Cloud 9

  A few weeks/months ago we celebrated Kirsty's 40th birthday.  The theme?........ "Cloud 9"
  - and whilst we were encouraged to dress in vintage clothes or vintagey colours, the venue was already slotted well into the vintage era - by age and not by looks but Kirsty had a vision of what it could and would look like and she transformed the room into a magical loveliness.

The walls and ceiling were completed covered with black fabric - metres and metres of it - with hundreds of twinkling fairy lights and many tissue paper clouds hanging through the room.

Chandeliers, candelabras & lamps provided the lighting and

vintage tableware including water jugs and glasses filled the tables.

We settled into our seats and enjoyed the delicious meal.

                                                Marion, Kirsty and me

Kirsty's children were our waitresses and waiter, and her husband
was as debonair as ever

Nameplaces were little swans, with a name wrapped macaron sitting in their backs
and we'd filled lovely dishes full of macarons and had them dotted down the tables.

By the end of the night we were all wearing our wings - even my husband was happy to be photographed with them on.

My job was to make macarons and once started on the lovely pastel colours it was hard to stop. I must say that the photos taken of the mounds of gelati coloured macarons looked fabulous. The fillings included white chocolate ganache with pureed raspberry, salted caramel, lemon butter and milk chocolate with nectarine.

Marion made Kirsty's birthday cake - covered with edible shiny stars,
macarons and persian fairy floss
(I made the cake stand - thanks to the inspiration of Sue and Melissa, using a crystal platter and an upturned dessert bowl.  The cake stand was actually a Kitchen tea present for my new "niece-in-law" and as often the case, I now want one like it too!)

She's got 10 years to plan for her 50th, wonder what she'll do to top this party?!

Emerging from hibernation

It really can't be nearly 2 months since I did my last post, I'm sure there is a blog post thief out there somewhere.
I haven't been sitting around doing nothing all that time though, I've been making costumes for the school concert next week and - I have been trying out some new recipes for the upcoming market season like the toffee apples.

And mini lemon meringue tartsMarion celebrated her birthday a couple of days before she left on an overseas trip - she of course, made her own birthday cake - as you do!

I know you want to see a better photo of her cake................... It was huge - about 8 layers with a tempered chocolate flower on top.

Marion is currently in Venice - poor her!

My eldest cherub turned 12 a few weeks ago and instead of a traditional birthday cake, he asked for a macaron tower! At the time I couldn't think of anything to fill in the gaps with - if he had been a girl, I would have used flowers but since have thought that I could have used strawberries or marshmallows.

His friends didn't seem to notice the gaps and were quite impressed.

200th Post

To celebrate my 200th post, I have baked some Bougatsa - so why don't you pop over to share a couple with me? Can't make it in time? Then here is the recipe for you to make some yourself.

I used to have a Bougatsa most Saturday mornings when I lived in Perth - husband always chose something rich and creamy, while I preferred something custardy, cinnamony and citrusy. The problem was when I moved from Perth I couldn't remember the name "bougatsa" and I have just this week spotted a photo of some, in an old recipe book. They are just as good as I remember them.

Bougatsa

500g ricotta cheese (low fat) well drained
2tb cream cheese

2 tb plain flour

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Grated rind of 1 lemon

1/2 cup caster sugar

Filo pastry

butter

Preheat oven to 190C. In a bowl or blender, combine all the ingredients except the filo and butter. Melt the butter and brush melted butter onto a sheet of filo. Top with another sheet and brush with butter as well (you need 2 sheets per parcel). Fill each one with the cheese mixture and fold the pastry into a parcel. Make sure the top of the parcel has some melted butter on it and then sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Bake the pastry parcel for 10 mins, then lower the heat to 160C and bake for another 5 minutes until the pastry is a golden colour.

Serve warm but still nice to eat cold.

Giveaway Time: Leave a comment for me, and you will be in the running to win either a crocheted hat or the necklace (below) that I had shown on the blog a couple of posts ago - your choice. The hat can be made in the colours of your choice and the 'rosette' is attached with a brooch fitting so that you can take it off and wear it on your clothing or attach to your bag/purse. The middle hat has been made for a child, so the rosette on that one has been tied on (for safety purposes).

The blog has had a bit of a makeover as well, still need to do a bit of tweaking and add some botox here and there, but she is looking a bit younger!

Birthday cakes

We have been up to our eyes in birthday cakes!

Last Thursday it was Ben's 11th birthday - he is mad keen on WWE wrestling so his cake was a wrestling ring with some of the wrestlers surrounding it. I never thought that I would know who Rey Mysterio, Triple H, Jeff Hardy, The Undertaker, John Cena, The Big Show etc are, but you live and learn don't you??

His favourite wrestler Rey Mysterio was kind enough to hold up one of his championship belts and wish Ben a Happy Birthday!

Marion made a dinosaur cake for the son of one of our friend's - he was 5. She did a great job but then she can remember what dinosaurs really look like!!! Ouch.....she just punched me from her house - around the corner from mine.She also made these little dinosaurs to go on cupcakes.

I have received a little box of goodness from Sue - a 'just because' gift.A 'just because' gift that made me very happy - some chandelier crystals.

