{Book review} Cupcakes & fairycakes by the Australian Women's Weekly

Cupcakes and fairycakes By The Australian Women's Weekly
Soft cover
120 pages

This is truly MY cupcake bible ! Everything I have baked using their recipe was delicious and the photos are mouthwatering and inspiring.
Judge for yourself:

Toffee-apple towers

Lemon meringue cupcakes

Recipes

Each recipe is well written with step-by-step instructions and illustrated by a splendid A4 photograph.
It is a pleasure to flick through the book because it is not "crowded',  just one recipe per page.

Measurements are in cups&spoon AND metric which makes the recipes very easy to follow.

There are advices on the presentation. You may want to simply go for a cupcake with icing but this book inspires you to go for extraordinary decorations.

You can find recipes suitable for pretty much any occasion. From a simple afternoon tea to a birthday party or even a wedding.

Coconut kisses

Technical section

The last pages create a technical section with details of the equipment you may need (with picture) and tutorials on different techniques (working with chocolate, toffee and fondant, piping and more techniques such as making sugar-frosting fruits), also with pictures.

Cloud cupcakes

Review

A very complete book. Suitable for all levels of bakers and inspiring to even experienced cake decorators.
Look inside the book on Amazon




Pictures courtesy of www.cupcakes.net.au

{Parties} 3rd Birthday Monster party

Today I am featuring this adorable monster party that my neighbour and friend Diane organized for her son's 3rd birthday party.

I cannot believe this was all put together in less than a week !!!
Diane decided on a monster theme at the last minute so she had very little time to organize and craft it all. But I think she did a brilliant job !

It is all completely home made, from the food to the decorations.

Birthday Banner

She designed her monsters on the computer and used them to make the banner and decorations.

Monster cake

This was a delicious chocolate mud cake !

Monster infested water

Monster jelly

Eye balls cake pops

Party bag

These very cute bags were so simple to make. Just cut some monster shapes in foams of different colours and glue them on plain bags. Add the eyes and there you have it: Monster party bags

Not only did she do a good job with her first party table, she also crafted all the games as well (well she'll admit, with a little help from her husband !)

Pin the eye on the monster

Feed the monster game

(little bean bag were to be thrown in their mouth)

Photo booth

This was truly a great party and all the hard work showed Diane !

{Craft} Hot air balloon decoration

I decided on a hot air balloon and vintage plane theme for my baby's room. This is quite a flexible theme colourwise since pretty much all colours can be used on a hot air balloon. And I thought this was a theme my little boy could grow into, I don't find it too babyish.

I first made him a little door plaque (blogged here).









I then made a hot air balloon decoration to hang in his room.

The cardboard balloon and the papers are from Decopatch, I found them at the Hobbycraft fair at the N.E.C. two weeks ago. I already had some Decopatch glue/varnish.

The Decopatch technique is fairly simple. There are loads of "how to"videos on YouTube, including this one.
In my case the hardest bit was to cut pieces of paper of the right shape for the balloon itself.
I used a tissue to make a first template. It was easy to position and I was able to draw the shape on it. I then cut it and used it to create a more sturdy paper template.

I used the blue and green papers for the ballon since each sheet features 3 designs: spotty, checked and striped.

The orange checked paper had to be for the basket.

And I added a little stripe of hearts at the base of the balloon.

I replaced the original strings with blue ribbon, added a little passenger and voila !

{Craft} A baby boy door plaque

Two weeks ago I went to the Hobbycraft fair at the N.E.C., Birmingham, UK, and I bough loads of supplies ! I was mainly after some nice scrapbook papers but obviously I bought a ton of other things too.

I found a fantastic shop selling wooden buttons. And because they are not varnished, you can draw on them or colour them with felt pens or paint. Even glitter pen works on them. And they have hundreds of designs, all very very cute. I bought far too many really !
I also bought a little oval door plaque from them, ready to be decorated, and some letters to form my baby's name.

I simply coloured the wooden buttons with my daughter's felt pen. And I used the scrapbook paper to cover the plaque.
It was very quick to make and I love the result.

