Merry Christmas!

Well, after all my very very best intentions, I didn't get around to putting up all the christmas posts I had hoped to! I'm now in Melbourne, and after a stressful few weeks, VERY very ready to relax and have a holiday.

All the photos I had hoped to post are up on flickr and my facebook page, and I'll be back in the new year to go over the details of them! Just a good excuse to prolong my favourite season a little longer :)

Thanks for all your support this year! your comments, questions, feedback and emails have been really encouraging, and I look forward to being much more organized next year!!!

A random selection of photos from our Family Christmas party are below:



























To see more photos of our family Christmas party, you can see the facebook photos here or flickr set starting here

A random selection of photos from the Book club Christmas party I planned:

All the dishes were based on books from the book club collection! Lots of fun to plan and make.

To see the rest of the photos on facebook, visit the album here or the flickr set beginning here

And last but not least, the Christmas cupcakes I made to photograph for my Christmas cards!:



















So that's all from me for this year. I wish you all a VERY happy Christmas and holiday season with your families! May you have a safe and relaxing break, and I look forward to seeing you again in the new year!

All the best - B xxx

These are a few of my favourite things

I can't believe it's literally been WEEKS since I last updated, especially when there's been so much to update! I wonder if it's possible to get writers block even though you know what you want to say.... Maybe it's just called procrastination :)

The end of October was a bit of a mad house for us - my mum had a birthday, and I left the next day (Halloween) for a week in Melbourne. I'm gutted I wasn't in a position to have a Halloween party! but there's so much around on the internet even now with details of fantastic Halloween events, I figured I couldn't do something half hearted. I still have the gorgeous Monkey Moo Moo printables I won from Following Phubie and think I may still use them to do a practice table spread so they get some love, and have a late Halloween :)

In the meantime, we had a dessert buffet for Mums birthday that we themed "These are a few of my favourite things" from The Sound of Music. I threw it together on the day for a night of sugary goodness with some of mums closest friends.

The frangipani canvas at the back was what I gave mum for her birthday, and the food was a combination of all her favourite desserts - as well as some for our neighbour Tony who shares her birthday (the duck cake back right was for him)

We had chocolate and cream fairy cakes (with chocolate icing, too yum)

Vanilla and cream butterfly cakes - mums special favourite AND her

specialty

And these vanilla slices/custard squares which were DELICIOUS. I've never tried to make them before, and found this recipe for Denheath Custard Squares over at Mrs Cake . We changed them a little bit and left out the coconut, but they are still ridiculously good

Look at all the custardy goodness. EEK.

Mint slice truffles for a twist on my usual truffles using mums favourite biscuits, and the green candy melts I won from Mrs Cake

Probably shouldn't have used so many green melts this close to Christmas... But you can't have mint and not use green...!

These were plain chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing, and the little circles of fondant were crazy easy to make using some new impression mats I got from Kiwi Cakes

There were a few dessert favourites (including chocolate self saucing puddings) which we left out because we wanted to keep everything to finger food and/or one serve and easy to eat on your lap, so we ended up using shot glasses for the chocolate mousse from some of Mums favourite places to visit

Ridiculously easy to prepare and set up, and actually a really good size serving!

The cake was plain chocolate with a layer of cream and a really rich chocolate ganache

Because it was only done on the day, and because of the layer of cream it was too complicated to cover the cake in rolled fondant like I usually would, but it actually ended up looking really cute with just fondant details - raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens, warm woolen mittens, brown paper packages tied up with strings, white dresses with blue satin sashes

And little Maria (who was much easier as a nun!) is still sitting in our kitchen keeping an eye on things

Was a good night had by all - and the leftovers were even better!

Happy Birthday mum!

- B xx

P.S - Since the party I came across this ADORABLE Sound of Music party at Sew Weekly - it warrants a visit! The little kiddies in their curtain-outfits are far too cute.