Pink and Chocolate cake

I thought I would share some photos of the birthday cake I baked for my kids 9th birthday in February. I used the all to popular Sweet Potato Chocolate cake recipe (gluten-free) and iced it with a

BLING! Birthday Party with GOLD CAKE

Bling party on www.bettybake.co.za 

How to plan a budget friendly party

Everyone wants to give their child or someone special in their life a beautiful birthday party. But if you have tried to plan one you will know how much it can ALL add up... and quickly!
Just cause you have a budget doesn't mean your party won't be fabulously stylish and fun.

Here are a few tips I use when planning a party or get together. 

BAKING / FOOD
Bake things that go far but don't cost very much like

• Meringues which require 2 eggs and 100grams of sugar to make roughly 12 - 15 meringues. 
• Jelly/jello - you can use fresh fruit juice and gelatine place in molds and they look super cute when molded into shapes. 
• Fresh fruit chopped up into cubes and then threaded onto kebab sticks. (seasonal fruit would be cheapest and healthy) 
• scones - bake a big pile and place on a pretty plate then place beaten fresh cream, butter and 1 or more types of jams nearby in cute bowls for people to help themselves.
• Potato wedges - take fresh potatoes rinse and slice up and cover with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and roast in the oven until tender and crispy - serve in jars or teacups and servewith sauce

EXTRA TIP* Make a lot of one or two things instead of having a bit of this and that as most people like to try everything. Rather they can have their fill on something than you run out of somethings making you look like you under catered.

GAMES VS ENTERTAINMENT
Playing games instead of hiring entertainment! For kiddies there are games like:

• Pass the parcel
• scavenger hunt 
• dunking for apples
• hide and seek 
• statues 

and many more just do a search on the internet

EXTRA TIP* Get a family member or friend to help you with the games and maybe do some face painting. **Extra hands ALWAYS help**

  

Table centre piece for an Oriental themed Party - it was a thrift find (bought at a 2nd hand store)

PICKING A THEME
Pick a theme where you don't have to buy branded merchandise... like mickey mouse or hello kitty. Rather pick a country (eg chinese, Italian, French) or a colour theme like a rainbow party, or pink and white polka dot party,  or an item (eg mustache, circus, ranch or farm, horses, kittens, puppy etc). Anything really and expound on it! This applies for adults parties too.

 

Glitter and double sided were used to make these flags on straws for a Bling Party

DECORATIONS
Make you own decorations... coloured papers, off cuts of fabrics, beads, glitter, paint and fake flowers (optional) can make:

• cute bunting
• flags 
• cupcake toppers
• thank you tags
• pretty bands to go around cups
• party boxes

PARTY PACKS
Try to make your own party packs: make them out of things you have like:

•  recycling jars or containers that you can collect over a few weeks or months before the party then paint them or cover in scrap book paper or fabric. 
• fill with a few sweets, tie with a ribbon and a thank you :)
• for adults a cupcake in a small jar, box or recycled (washed) plastic container and tie with a ribbon 

 

Sew your own felt purse

ACTIVITIES
Use things that you have..or are cheap to buy.

• Felt to make purses to sew or glue
• Colouring - Print out pictures on paper (cute colouring pics can be downloaded from the internet) for them to colour and glitter. 
• Cheap beads to make bracelets
• Cardboard crowns to cut out and decorate
• Tye dying - ask each child to bring an old t-shirt to breath new life into
• clay modeling and painting (make little jewelry bowls) or your own clay beads - then have fun dipping in paint and glitter!

EXTRA TIP* Don't forget to ask someone to take some photos for you as you will be busy and the party will be over before you know it and you will have fun seeing all your work afterwards in the photos - plus they make for GREAT memories


TIME MANAGEMENT
Have an idea or plan of the order of things and a rough idea of how long things take (write it down and see if it will all fit in and if you need to add anything)  This way you hopefully won't run out of time or have kids asking what they should be doing. Allow extra time for people to arrive as some maybe running late.
Remember to make time for singing Happy Birthday and cutting the cake :)

THE EXTRA TOUCHES
There are extra little things you can do to make your party extra special and run smoother whether for big or small!

