How ADOREable is this high tea shoot

So this story starts with a message from Sharnel Dollar asking me if I would like to help her out on a shoot she was doing for Adore magazine.

Come on you guys know what my answer was even without seeing all the gorgeous pictures on this page. Sharnel Dollar Designs Styling + Naomi V Photography + a host of other amazing providers is always going to = a gorgeous result.

Yup I jumped at the chance.

Now I can only take credit here for making the macarons, scones and melting moments, and the recipes for the scones and melting moments are courtesy of Sharnel Dollar. But I am very proud and excited to have helped out at all.

Oh and any of you readers from the US who might want to try out the scone (biscuit) recipe - lemonade is what we call clear soda...7 up would be a suitable replacement, and it is a super easy recipe. Really, really easy fast scones.

Check out the whole high tea fit for a Queen (starting page 96)  including the recipes by clicking on this link.

In fact check out the whole magazine - it's online and free and has some gorgeous stuff in it.

High Tea fit for a Queen credits

Sharnel Dollar - Styling and making of all treats except the couple made by me
Naomi V - Photography
Green and Bloom Wedding Flowers - flowers
Pen & Paperflowers - Silhouette design
Macaron Recipe 

White Christmas wonderland party

 

 
Wow - look at this party my Sister in law Terri and some of her work colleagues popped together at thier workplace.

The theme was white forest and white feast and the table was a collaboration of some of her work mates treats and items I baked all pulled together with some spectacular styling.
Some of the items on the table will look a bit familiar. Yup that's my white stand from Sharnel Dollar designs at the back with the White Christmas on top, also from Sharnel Dollar are the 2 Rosie jars in large and small filled with Marshmallow and white Ferro Rocher.

The little 'otto' jars with milk bottles are from The Brown Button Trading Co and the 'crystal' type jar filled with nougat is from Target and I got the cute little wooden white Christmas Tree from Big W.

The little footed white stand was a gift from my Aunty last Christmas.

White Feast Menu
Vanilla cupcakes with vanilla Italian Meringue Buttercream topped with white sugar flowers
White snowflake sugar cookies (click here for recipe and instructions)
Macadamia Shortbread
French Macarons filled with Salted Caramel and white chocolate ganache
Tim Tam snowflake pops
Sugar snowflakes to pop ontop of white Tim Tams.
Melting moments, white Christmas and assorted lollies/ sweets/ candy were provided by the work team.

Oh and before you ask I can't tell you the name of the workplace or they'll be inundated with resumes :)

 Photo's, decorations and styling by someone else.

Pink Glamour Girl Birthday Party - Real Party

Pink Girly Glamour

When my friend told me she was having a pink girly glamour party for her daughter's 7th birthday party, I couldn't help but offer to help.

I mean did you hear what I just said PINK..... GIRLY..... GLAMOUR....PARTY.  I was there whether she wanted me or not.


Luckily she was happy for me to help and I did what I do, that is baking and she decorated up a storm.

I was provided with some cookie cutters, a colour theme, a cake preference and was pretty much given free rein.

 Glamour girl cookie pops, sugar cookie with marshmallow fondant, royal icing and fondant decorations

I had a great time making these treats, my girls particularly liked the glamour girl cookies I made with red hair to match the birthday girl's beautiful hair. I cut the sugar cookie freehand without a cutter and the decorations were inspired by the fairy wand cookies I made for my daughter's party.

And I also made the stand to pop them in, y'all know when I do craft it's easy peasy, A styrofoam box wrapped in pink polka dot wrapping paper with some scrap material I had laying around stuck on with double sided sticky tape and then a pink ribbon also stuck on with double sided sticky tape finished with a cute flower.

I told you it was Easy Peasy.

and Jo my friend made these dazzling glam bottles up for the strawberry and chocolate milk.

 Bottle Bling it's my new favourite thing

Yup that's right it's bottle bling.

Jo found this beading bling at Stacks (local discount store) and stuck it onto recycled juice bottles. Some of the mums already have plans for using these at their next party with some more adult type drinks.

Jo also wrapped up chocolates in pink and brown polka dot paper and stuck various glamour stickers she grabbed at the local discount store. Could it get any cuter.....well it did .

Even the juice poppers got the same glamour treatment.


Oh and while she was at 'Stacks' she found these little pink and purple handbags for $2 each she used for treat bags. I think they were a great find.


The party was held at a local dance studio Stepping Out at Underwood. The mum's got to sit upstairs and relax while the hosts played games and entertained the kids until they were ready to tackle the food. Have to love that, happy kids and happy mums.

It was totally girly, totally glamorous and the kids had a wonderful time.
 

The birthday girl checking out the treat table

 

Party Menu

Cake Pops

Raspberry French Almond Macarons

Assorted glamour cookies (handbag, nailpolish and mini mirrors)

Glamour Girls with Red Hair Cookie pops

Chocolate layer cake

Strawberry and Chocolate Milk
Assorted lollies (candy and sweets)

mini chocolate tarts


mini jellies and puddings

juice pops

and glamour chocolates

Glamour wrapped chocolates and the party invitation

Party Treats made by Bubble and Sweet
Mini Jellies, puddings, chocolate tarts and decorating by Jo
Party held at Stepping Out Dance Studio Underwood
Pink Beanies and square cake stand by Sharnel Dollar Designs
Round paper lanterns Robert Gordon
Pom poms on ledge by Ah Tissue
Photos.......as though you can't tell I had to take them myself this time.

Related recipes in this blog:
Macarons
Fairy Wand Cookies
Cake Pops
Sugar Cookies

Cookie and Babychino 2nd Birthday Party

My Baby Boy turned 2 and a couple of his absolute favourite things in the world apart from his bunny, sisters and me are babychinos and cookies.

