11 on 11 ~ October.

Some amazing photographers and bloggers (Angie Baxter, Sharon Mallin, El Hogan, Chantelle Ellem) that I follow have been participating in a project once a month - 10 on 10. Where they take 10 photo's on the 10th day of the month. I decided to take part in October, unfortunately I was working on the 10th, so pushed it back to the 11th and took 11! So here they are:

 1. Breakfast / writing grocery list / reading blogs.

2. Claire waking up.

3. School drop-off.

4. Groceries waiting to be unpacked.

5. Lighting the fire / cold outside today.

6. Cleaning bathroom / not my favourite job.

7. Afternoon homework.

8. Preparing dinner.

 

9. Shower after dinner.

10. Brushing her hair after shower.

11. Preparing lunch orders for tomorrow. 

I really enjoyed 11 on 11, so hope to continue this project each month.

 

Claire's Balloon Themed 3rd Birthday Party!

Yesterday we celebrated our baby girl's 3rd birthday. Where have the last 3 years gone? It only seems like yesterday that we were preparing for her arrival.

I found her party dress a few months ago on Pinterest and traced it back to Etsy. It had a balloon theme, so we decided to theme the party around the balloons.

Next came the invitations. I searched online and found the perfect invitations on the Tinyme website. The colours were pale and dark pink and orange, matched her dress perfectly!

The cake design was inspired by a hot air balloon cake that was featured in the Donna Hay Annual Kids Magazine. I adapted it to suit the colour theme and made it much more girly! The cake was pink coloured white chocolate mudcake filled with ganache and covered with fondant.

Of course the party had to feature a dessert and lolly table. The balloons and pretty paper chains were a highlight of the table. The goodies included apple slice, custard slice, butterfly cakes, vanilla sugar cookies, jelly cups and lots of lollies. The take home party boxes were filled with lots of sugary goodies!

We took the opportunity to have a mini photo shoot before the guests arrived. This was fun to start with until the birthday girl lost interest and became more interested in the balloons than looking at the camera. Here are a few photo's of Claire and her brothers Lachlan and Oliver.

Happy Birthday beautiful girl x

Baking for Fun!

It has been a while since I have blogged, no excuse really I just seem to have lost interest for a little while. I have been reading my favourite blogs, not commenting much, but still enjoying reading. I have also become a little bit addicted to Pinterest! I spend so much time on there, pinning lot's of interesting things.

I haven't been making many cakes lately, just family birthdays. I have been doing a lot of baking for fun, which has been very enjoyable, testing out new recipes. One recipe that I tried recently was Melting Moments. I used a recipe from "The Sweet Life" by Kate Bracks, a past winner of Masterchef. They were a hit with the family and I have made them a few times now.

Greek almond shortbread cookies are another favourite in our house at the moment. They are traditionally baked for Greek Easter celebrations, but we enjoy them all year round. The recipe I use for these is from "Lyndey and Blair's A Taste of Greece" book.

Another recipe that I have tried a few times and failed with is macaron's. They are tricky little treats to make properly, but I finally succeeded! 

The foot formed nicely around the base of each macaron and rose to a perfect height. I was a very satisfied baker when these came out of the oven. I filled them with a creamy chocolate buttercream and they tasted delicious!

Profriteroles are another dessert that I have been wanting to try baking from scratch, I have only ever made them out of a packet. I found lot's of inspiration on Pinterest of these custard filled treats. They turned out really nice. I dusted some with icing sugar and drizzled the rest with milk chocolate.

 I hoped you have enjoyed seeing some of the baking I have been doing. I hope to continue blogging more regularly.

Enjoy the rest of the week.

Oliver turns 6!

Last week Oliver turned 6! His birthday fell on Good Friday, so he celebrated a few days early with his friends from kindergarten. This year we have been busy so I took the easy option and held his party at a playroom. It is perfect for 5-6 year olds.

Oliver chose a spooky theme for his party this year, so I set about looking for the perfect invitation. Etsy is a wonderful place to find this sort of thing and I was lucky to find Symone of Littlebuginvitations here in Australia. 

The haunted house that featured on the invitation was the perfect idea for his cake, so I attempted to re-create it.

 

I was really happy with how the cake turned out, as was Oliver. The bottom layer was chocolate cake and the top layer was moist butter cake, filled and coated in ganache and covered in chocolate fondant.

One advantage of outsourcing the party was that all I needed to provide was the cake and the take home favour boxes. Of course I purchased these from the lovely Leanne at Sweet Style. The black and white chevron boxes were just the right size for the goodies I wanted to fill them with. The matching itty bitty bags housed the green and black sixlets, also purchased from Sweet Style. The favours also included a skull and crossbone pencil, a note book, spooky stickers, a spooky eraser, a party blower, and some gold coin chocolate's. Symone designed a matching thankyou tag, which looked fabulous tied to the boxes.

Oliver went to the party dressed as a zombie, he acted the part perfectly! All of the guests dressed up which made the party a lot of fun. Here is a very scary photo of him!

Claire wore a scary bat headband with her pink tutu!
 

Oliver was very lucky to be able to celebrate with all of his new friends from kindergarten they had a fabulous time and he was spoilt with lots of wonderful gifts.

Enjoy the weekend.