• Adding some theme appropriate music softly in the background can add a nice vibe
• bubbles make everything pretty -bubble machine even better 
• Have some cups with tea, coffee, milk, sugar and a kettle laid out for adults at a kids party for them to help themselves - add a little cake or biscuits nearby for them too
• If you can ask a teenager for help with your party for the activities things can run more smoothly for you and be a bit more stress free
• make sure to have one or two extra party boxes available in case one gets dropped or goes missing or a sibling comes to fetch the brother or sister
• Have a few extra prizes and hand them out if you need to ;)
• Have a photo taken with the birthday boy or girl and use as a thank you a week after the party can be fun! (but only if you can make the time) don't stress!

Remember you don't have to provide a jumping castle or clown if its not in your budget.  

Children like to have fun and as long as you have things for them to do and eat with their friends it will be GREAT!

What would you add to make your party budget friendly and easy to organise?

BLING! Party Invitations

Being creative by nature I love to plan a good party. So last month with it being the Kids 8th birthday I got plan another party. Yay!

Trying not to be too over controlling I always try to include the kid in picking the theme of her party every year... it goes something like this.
Me: how about a rainbow party?
Kid: Hello Kitty
Me: awww Hello Kitty - everyone has Hello Kitty -lets try something different... ummm how about a picnic party. We can have lots of small foods and have a picnic basket and everything!
Kid: picnic mmmm - ok
 
Then after the planning had started my lovely friend Being Brazen comes to visit... and she says "so kid what party are you having this year?" Kid tells Brazen that she is having a picnic party and brazen asks her ... "Is this really what you want?" (naughty Brazen) and Kid tells her... ummmmmm (long pause) So brazen quickly jumps n saying "What about a black and white party? or a pink party or a bling party?" Kid: Bling party! YES!

Hence the party was changed mid planning from picnic party to BLING! party. I was happy as I hadn't bought anything yet and had only been planning in my head and had been making menu's and collecting recipes etc... And Bling sounded so Sparkly .. and what girl doesn't like Sparkles right?

So began the making of invitations:

and the bright pink envelopes sitting on my kitchen table waiting to be delivered.

Hope you enjoyed this non- food related post.
Have a fabulous week

 
ps linking over at http://bloomdesignsonline.blogspot.com

ORIENTAL PARTY

In February this year was my daughters Oriental Party. To have a look at the invites I made, take a look here. I have finally got round to editing the photos.

low oriental inspired table to eat at.

 I started with the colour scheme of white as a base colour and then used red, black and different shades of orange as accents and touches of blue.

Oriental figurines

I found this cute Japanese figurine couple at a 2nd hand shop. They formed the center piece for the table surrounded by mirror boxes filled with red, orange and yellow flowers.

Each girl had a pillow to sit on, a square dish, a pair of chopsticks and an oriental jelly sweet that I made. For the candy/jelly sweet I made a version of this Agar-Agar Candy

Homemade sushi

For the main course I made sushi. (I had to get up really early in the morning to make it so it would be fresh for the party) maybe next time I will order it from a good sushi restaurant.

pink and white coconut ice AND pink and white home made marshmallows

In between the flowers were little white bowls of treats. As it was an all girls party - most of the food/treats were pink and white. Pink and white coconut ice and pink and white marshmallows (marshmallows were made by my sister in-law).

Party packs in Chinese take away boxes

I bought Chinese take-away boxes and filled them with pink and white sweets, a little Chinese purse, some hello kitty stickers and other cute things. Tied it up with black packaging ribbon and a black feather with a silver gem stuck on top. Label each box individually with the girls name with a picture of a Chinese lantern next her name.

Party packs ready for happy little girls to take home

alice band accesories

For our craft for the party the girls made Alice band/ head bands with feathers, flowers and jewels.

Other games played were fishing for paper koi fish were they won prizes of little silver rings- which all the girls seemed to love.
(I also had pass the parcel ready with little prizes wrapped in Chinese newspaper between each layer but never got round to playing it.)

my daughter picked jewels to decorate her cake - so I borrowed these from my mom, they were my grans.

And the cake - my daughter had no idea I had made her a rainbow cake, so when the cake was cut it was a huge surprise. I used Whisk Kids famous recipe for rainbow cake but i made mine gluten-free :)

Rainbow cake

It was very delicious cake :)



 

ps linked to a linky party at  http://lilluna.com

ORIENTAL PARTY INVITATIONS

 It is my daughter's Birthday Party next weekend and I finally got around to doing the invitations.  She is having an oriental party and I've been focusing so much on what sweets I can find or make that are - wheat/gluten, corn/maize and glucose syrup FREE that I forgot about the invites! So this was my quick one school morning attempt. And they will just have to do... not to bad.

