Halloween!

We had a halloween party on actual halloween (since it just happened to be a Saturday).  There were sparklers, a little bonfire, mulled cider and apple juice, a slow cooked ham and lots of autumn fruit pies!

My mum grew the little gourds last year for my sisters wedding and I dried them to use again this year.  The colours aren't as bright as they were last year and they are really light and hollow sounding but I think they still look pretty nice on the mantlepiece.  This year I've added some fresh pumpkins (which will end up in a soup or something in a bit) and some leaves, twigs and pinecones picked up from various walks as well as some poppy seed heads from the garden.

The smaller guests dressed up, George was a cat and meowed lots.

We had sparklers and a little bonfire in our cast iron garden stove outside.  It was so mild we even ate our tea outside too.

The sticks for the bonfire proved more interesting than the sparklers for some of the guests.

There was lots of food, including tonnes of sweets as well as these three pies which are from the left - boozy rhubarb (made with the rhubarb I strained out of my rhubarb liquer), blackberry and apple and the last one is apple.

This one was my favourite - I bought the little leaf cutters on eBay.

No party is complete without bunting in my opinion so I spent the Friday night before the party making some out of the pages of an old book and a sharpie marker!

George makes all sorts of marvellous art projects at nursery so I added these to some black and white string to make a spooky garland.

I love this glittery bat!

My sister gave me some spider web decorations which came with their very own spiders.

An autumny flower arrangement.

I had planned to carve lots of pumpkins but in the end I just did this one simple one.  Will try harder next year!  I made a pumpkin cake with the stuff I scooped out of it but after cooking for what seemed like an eternity it was still the most squishy inedible thing unfortunately.

I made this garland out of a sponge painting that George had done.  It was full of lovely autumn colours so I used my star paper cutter and cut out lots of stars and glued them to some black and white butchers string.  I love the idea that every halloween I'll be able to get this out and hang it up - whereas  the painting would have been up on the fridge for a while and then got put in a pile with the many other masterpieces he has produced. ;-)

Some more bunting, this time it's just ordinary printer paper and a sharpie marker taped to black and white butchers string.

We strung some rope lights along the bench in the hall which I really love.  They are so sparkly!

All in all it was a great party, now the back yard is pretty much finished I'm hoping we can have lots more gatherings out there.

Birthday Party!

At the weekend it was someone specials first ever birthday party!  Naturally that meant the bunting and balloons had to come out!

It wouldn't be a proper birthday party without balloons on the gatepost!

I love these marbled balloons from the pound shop!  They don't look very promising in the bag but once you blow them up they look lovely.

More bunting, you really can never have too much in my opinion!

Cheerful top hats.

Pretty butterfly buns.

Some personalised bunting.

This bunting was recycled from my surprise baby shower. 

Even the hall didn't escape buntingification!

A very happy birthday boy!

Unfortunately my massive hair is obscuring the birthday boy in this action cake shot!

This is the inside of the cake, it was rather more massive than I had intended.  The bottom layer is banana, the middle layer is banana and peanut butter and the top layer is banana and nutella.  It was lovely even if I say so myself!

Everyone was so generous, now I just have to find somewhere to put all this!

Two parties in one day....

On Saturday I experienced my first ever surprise party! My sister organised a surprise baby shower for me and my friend Kerry.  I honestly wouldn't have believed that they all could have pulled the wool over my eyes so completely but they were very sneaky and I didn't have a clue until we pulled up at my house and there were lots of cars outside and balloons at the door!

It was great fun although it took my a while to get over the shock!

There was lovely bunting made from old book pages.

Our Mexican bunting was still up (I had wondered why when I suggested taking it down both Dee and my mum said why not keep it up!)

Lovely marbled balloons (from the pound shop of all places!)

Me and Kerry the mums to be.

There were baby themed party games including guess the flavour of baby food - which I am demonstrating above and sniff the nappy and guess its contents which my mum looks mightily surprised at here! (they ranged from pesto to nutella and I can tell you what would normally be perfectly tasty took on a whole other dimension in a nappy context!)

All the guests had a go at decorating some baby vests.  They were very cute indeed.

The house is now filled with lovely flowers and feeling positively spring like.

As I was completely unaware that this party was on the cards I had also organised a birthday party for Dee that evening.  After all the excitement of earlier, I didn't take many photos that night but I was rather proud of the cake I made (4 layer salted caramel and chocolate) so here are some photos of it!

It was iced with a chocolate ganache and I sprayed it with edible gold spray paint.

The layers were from the bottom up... vanilla, caramel, chocolate caramel and chocolate all sandwiched together with salted caramel.  It was very yummy even if I say so myself.  You can find the recipe here.

It was certainly a party filled day and I was knackered by the end of it but I wouldn't change it for one minute (although I may have put more make up on before I left the house, as well as made the bed and cleaned the bathroom had I known so many people were going to be in the house!)