Can you see the large one, on top of the bee and how it makes it look like there are two bees? And then some of the smaller, delicate hexagon crystals are on the left side of the box.

Thank you Sue!

I need this book!

My husband and I were planning a trip to Adelaide tomorrow to finish off birthday shopping for no. 1 cherub and I have been thinking about what I could do for the 5 hours of driving over there and back.....reading/crocheting/ sleeping were all being seriously considered.
Now husband can't go and I have been arguing with myself whether I should still go or stay at home and do some of the shopping locally.

It has been very cold and wet here this afternoon and if it continues like this I think the decision might be made for me!

Blogging Friend's Birthday's

Happy Birthday today to two blogging friends - Melissa and Lisa. I only know Lisa through cyberspace but I have caught up with Melissa quite a few times over the years and yes I think she could enjoy her cake as much as this little girl.

You have to be in it to win it - but I don't mind if you don't go in the draw for this lovely piece of creativity........then I will have more chance of winning it. I know a few of the blogs on my sidebar have already entered the drawing. Missie Krissie has made this wonderful recycled jewellery tree from old cutlery - I think it would make a wonderful tealight candle holder as well. Wonder if I have time to whip one up before my dinner party tomorrow night????

Or maybe I should get on with the food preparation?.... Decisions, decisions!

After a break from crafting

it was nice to finally finish something. This clock has flown up to Queensland for another January birthday girl.

All good birthdays should have a ...........

....."pin the tail on the donkey"....shouldn't they?

Yes, it was my birthday on Saturday and Melissa sent me this vintage Pin the Tail on the Donkey game but inside the box was this -A button necklace made out the best vintage buttons - Melissa is the "Queen" of button jewellery. Have a look at the card she made, there is the tiniest cruet/salt spoon attached to the top corner - love it!We went to Adelaide for the weekend so the boys had party hats ready for breakfast time and they had also blown up funny shaped balloons and decorated the loungeroom. In the afternoon, we went to the Maritime Museum in Port Adelaide. We had a wonderful time wandering around and I was very impressed with it. Much better than I thought it might be!Then we went to see the movie "Hotel for Dogs" and I am pleased to report that it was 10 times better than "Bride Wars" that I had seen previously.

I was spoilt with some other presents from friends - Erica attempted her first Fraktur painting and I think she did an excellent job (she doesn't think so!). She has suggested that if I want to, I can take the painting out and use the frame for something else but that won't be happening. But there was more - she also did this wonderful cross stitched sampler. It is a Stacy Nash design and I have to say it is the best cross stitching I have seen - it is backed with a lovely old styled fabric and hanging from the twig with a wire hanger, just topped it all off. I felt very spoilt!

Leanne has a wonderful memory and she remembers things that I have mentioned years ago - even when I don't! She knows my love for magazines and she did a great job getting me one that I didn't have - "Cloth, Paper, Scissors - Studio's" - full of ideas for organising your studios to optimise the space and to be more workable. (I'll show you some things from there another day) Leanne had also made a great little pouch for keeping my punchneedle and threader in, and room for some threads too. And she must have read (& remembered!) on a previous post how much we love Ginger Bears, so there was a bag of them - yum.

Tea sent me a parcel of supplies - there were a few rolls of braid and ribbon, a tin filled with wedding themed brads and supplies, a lovely little papermache box, a Stacy Nash pattern, some vintage coasters and a book of Fraktur drawings suitable for stitcheries or painting etc

This lovely metal tealight candleholder was part of my present from Marion - isn't it precious?

These books and magazines were from husband and the cherubs - so the pile next to my bed is almost as high as the bed now! Which is OK as I don't have to stretch my arm out so far to get one!!!!

Millie from The Laurel Hedge recently celebrated her birthday too and she had the wonderful idea of reversing your actual age around and being that age, this year. What a fun idea, I thought until I realised that I would be in my 70's - so I think I will stay as I am, thank you Millie. You can enjoy being 35 though!

On Sunday afternoon, we went to see Le Grand Cirque at the Entertainment Centre. We had front row seats and this was the first 'live' show that the boys had been to other than The Tweenies, Bob the Builder etc. As they said, it was 'awesome' and 'sick'

We had a lovely weekend away and then it was back home to get ready for school, and with covering school books and labelling all their stationery etc we have really come back to reality with a thud!

Can you believe it??

"Can you believe it?" is one of Marion's favourite sayings - she might not even realise it but we have. Marion is away on holidays at present so that is why I can 'pick' on her..!! But that is straying from the topic I have to discuss....... A friend of ours has her birthday at the end of the month and I offered to buy this pdf pattern and make her this................
Can you believe it but she told me not to??? If you are interested, the pattern is available on Etsy - maybe it isn't the most practical hat to have in Queensland in the middle of summer.

Punchneedle Cone

We have a birthday swap on a forum that I belong to and on Sunday it was Relle's birthday. I wasn't sure what to make and send her but found this punchneedle picture that I had done awhile ago but had never framed it. I thought I would try something different to framing so glued it to a cardboard cone that knitting wool had been wrapped on. Then a crepe paper ruffle, a wire handle with some pipberries and flowers attached and voila! I really liked it and Relle nearly didn't get it!!!