Linking to IHeartNaptime Sundae scoop party

{Craft} Busy crafting for Christmas

I have been fairly quiet on the blog for the past couple of weeks and this is because I have started crafting little presents for Christmas.
The past two year, I spent the weeks before Christmas making felt decorations to hang in our tree (here and here). As we have quite a few now, I needed another felt project. I don't know why but this time of year seems like a good one to sew...

Last year I really enjoyed making two hair clip holders for my daughters and since there were a few further designs I wanted to try, I decided to make hair clip holder for several little girl this xmas. They should make lovely presents.

This one is my favourite so far. It is for a little girl who has a fairy theme in her bedroom:

I've made 8 so far so plenty more pictures to follow !

Linking to 
IHeartNaptime Sundae scoop party
Skip to my Lou Made by you monday

My new motto...!

Somebody must know me very well to have got me that card...

I liked it so much that I framed it and it now sits proudly on my craft desk !

{Parties} A wine and cheese evening

A while ago I posted about this idea for a wine tasting evening and I thought the use of a blackboard was a great idea. So while we were in France for a holiday earlier this month, we shopped for cheese and wine and planned to have a little tasting evening on our return.

We decided to draw a map of France on the blackboard to display the different wine region.

And to stay with the "blackboard" theme, I wrote on black card with a white pen for the food labels  (Labels were cut by my Silhouette and I used a glue gun to stick them on cocktail stick)

{Parties} Work in Progress

Planning a little evening with friends....

Any idea what the theme is ?

Come back tomorrow for the end result pics ! 

{Party Planning} Part 3 - Activities

This is based on personal experience only, and of course every child is different.

2 Year Old
Don't bother preparing games, they are too young to follow rules. What they like at this age is to run and scream so a bouncy castle is probably your best option !
This can look more like a friends and family gathering so enjoy the company of adults while the children all play together, and make sure you cater for the grown ups too.
A little craft corner with colouring pages and stickers can present the children with a quiet option.

3 Year Old
They are still quite young so they may not be able to play a game with rules, but they will enjoy basic carnival/garden games, pass the parcel and simple crafts.
Don't try and plan too many games though as they will get bored quickly, a few games and free play should work.

4 Year Old
Now it is starting to be a bit more interesting gamewise. Most kids will expect the standard birthday games like pass the parcel or pin the tail on the donkey and enjoy playing as long as it does not last for too long.
Most children can't read yet but a treasure hunt with pictures for clues works really well at this age.
I have attended a few 4 year old birthday parties with an entertainer and although the children enjoy themselves, they don't really seem to follow the whole show so well. They get a bit lost and don't seem to follow all the stories and activities.

5 Year Old
I have noticed a real difference this year: they expect to be entertained from beginning to end !
You have to be prepared for an afternoon packed with activities !!!
Games (lots of them !) followed by lunch/dinner and cake, then free play outside seems to work.
An entertainer would definitely be a good option at this age.
I found they need more challenging games from now on. It's not just the case of having a few party games, they want more of an activity. A treasure hunt or building something should be exciting for them.

THEN...
I will tell you next year, this is were my personal experience stops !

{Shop} Meri Meri

I just adore this shop. Meri Meri produces the most adorable stationery. They also have a wide range of paper products for baking. Check these out:

I love their cupcake kits. Isn't the British one fantastic ?

And they now also have card table centrepieces as part of their party range:

Last week I walked into my local lakeland only to find the most amazing cupcake gift boxes... I couldn't resist and I left with both the Patisserie and the Christmas ones. They will make very special gifts. What do you think of them, aren't they sweet ?

{Halloween} Our decorations pictures at last

A bit late but finally here are the pictures of our halloween decorations. As I mentioned before, Halloween is not so big here in Leicestershire, UK, so our decor is pretty basic. But we still had fun putting together this little mantel.

The candelabras are from the silhouette shop:

and so are the witch and web:

Paper pumpkins "hand decorated" by my daughter !

The spooky garland is from Paper Crave.

The free banner printable is from Shery K Designs

The purple background for the witch frame is a free printable paper from Shery K Designs

See previous post for more inspirations here.