A MODERN DINOSAUR BIRTHDAY PARTY

I post my cake toppers and craft supplies all over the world. Every once in a while I get a big surprise to see where they end up!

Check out this gorgeous modern dinosaur themed birthday party created by Jacquelyn of Beijos Events for her son Court.

I loved seeing the beautiful photos on her blog and in particular how wonderful my big green brontosaurus and navy blue number 2 cake toppers looked on the cake on that beautiful sunny day.

Jacquelyn has let me share some photos here on my blog from the day. Her styling is second-to-none and you can see more details from the party on her blog.

Cake toppers available to purchase here.

All photos by Kelsey Albright.

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DAD'S 70TH BIRTHDAY PARTY

We recently held a 70th birthday dinner for my Dad and 70 of his friends. The venue was the beautiful Pialligo Estate Winery with its beautiful gardens and food. We enjoyed dinner as the sun set and the kids explored the vast grounds. 

I think I was living overseas for his 60th birthday and my sister was knee deep in nappies, so this was a special milestone that we could not let pass without a celebration.  He said it was 5 hours of bliss so the goal was achieved, to make him know he is appreciated. 

He has always loved liquorice all sorts so this was the theme of his cake (by Cakes of Your Dreams) with a blue and green colour theme for the decorations (all from Spartys). My sister made the beautiful name place cards.

DAN'S BIRTHBAE

We recently had a party at home to celebrate my husband's birthday. It was a beautiful afternoon with lots of old friends, oldies, and offspring.

We started with some Hungarian mini-langos and corn on the cob. After the BBQ and salads we ate a huge cake I made inspired by his favourite dessert from Eighty Six Restaurant, the caramel popcorn sundae.

Langos is really easy to make, but not particularly healthy (no big deal!). It is essentially fried bread dough that you then rub with garlic and top with sour cream and cheese. I'm a purist and I just like to rub with garlic and sprinkle with salt.

It is a really popular snack in Hungary that you can easily buy from food vendors. There are many variations, but I used this recipe as it seemed the simplest and was really happy with how they turned out. My grandmother would have fainted over their irregular shapes but they tasted great.

The birthday cake was a chocolate cake with caramel meringue buttercream and caramel popcorn. I used this recipe and it was delicious. I especially loved the caramel swiss meringue buttercream and the addition of coffee to the chocolate batter made it a perfect pick me up.

Because some words are so apt that you don't need to finish saying them for people to know what you mean.

I have been observing with enjoyment the use of the terms 'bae' (meaning babe) and 'hun' (honey) in social settings. I thought it would be fun to created some monochrome cake toppers with these words. Because some words are so apt that you don't need to finish saying them for people to know what you mean. And sometimes people don't want a number on their cake, especially if they are a total babe - age doesn't matter!

They are really cool little cake toppers and elicit lots of smiles. Birthday boy seemed pretty happy with them too.

You can check them out and purchase them in my shop.

BARKLY SQUARE: KIDS' CROWN SCHOOL HOLIDAY CRAFT ACTIVITY

If you are looking for school holiday craft activities for the kids, head over to the Barkly Square blog where you will find a fun tutorial for making these double sided crowns. The threading, shape cutting and gluing activities are great for developing fine motor skills. Better still, these crowns are made using easy to find household items such as folder dividers and yarn.

BARKLY SQUARE: AUSTRALIANA TABLE WREATH TUTORIAL

Tired of those pesky tissue paper bon-bon crowns? Head over to the Barkly Square blog to see my tutorial for making individual table setting wreaths that can double as crowns for your guests this Christmas!

REALLY EASY SPRINKLE PARTY CAKE

If you've ever burned the midnight oil making that perfect cake for your little one, then you probably know that sinking realisation shortly thereafter that you actually made it for yourself.

If you've been to a few kids' parties, you know that no cake gets eaten, just icing.

I made a lot of cakes for my nephews in the early days as special presents. By the time I got to my kids, I got wise. Nobody cares if the inside is unique or baked or even edible, so long as the outside is tantalising and the cake is tall.

So my no-bake no-stress no-eyebags cake secret is that I buy the best and freshest unfilled sponge cake I can find, I manipulate it and I decorate it.

I don't care if the kids only eat the icing. And I love that I don't burn my cake, have to wait for it to cool and then shave bits of it off trying to get it even. 

My mother had no idea the first time I used a shop sponge and she called my Aunty and said "Laura baked the softest moistest sponge cake I have ever had!". Yeah I did.

This is a really great cake for all ages and genders. Everybody loves a sprinkle cake.

1. Buy that sponge cake. You can buy two - you'll get four layers. If you use three you get a nice high cake that is level. You can put jam and icing in-between them. Use skewers if gravity is making your nervous.
2. For this sprinkle cake I used a smaller rounded container to cut into two layers of sponge because I wanted a small and tall cake. Cakes are always impressive if they are taller. 
3. Make butter cream icing. 125g butter whipped until as white as possible. Add 3/4 cup icing sugar. Mix. Add 2 tablespoons of milk. Mix. Add another 3/4 cup of icing sugar. Stir in sprinkles.
4. Ice the cake. It really does help to have a proper icing knife and a lazy susan. I use an marble cheese platter that rotates on a ball-bearing base.
5. Get the kids to crush some off cuts of sponge with sprinkles in a bowl. Put them on the outer edge of the cake top. Put sprinkles inside that edge.
6. Feel impressed with yourself. It looks good!

