Tuesday 21 May 2013

Style Your Anniversary


As I have previously mentioned it was my parents 40th Wedding Anniversary on Sunday 28th April. I am extremely proud to have had the pleasure of celebrating this special day with my parents and also for having the opportunity to arrange the day and make sure everything was just perfect for them. 



We had a few discussions about what they would like to do for their special day and they decided upon a dinner for 20 of the family and closest friends. This ended up being the perfect number of people for such an event, it was a social fun day for everyone. So the plans began by finding somewhere ideal for my parents taste and also someone easily accessible for my Nan. So I decided upon Hotel Felix in Cambridge http://www.hotelfelix.co.uk We hired a room which fit us in perfectly and having heard the food was exceptional & reasonable I felt it would be perfect. I must say that the staff and service on the day was fantastic so thank you to @FelixCambridge for making it a day for my parents to remember. 



Next step was the theme for the party. I spoke with all the guests who had been at my parents actual wedding and they all commented that they remembered my Dad's moustache and my Mum's hat from their big day. This got me thinking about what I could do to recreate memories from the special day without it being too tacky. After lots of thinking I decided to go for a fun idea of creating moustaches on sticks. A friend used these at her wedding a few years ago, they were great fun. 



These were so easy to make. All you need are some wooden 

skewers, black card & some super glue. I found some amazing black moustaches on the great blog of 'Staceywporter' which I could print out and use as templates for my card moustaches. 

http://staceywporter.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/free-printable-moustache-brigade-in.html




I made enough of these for around two per person, so the next step was to create a way of presenting these on the table. I got my super glue out again and printed off a length of paper which included images of Mum & Dad and glued these around a tin can. This was something so easy and simple and worked perfectly. 



The next challenge was to get my hands on Mum's wedding hat, I managed this by just popping round and taking everything I needed. This included her dress, her shoes, her wedding album and a large canvas we printed for their 35th wedding anniversary. I definitely got Mum extremely worried I think she thought I would display her dress on a mannequin! I am glad I had her worried however I hope she knows I wouldn't arrange a tacky event...! 
So I had all I needed from Mum to help with the decorations. 

Next step was to create the bunting, I scanned in my parents wedding album and used the images to create triangular bunting which I attached together by folding over the top and stringing them all together using cotton. I made two small rows which worked perfectly for the event, they hung between the paintings which were already up in the room. These were easy to make and a great way of personalising bunting for that special occasion. 



My next challenge was to decide what favours to make for the event. As my Dad has always had birds I decided upon a bird seed heart to represent my Dad and for my Mum I went for a florentine as I know she loves them. So the baking and making began. I am extremely lucky to have a man who likes baking so he helped me massively with making both of these favours for me whilst I was working. 

We found the recipe for the Bird seed hearts on the below link.  http://www.polkadotbride.com/2010/02/diy-project-birdseed-favors/   I tied twine through the hearts and printed off an image of Mum & Dad from their special day. 


The florentines were wrapped in clear cellophane and tied with twine to link to the bird seed hearts. You can create your own buy using the below recipe, however there are many varied florentine recipes so you can pick one to suit your pallet. 



I presented the two hearts on everyones place settings like the below. I felt these looked fantastic and they added an extra special feeling to the event, everyone loved both ideas. 




This concludes everything which I made before the event so I will conclude this as part 1 of my parents 'Ruby Wedding Anniversary'. Part 2 will follow in the next week; this will show how I set up the room, how the moustaches and hat were received by the guests and concluding with how the event went overall. 


I hope you are inspired by the ideas I have shown you already and will visit my blog to find out how the event went on the day. Maybe you have already thought of events which you can use them for. I would love to hear your thoughts. 









Wednesday 8 May 2013

The famous 'Rainbow Cake Recipe' 

For those of you who would like to take up the challenge of creating your own 'Rainbow Cake' please find the recipe below. If my blog has inspired you to bake this amazing cake then I would love to see your pictures so please tweet them to me or email me your pictures. I have just googled rainbow cakes and there are some amazing pictures of different shaped rainbow cakes, so you could go for something different to the one I created. 


I am now on the hunt for my next baking challenge, let the search begin. 



Sunday 5 May 2013


Style Your Birthday

I was recently asked by a very good friend of mine to arrange her husbands Surprise 30th Birthday Party and I jumped at the chance. The venue and disco were booked by Heidi (the wife) and I was given the challenge of coming up with a theme for the evening. As a keen football it was obvious that the theme should revolve around football and his favourite team Tottenham Hotspurs. Kev the birthday boy has a guilty pleasure of loving the song 'Call Me Maybe' by Carly Rae Jepsen so I suggested we also include this within the Birthday theme for a comedy feel. 


So I could present my ideas to Heidi I created the below two theme boards. The first board shows various football themed party ideas including cakes, banners & table ideas. 




Pictures from 'Time To Party' & Hostess with the Mostess'

As I mentioned Kev loves 'Call Me Maybe' so I also wanted to incorporate this into the evening. I did suggest a corner dedicated to this theme where Kev had to dance when the song came on but I decided against this idea. Instead we decided to add the theme into the decoration in a more subtle way, so we used pink balloons through-out the decoration with 'Call me Maybe' written on them. We also played this song as Kev walked in the door. 


Photos from Gigglesgalore.net

We certainly used the excuse of meeting to discuss Kev's birthday party as a reason for a girly catch up. It gave us a reason to meet up and ponder ideas over a glass of wine and nibbles. So the ideas continued to develop through these meet ups and I am proud to present the final look of Kev's Surprise 30th Birthday Party. 

A friend and I spent a good hour decorating the venue and I have to say I was extremely happy with the end look. As a lover of crisps and sweets we decided on three tables a cake table, a crisp table and a sweetie table. All of these ideas went down well and everyone enjoyed being able to help themselves throughout the night.

I have some very creative friends so Marie made the selection of amazing cupcakes and Vicky made the football pitch cake. Everyone loved the cakes and were sent home with a cupcake each. 



Luckily enough a few friends have had sweetie tables at their weddings so we had a great collection of vases to pick from to showcase the sweets in. We presented the crisps in some easy plastic bowls and presented them both together on this goody table below. I am sure you can all guess that there was not much left at the end of the night. 



Along with the food I created a personalised football shirt birthday banner, this was a great way to include his love of football into the banners as they were shirt shaped and were coloured as the Tottenham Hotspurs kit which is Kev's favourite team. I loved producing this banner and will definitely be using this idea for future parties which I organise. If you are interested in me creating a banner for your event please email me the details. 


After attending Kev's wedding last year we were introduced to the fact that his friends call him Gareth Bale so we created masks of his face for the front row of people to wear when Kev walked through the door. Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of this as I was getting ready for Kev's entrance. I can tell you though it worked and Kev found it hilarious. 


I am pleased to say Kev the birthday boy had an amazing night and loved the decorations. He had no idea that his wife for arranging the surprise party, so it was a huge success. 


I would like to thank Heidi for giving me the opportunity to arrange Kev's 30th I loved every minute of it.