Just designed and printed on the computer and then used some glue to put some foil on and a pretty red sparkly square. I put them each in a white envelope and wrote each girls name in fancy, curly writting with red and black pens.
 

Happy Thursday!

PINK & WHITE POLKA DOT PARTY - KIDDIES

 I had the privilege of photographing and discussing ideas of this gorgeous pink and white Polka Dot Party with one of my sister in laws who created it for her daughters 2nd birthday Party. How cute is it? 

The theme is consistent through out - pink and white polka dots :) Just about all the eats are pink or white - white popcorn, pink and white lollipops, pink and white marshmallows, pink and white layered jelly, pink and white cupcakes, pink and white swiss roll, white peppermints, all laid out on a white table cloth with a pink tuile overlay and scattered glass droplets for dots on the tablecloth. Lots of little touches of pink and white and polka dots.

So cute for a little girl. But just as good for a girly party of any age. Cute for a baby shower of girly kitchen tea too.

Happy looking.

peppermints in tiny teacups with polka dots - lots of glass droplets for polka dot look on the table cloth

pink fondant iced cake with white fondant dots

 

isn't this little silver bird to cute?

  

pink filled wafers in a pink heart shaped box

pink and white plates layered

 

swiss roll with a white cream and strawberry, pink filling

I couldn't resist wrapping my nieces' present in polka dots too :)

I liked the different shaped containers to hold the various eats - martini glasses as well as square vases and plates plus rectangular platters gave a nice diversity without detracting from the polka dot theme.

silver bird looking after the cute pink and white polka dot serviettes

Thanks for looking at this party. I just love the little silver bird, I'm hoping to find my own one, one day. 

This party is so cute and could be used for so many parties not just for a 2 year old but a girl/woman of any age that loves pink and the touches of white polka dots just makes it even cuter.

 



p.s. submitted and selected for :) Bird's Party Blog !!! :)

INVITATIONS for The French Party

 These are my invites from The French Party i did for my 30th birthday - thought you may want to see.

 the front of the invite with the name sleeve pulled over

the invite wording and design once pulled out of the sleeve :)

 I designed the invites in mind that i didn't need to customise put a name on each one before printing. I put the names on the see through sleeves of each invite which was designed to be pulled out and read. I tried to make the look of the invites feel like old school Parisian chic and aptly called the party - A tough of Paris.
Dress code was: Black, white and bling or a touch of paris, so guests could decide for themselves.

Anyway now you know :)

The French Party

So a little over a month or so ago... I had my 30th Birthday. Which of course was a good reason to plan a party :) YAY!!!

As you can tell  I love planning parties and especially ones that I can do whatever I want. So being my own party I could decide exactly what i wanted to do :) which was double YAY!
Then there was the moola (money) I needed to pull off my awesome killer party - life size props and dancing waiters and giant birds :) just jokes but my brain was filling to the brim with ideas if money were no issue but I don't have a limitless gold card so I needed to consult my other half (the husband). After chatting to him we came to an agreement of a budget (which is good or i would've gone over the top and spent way to much money). He was great (he was also realistic) and then I was let loose to make it happen. Of course being the woman that I am I wanted everything (dancing birds, oops i mean dancing waiters - OK just kidding) as much as i could get for my money so:
I bought quality food and set pieces of decor.
But the other little pieces of decor that i wouldn't be keeping after my party I searched second hand charity shops for - and boy did i get some bargains :) what woman doesn't like a great bargain?
And so My PARIS PARTY came to life :) this is what i did:

the bar counter that we redid and bar chairs that we painted / my husbands old record player he's had since a child

an old pine desk that we restored and painted white (chocolate mousses and creme brulees are in the open desk drawers for guests to take) An old lamp and lamp stand that we painted and recovered. / old type writer that i picked up at a charity shop

cheese board with old silver butter dish / screen we got made and then hung black and white printed french pictures on (frames i bought from charity shops and then spray painted black)

Creme brulees housed in the white painted desk drawer / the corner seating with white painted box for a "coffee" table - black and white painting done by Lorraine Burt

our bar counter we made-over and then added a nice vase of white flowers and ofcourse champagne which is very french  / chocolate and turquoise macarons

chocolate mousses nestled in the desk drawer /  eiffel tower vinyl

Hoped you enjoyed looking at my french party. I enjoyed every minute of planning it :)
oh i didn't take any pics of my chandelier that the husband bought for my party - oh well, next time.