PASTEL BLUE PLANE CAKE TOPPERS

Just listed these sweet little pastel blue plane toppers in my shop. Great for cupcakes or flying in formation on a cake. Find them here.

A BALLERINA CAKE

My girls have their birthdays close together and we've been celebrating all month! They each had a party - Miranda a Marie Antoinette princess party for her friends and Natalie a dinosaur party for the family. 

On the weekend we had Miranda's family party. It was a small affair and a chance for the family to wish her well and eat some cake! I made a ballerina cake featuring my silver glitter cake topper together with the same ballerina toppers I had on my own cake as a little girl. I was so obsessed with them back in those days. 

The girls wore their Tutu du Monde dresses so they too could be little pirouetting ballerinas. 

Little did we know when we woke up that morning that we were going to acquire a new family member and the closest thing we'll ever have to a pet these days, a Melissa & Doug giant plush giraffe, who apparently also needs to be tucked in at night with a blanket.  And I thought it was just the kids and the wine fridge.

Happy Birthday sweet Randa! x

A DINOSAUR PARTY

On the weekend, we celebrated Natalie turning two with a dinosaur party for the family. It was a sweet and simple affair with lots of roaring. I thoroughly enjoyed cracking out the new dinosaur cake topper range. I also thoroughly enjoyed celebrating my little Natalie who, as the second child, tends to just follow along with her sister.

Most of the party decorations are from Kmart who have a great and simple party range that is all colour coded and goes for aisles. We got the foil silver jumbo number 2 balloon from Sparty's.

We ate dinosaur claws (Doritos), dinosaur teeth (long triangle sandwiches), herbivore snacks (humous and veggie sticks), dinosaur egg nests (cupcakes with choc eggs), a mountain of donuts covered in dinosaurs, and green jelly of course! You can't have a kids party without jelly.

We mostly ate and played with her new presents. Then as the sun set on a perfect Canberra autumn day we all went outside to play with Natalie's new tiny tennis racquet. Life is good.

A MARIE ANTOINETTE PARTY (PRINCESS PARTY)

It was the sweetest and cutest thing I have seen in a long time. A bunch of little ladies sitting together crafting and making and talking and being oh-so-productive and lovely. In their best tulle dresses and their favourite hairstyles it must have been a kind of heaven for them. And that was the whole idea.

Miranda asked for a princess theme for her 4th birthday this year and we discussed it often and at length. She was thinking of a cake that was a princess and everything princess. "We can do better than that!" I told her, "We can have a party and cake just like a real princess would have!". When I saw a pouf of fairy floss that looked like a tall bouffant hair-do the idea hit me that we could take inspiration from Marie Antoinette (the early years!).

We made and sent out Let Us Eat Cake cupcake invitation boxes. The invitation was hidden inside a crepe paper rosette cupcake which was then inside a powder blue box. The tutorial and free template for making them is in my previous blog post.

The Marie Antoinette theme translated really well. Miranda saw a Cinderella slipper cookie, I saw a 18th-century high heel cookie.

I'd had ideas about what Miranda could wear and in the lead up to the party she had some interesting and changing ideas too. The day before the party she was certain she was going to dress as a mermaid. I had seen a divine dress by I Love Gorgeous but I left it too late to get it shipped from the UK. So the night before I created another Cinderella reference and customised an existing pink silk Fred Bare dress by adding an empire waist, white tulle frills and velvet ribbons.

Upon arrival, the little guests sat down to adorn their own 18th century-style hats with ribbons, butterflies, birds and flowers. It enabled them to relax together before the sugar high. The hats dried during the party and looked so incredibly good on them as they left. 

I found these perfect pink 'Let Us Eat Cake' bakery boxes on Etsy by The Glitter Shoppe. They were the just the right size to fit a cookie, a macaron, and a slice of cake for the kids to take home. Because in the end they were too full to eat cake - ironic right?

I also found an Etsy shop called Under the Cotton Tree that specialises in custom fairy floss cones. I ordered powder blue fairy floss to look like little high wigs and they created little rose and butterfly adornments for them. Cute!

On the topic of volume I used giant paper flowers left over from my sister's wedding and honeycomb balls and fans from The Wrapping Queen to decorate the house.

My only splurge was on cookies by Hello Naomi which were well worth it. They brought the theme together so well. They were the cutest and most delicious cookies I have eaten. They were in the shapes of fans, dresses, high heel shoes, cakes, tea pots and tea cups. The kids used cookie cutters in the same shapes to make their own versions out of sparkle Play-Doh. This was a very popular activity.

I hope you love the photos of our little Marie Antoinette princess party!