Harry Potter - Part Two

A bit of cardboard, red paper and a bit of gold paint made an effective welcome for our guests.

We had a potion lab.....

With Gillyweed, Truth Serum, Bat eyes and even Graveyard dust.
We also had chocolate eyeballs, sweetie vampire fangs and fizzy PolyJuice Potion.

We had a wand shop

With handmade wands - I was quite proud of these, I found some great instructions on the Internet and all I needed was some paper a trusty glue gun and some paint. I got lots of friends involved to make some really individual wands.

We even had a room of requirement ie. the toilet.

More to follow soon.

Harry Potter Party.

It is the end of an era and I am so sad that the magic world of Harry Potter is no more (unless I read the books again) On the 29th October we organised a Harry Potter Party to celebrate the many years of entertainment it has provided.
There may end up being many posts on this subject as I went a tiny bit overboard - also waiting for guests with nice cameras to get their photos to me (all of mine are currently on my phone camera which is a bit pants)
We started planning in August (we were that excited)

I had an idea for golden snitch cake pops

I used butter Scotch icing and Madeira cake for the middle and then coated with yellow Candy Melts. I finished then off with some gold iridescent edible glitter. Unfortunately I couldn't get the little wings to stick on but I thought they looked pretty good all the same.

I hate the wind!

It's so Windy! Woolly hats are out, hot water bottle is making a comeback and I AM COLD!

However, very excited about Irish Stew tonight at my friend Lynette's - She is South African and yet makes the best Irish stew I have ever had - and I have had a lot of that stuff.

Rainbow Party

My pastor and his family returned home yesterday from the USA after 3 and a half months, where they have been spending time will some ill family members - a Welcome Home party was most definitely in order!
So after a bit of brainstorming we decided a rainbow party was the way to go.

We held it at our church, which has an amazing coffee bar and lots of room.

We had fruit punch and many, many, many varieties of multi-coloured treats.

I made rainbow cupcakes, an idea I had seen on Cheezburger and when I found little rainbow astro belts in an old fashioned sweet shop I knew I needed to give them a try.

I used already coloured royal icing and then white buttercream for clouds.

I also made a rainbow cake. I had lots of help from my friend Cat - 6 cakes was a bit adventurous. The icing ended up a bit sloppy which was very sad.

A big jar of rainbow sweets

 and lots of rainbow coloured fruit and chocolate for dipping.

My friend Nicola made some lovely rainbow marshmallows and coloured cupcakes.

We all worked together to make a welcome home gift....
A WORDLE.

I love these things - my sister discovered them around Christmas last year and we made one for my mum. They are so simple to make but look AMAZING! In a word document you type in words that have meaning to the recipient, we used family names, favourite holidays destinations, food and songs. Then copy and paste into  WORDLE. The more times you type a word the bigger it will be, you also get lots of options on layout, font and colour. You do need to print it straight away as you can't save wordles.  
We asked guests to come in rainbow colours and well the winner - perhaps not for his choice of rainbow wear but for his completely mental outfit -  was Joel.
Check this bad boy out!

 It was great having the family back, although very jealous of their tans. I hope they enjoyed the rainbow party as much as we all enjoyed putting it together.

Lynette's Amazing Cake

Lynette created this Frog Cake for Joshua's first Birthday, we were all mightily impressed - so much so that we wouldn't let her cut him up at Joshua's birthday party!

I love is facial expression - he is one chilled out froggie.

Chocolate Teacup

This was for my friend Nicola who did amazing in her A Levels.
It took three attempts to get the desired effect.

Candy melts are definitely a must! I tried a blue teacup with normal white chocolate spots but the white chocolate didn't set which was very sad and meant I had to eat the proto-type teacup.
Also whatever you do don't put your candy melts in the fridge as they lose their lovely shininess and just get a bit sticky.

I was pretty pleased with the final result and found some nice spotty ribbon and a cool card from Tescos to finish it off!

The Wild West

It was recently my friend's baby's first birthday and I thought what better way to celebrate a whole year with the coolest baby ever than to make him a wee horse.

And then I got a tiny bit over excited and felt it was essential to provide said horse with some carrots. Both the patterns for these can be found on ikatbag.

Then it all got a bit mental! With a Cowboy map

and a little bag with Joshua's name on.

And then just to complete the whole thing, a wee mini cowboy outfit including a waistcoat, hat, boots and a bandanna.

I loved this cowboy theme and most definitely got a bit carried away - lots of friends with babies on the way at the minute hoping I haven't set a standard. The next one's getting a potato.