Which made choosing the theme for his party pretty easy, and also the cooking, if you can bake a batch of cookies this is the party for you.

I'm feeling pretty pleased as I actually gave myself more than 2 weeks to plan this time and as a result I managed to get some themed invitations from Fairydust designs they have a great range of invitations, but if you need something special they can also do custom design.

They do cupcake toppers, thank you tags and bunting so organising a co-ordinated party is as easy as the click of a computer button. My girls loved the invitation so much they insisted I use part of the design to decorate the cake.

and how amazing are these Ah tissue pom poms, I am in love with the gold ones at the moment......

Selection of Pom Poms from Ah-Tissue

Random not so plain chocolate chip cookies on table

What about these, the perfect little box for a perfect macaron? I think so.

These lovely little boxes are from Details Details, and we all know its ALL about the details.  I got a stack of stuff from them, if you follow me on facebook you would have seen the cute strawberry cookies I made using one of their cutters. The wide blue ribbon is from Brown Button Trading Co.

more after jump

Lollipop cookie pop redux

Remember way back when I posted my beautiful Lollipop Cookie pops made from sugar cookie and marshmallow fondant.

No off course you don't........it was my second post and no one but my mum was reading my blog. Well my mum and then amazingly Lorraine from Not Quite Nigella who posted a comment, and then kindly afterwards linked to my post. Thanks Mum and Lorraine - your the best.


Well I made those original cookies almost a year ago and boy have I come a long way since then.

These here are some pics of my latest lot of lollipop cookies for a photoshoot I was involved with for new business A Party Pack.

See what difference a great photographer, party props, pretty decorations and a stylist makes to my treats.

I'm sooo looking for a party stylist to team up with in a few months when I start getting serious with my business because look at this.....

and this.....

and this....

and finally this......
If you love the accessories go check out A Party Pack they send all the essentails for a party to you, as easy as opening up a gift box. The pack above is the Babushka Pack which was one of my favourites.

Photography by Deep Grey Photography

Sweet styling by Sharnel Dollar Designs

Pom Poms by Ah Tissue

Party Packs by....A Party Pack - they send all the party essentials to you in a box.

Oh and if enough people are interested I'll do a tutorial on those Babushka doll cookies.

POST UPDATE - I made the first cookies nearly a year ago but didn't start posting on my blog until April so y'all aren't hallucinating. 

Marshmallow Ribbon Candy, make your own Faux Ribbon Candy

I adore the look of ribbon candy on a dessert table.

But sadly I have not been able to source it here in Australia, and although I love the look of it, I don't love my kids sticky hands all over everything after they have been eating hard candy. Ick. Or when they hoard spitty candy left overs to be stored for later. Double Ick.

So I have come up with an alternative,marshmallow ribbon candy. It's faux ribbon candy made out of marshmallow fondant, all the prettiness and way less of the Ick.


Now before I go any further I'm just going to confirm that yes marshmallow fondant is fondant that you make out of marshmallow and sugar so it pretty much tastes like sweet marshmallow. You can use it for all sorts of stuff from making faux ribbon candy to covering cookies and cakes. For recipe and instructions click here.

Marshmallow Ribbon Candy is not rock hard, it's easy to bite through but that also means little hands have a tendency to break it into smaller pieces, which may end up mashed all through your carpet. I suggest to save the mess on your floor you break into smaller pieces when handing it out for easy kiddy eating.

and because it's not rock hard you can pop it onto skewers for display. Skewering is best done before the ribbon sets hard.

Instructions after jump....

Ava's Tea Party

I first read Ava Rosemeyer's story about a year ago, I was searching and came across some beautiful images and noticed a tab with the simple heading Ava and a link to her memorial site.


To say Ava's story is touching is a complete understatement, Ava was not yet 4 when she was unexpectedly taken from her family. One of the things that Ava had been looking forward to was a tea party she had been planning with her family.

A group of talented people have had the vision to create Ava's Tea Party in August each year, to inspire people to spend time together with their loved ones. Links to these groups are included at the end of this post.

So inspired, on Monday the 23rd of August some friends and I had a tea party in memory of Ava Rosemeyer.

Naomi from Naomi V Photography took beautiful images of this wonderful day and Daneve from Ah Tissue came and decorated with her gorgeous pom poms.

We remembered a little princess, we laughed, had fun and spent time with some people we love and some new friends.
 

We had rosewater cupcakes, chocolate macarons, oreo cookie pops, flower sugar cookies and Wizz Fizz sherbet icecream cones.

In memory of Ava I didn't stop the kids from wading in the mud and squishing it between their toes. Lilli told me this was the best part of the party......

Big bubble blowers.......always lots of fun.

Proving that not only princesses love a tea party Kye was the ultimate party boy.



Later while driving home Lilli asked me if I thought that Ava got the balloons up in Heaven that we had released.

I'd like to think she did.

Ava's Tea Party is held in August of every year. This year Details Details has a range of printable invites for $10 each designed by a group of super talented Australian Stationery designers. The whole $10 you pay is donated to Paradise Kids a community funded organisation which helps families through grief and loss.

Big thank you to Naomi V Photography and Ah Tissue for helping to make this such a wonderful day for the kids.

Ava's Tea Party 
Paradise Kids
Details Details Beauty Full Collection
Naomi V Photography - thank you for the images on this Ava's Tea Party post
Ah Tissue pom poms - thank you for the lovely pom pom decorations for this party and the balloons for releasing.

Update: The girls are wearing pettiskirts from Princess Ratbag - Australian Designed and owned - click here for the link to Princess Ratbag.