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.

Chocolate buttons

I LOVE buttons so was very excited when I discovered a chocolate button mould - even better!

I found printable labels on Bake It Pretty and bought co-ordinating Candy melts and little bags from Hobbycraft

Mine didn't turn out quite as well as the pic above from Bake it pretty, but practice makes perfect.

Coolest birthday card ever

So this is the birthday card that I popped into the chocolate box suitcase.

The idea came from The Creative Place and was designed as a Mothers Day gift  I adapted it a little bit and think it works great as a birthday card as well!
You print out 10 business card sized pages and write in 10 things you love about your friends, family etc.

Then bulk out the book with other images that link to your comments (i hope this makes sense)
Mine had a slight Chinese theme as we both love China and Chinese food.

No 6 was

I love your smile and how you always joyfully give me lifts in your wee car

I love this idea - think I will be using it again soon!

Chocolate box suitcase

I don't like anything to go to waste so this chocolate box was just asking to be transformed.

I decided it would make an ideal mini suitcase for a friend that is heading off to China - it was also her birthday yesterday, so two birds, one stone and all!
A bit of craft paper, some double sided sticky tape and a lot of cutting-out later....

I got the handle, hinges and corners from the canon website as well as a tiny passport, map and paper clothes...

I also included a CD to take on her travels including some great songs I listened to while I was in China and the only song I managed to mumble out during Karaoke, Britney Spear's 'I love Rock and Roll' (which by the way, I don't)

The CD case was also from Canon I also included lots of Chinese sweets and a really cool birthday card (I will post about this soon)

I was quite pleased with the final result, however her dad made the very good point that there was no Chinese Visa in the little passport so she wouldn't be going anywhere any time soon.