Showing posts with label 40th Birthday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 40th Birthday. Show all posts

Inspiration part two

Wednesday, June 8, 2011
So, in the same week as yesterday's cake, I was given this card by a friend.


She wanted a cutting cake and cupcake tower based on the design.  She also wanted some bunting, a '40' and a birthday message.















































I love the thrill of thinking up ideas to fit into a brief.  It's great to be free to go my own way but I also like having limitations set on me, it actually can make me more creative and stops lazy thinking. (I could have said 'it makes me think outside the box', but I'm not taking part in "The Apprentice")
When I was a textile designer I painted lots of ditsy prints and so I was excited to be given this reference.  The joy of ditsys is that they don't have to match perfectly, it's fun to have different styles and colours. 
































 They also don't have to be all over designs, I painted some bunches for the cupcake toppers and also sprigs.  I liked the cherry too so I incorporated that.
Having snippets of the prints on the bunting and bunting on some of the cupcake toppers helped tie the whole theme together.


This is another cake I really enjoyed making...I hope that you are enjoying sharing them with me too!
xx

Silver and Green 40th Birthday

Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Well, after nine months planning our party has come....and gone. It all happened so quickly but fortunately I did manage to have a brilliant time!



































When I do projects and parties for myself I tend to make it up as I go along.  I like to let ideas flow and not be tied to an idea too much. Until last week I wasn't even sure if I would make a cake.  I knew I wanted a dessert table but realised with a few days to spare that it would look much better with a focal point.  However I didn't want a big tiered cake so I went for three separate ones.  I made a baby one to tie in with the invitatons.  I intended to decorate the middle cake like my butterfly cake but with graduated colour, however I recently bought some lace moulds and decided to give them a go. I kept the graduated colour though which I love.



 I knew I wanted to paint the final cake somehow, but I also included lace to compliment the middle cake.  Real flowers on top also nodded to the decorating scheme... (ok, I was running out of time.)
They were all coconut and lime, soaked with rum. (Mmmm)





















Here is the dessert buffet, as well as the three main cakes I made cakepops, lemon poppyseed biscuits, chocolate espresso biscuits, macaroons, elderflower and gooseberry mini cupcakes with painted discs and mini Key Lime pies.















































I went for 'green' flavours if you know what I mean!  I found the edible stars on the macaroons in my local cake craft shop, how cute are they?















The rest of the decorations were a mix of different plants and pots and a huge amount of moss  Unless you have the budget of Amy Atlas sometimes it's good to embrace difference.  So I collected  various containers in keeping with the colours I had picked.  I used old tin cans, white and cream pots, glass jars and I covered empty cocoa tins with silver serviettes.
I was very pleased with my stash and had it all boxed up to take to the venue. I thought to myself that instead of two boxes of decorations to share around ten tables I needed a box for each.  But once we had added candles, olives ,dips, a platter of cheese and bags of cookies for guests to take away it was perfect.  A local baker friend made bread, sausage rolls and cheese straws which went down a storm.
































































I had quite a few invitations left so the kidlets helped me make them into bunting, because you can't have a party without bunting!  We strung them across the hall with the help of some tall friends.

As the invitation suggested it was a sedate affair, with lots of chats and my Mum singing some jazz for us.
It was a lovely chilled evening to catch up with many pals who we haven't seen in years.


 I think I'll start planning our 50th now!
xxx