimum prep - maximum flavour.

This then lead to the party having a whole Mexican theme.

I chose lots of bright colours and decorations to give impact but also keep it all very simple and low key.

 

I ordered some bright paper lanterns from eBay and we put them up in the entertaining area.

I picked up the pinata at Big W.

Each table was covered in a bright coloured tablecloth with a striped cloth used as a table runner
(I bought 2 of these as table cloths off eBay and then cut them into 4 to create 8 table runners. 

I added a coloured tin with some succulents that I planted about a month ago,
a coloured glass citronella candle from Bunnings,
and a bright coloured water bottle to make the table centre pieces.

I mixed up the colours on each table to give a bright eclectic feel.

To continue the theme I used purple plates, green cups and red napkins.

We started with some corn chips and dips:

guacamole, hot spinach salsa queso dip, and a cucumber salsa.

Then moved onto our DIY taco bar.

 I borrowed some crock-pots from friends as well as my own and did a bean mix for the vegetarians, beef for the traditionalists and my taco chilli chicken was in the other for those wanting something a little different.

I kept it simple by serving it with grated cheese, sliced tomato and sliced cucumber and shredded lettuce (took only a minute with my v-slicer).

Some sour cream, guacamole and sauces completed the tacos.

For drinks we made a non alcoholic sangria and a pineapple sangria, then later on a lemon-lime punch.

We also served some flavoured waters and had bottles of water on the table.

We made the party alcohol free as B1 has for the time being decided not to drink and we didn't want any problems with any of their underage friends drinking.

For dessert I served ice cream- I know I have an obsession with ice cream!

It is so easy to make and has maximum impact, you just need to be organised to start far enough in advance.

But it literally takes about 5 minutes prep time and then when it is cold enough you throw it in the ice cream maker and voila it is done- dead easy!

We had: 

Vanilla,

Mint Choc Chip- everyone's favourite

Mexican Chocolate

Liquorice (I will do a recipe of this soon)

Ginger

Coffee

Lemon-lime cheesecake (wasn't overly impressed with this- tasted too cream cheesey)

and for the dairy free Pina Colada Sorbet.

I also served a variety of teas, coffee and some yummy biscuits- I will share these in a post soon.

Every thing was very much do ahead, even the cake I did a week in advance and just froze it, got it out on the morning, iced it and it was good to go.

The photo of the cake has a weird yellow tinge because the lights in our entertaining area are yellow to discourage the insects.
After I wrote their names and ages in brown M&M's B4 covered the rest of the cake in diagonal stripes- an idea I got from pinterest.


Here they are cutting the cake.

We got the pinata down and VCH hooked it to the basketball hoop.

Here The Girl is having her turn- we didn't bother with blind folds.

A collage of the festivities

Happy Birthday in Spanish.

So ends our first party in the new look entertaining area- I will be back with the low down on the area very soon, pinky promise!

funky monkey party

B5 turns eight on the 10th of January, but as we knew a few of his friends would be away on this date we decided we would have his party a little earlier.

B5 loves monkeys and is even called Cheeky Monkey by a couple of family friends, 

so he decided he wanted a monkey party.

Because it would be hot and because it was just after Christmas we decided to keep it fairly low key.

The only party game we did was a pass the parcel.

The kids played in the pool for most of the time before hopping out for some food and ice cream cake.

The palm tree I had bought for B3's 10th birthday so it was an easy centrepiece and the little monkey I picked up for $2 at Big W, I wasn't sure what I was going to do with until B3 put it on top- perfect!

We added some yellow (for bananas), green (for the jungle), and orange (B5's favourite colour) balloons  in bunches around our entertaining area, B1 was in charge of this.

I wanted to keep the food simple, but also worthy of a monkey theme.

Along with potato chips, corn chips and a homemade taco sauce dip (thanks B3) and banana muffins we also ate:

I saw the watermelon on a stick on pinterest, and thought it would be fun and as we had a pineapple in the fridge we made some pineapple ones as well.

The banana pops were also from pinterest, 

some were coated with crushed coconut chips and the others with crushed nuts.

They were seriously yummy!

Because it was a party we had some lollies,

 even though I wouldn't generally allow my kids to eat banana lollies  

(because years ago I was told the flavouring came from paint stripper) 

 I made an exception this time.

 I used my drink dispensers again (no photo of them in use - sorry!)

One with water and the other with jungle juice (lemonade, pineapple juice and mango nectar)

I also did up these little milk bottles, I think I have used them for 4 parties now.

This time we had banana milk made with the Vitarium banana drinking mix,

this stuff is made with stevia as the sweetener instead of sugar.

 The monkey cake was super easy.

I made ice cream the day before and set it in a round spring form tin and in a circle cutter I set some ice cream for the ears.

When it was set I took it out and put it on the plate and cut a little from the sides to get a more monkey shape, then I cut the smaller circle in half and put them on the side.

Next I cut out a piece of paper the shape I wanted for the face and stuck it onto the cake, then I added coco pops all around the rest of the cake, the paper protected the face from getting coco pops over the face part.

As it was getting a bit melty at this stage even though it was night I popped it back into the freezer until the next day.

Next morning before the party, I took it out and cleaned up the extra coco- pops around the edges and added them back on to any sparse bits, then I took the piece of paper off .

I forgot to buy some chocolate buttons for the eyes and was wondering how I could do the face.

Two cherries, two dried blueberries and a red snake came to my rescue.

 Because I didn't want wax all over the cake, I came up with the brilliant (even if I do say so myself!) idea of sticking the candles into a banana.

Blowing out his candles!

So glad you had a fun party with your friends B5!

Looking forward to more fun on your actual birthday next week!

To check out my monkey party pinterest board go here:

For his 5th birthday party B5 had a circus theme if you want to check it out go here

 

mini ice cream shop

Yesterday was Father's Day here in Australia.

VCH was spoilt all day!

Normally we go on a picnic or something, but we had had a big Saturday with a church event I organised and I couldn't imagine being able to get up get the kitchen cleaned from the previous day's cooking, cook a nice breakfast and pack a picnic before church. 

With a few of us still sick with colds, VCH very graciously said it would be fine to stay at home.

After church we went to see VCH's father (Poppy) and spent some time with him and then came home to have lunch.

Later in the afternoon, as is our usual practice, it was time for Ice Cream Sundaes.

Being Father's Day I decided at the last minute to do something a little different and special.

I had planned to have vanilla ice cream with mix-ins like at the ice cream shop, but then I dreamed up the idea of setting up a mini version of an ice cream shop.

I threw some fabric from my stash on the serving bench on the veranda.

Put the mix-ins in mini jars

(chocolate pieces, gingernuts, natural coloured sprinkles, crushed nuts, salted macadamia toffee- made with rice malt syrup, coconut, Skittles I bought a very small bag for the occasion, Clinkers- a gift from B5 to VCH and only VCH was allowed to have them in his ice cream and finally vanilla powder- more for balance than use)

Arranged a few dishes

and some fruit and I was all set.

I had made vanilla bean ice cream on Saturday in preparation.

A dear friend of mine had bought me this marble ice cream set a few weeks ago when we took our little ones to a neighbouring town to see a Theatre production of Peter Rabbit.

We made a day of it and went shopping at K-mart - so wish we had a K-mart here!

While we were in K-mart I saw this and my friend decided to buy it for me as a thank you gift for taking her.

This was the first time I used it.

I had set up the "ice cream shop" and went to get it out of the box and the instructions came out with it.

They stated that you are supposed to put the marble and the paddles in the freezer for a couple of hours before using - OOPS!

I quickly threw it in for about 10 minutes while the ice cream softened.

Thankfully it wasn't a hot day!

The kids and dad all had fun deciding on their mix-ins while I created them on my slab.

 Then they got to put their own fruit on before eating it.

Here is what I created for myself.

Banana on the bottom, in the ice cream I put gingernuts broken up and some of the macadamias, then on top I put some banana topping I found at the supermarket made with all natural ingredients including real banana puree, and finally some passionfruit.

It was YUMMY!!!

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two parties, two cakes and one great lady

As promised I am back with details of Great Nana's 101st birthday.

On Friday we had party number one at the place where she lives.

 

This is not the cake made by me but one ordered from a local bakery for the aged care facility where she lives.

When the cake arrived the bakery refused payment- saying that anyone who lived to be that age deserved a free cake!

(her name is actually not Dot but Charlotte- which she hates and she also hates Lot or Lotty, so somewhere in her long life she ended up with the nickname Dot- which is rather funny as she also had a sister called Dot,, luckily they didn't live in the same town!)

Cutting the cake with VCH's mother (her daughter)

 

 This is a photo of the family that attended the morning tea- I am on the left next to Great Nana.

Now onto the party on Saturday- her actual birthday.

 

 Here is the cake I made in all it's glory.

The cakes are iced in dark chocolate ganache and then I just edged them in white chocolate rectangles, tied on with some cream and gold ribbon and then I topped it with strawberries, some of which are dipped into chocolate and gold and silver sprinkles.

 B1 got the candles from the shop he works at;

they came in one day last week and he grabbed them as he was unpacking the boxes knowing I was after some, they caused quite a conversation when he went to pay for them, as the other assistant couldn't work out why he wanted 101 in candles!

There are actually three little stars on the cake, but I didn't realise they were being hidden by the strawberries until after I took the photos.

They were from a cheap shop and sold as fairy wands for party bags.
I thought they would look cute on the top of the cake.

 I am really happy with how the cake looked.

 However I wasn't 100% happy with the cakes.

The middle one which was orange was too dry.

I had planned to do a trial run to make sure they were moist enough as the dextrose soaks up the liquid, but because I was sick I didn't get to.
I did adjust the recipe but obviously not enough.

In hindsight I should have just used sugar as I know it would have been moist.

The mud cake was OK but probably not as moist as it usually comes out, but still nice- I am fussy- I like my cakes moist. 

The top cake, the cherry and coconut was fine.

Even though the stack looks lovely we could have gotten away with just the mud cake on the bottom, as not everyone had cake- the servings at the restaurant are quite generous and we were all very full after our main meal and the small servings I cut were plenty because it is such a rich cake. 

We served it with mixed berries and whipped cream.

The strawberries and the white chocolate around the edges were a big hit.

 Our family with Great Nana.

 VCH's extended family with Great Nana,

I didn't get a photo of the other half of the family.

One last look at the cake.

It was beautiful even if I do say so myself!

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