Garden Party Fun

Yesterday was my daughters 3rd birthday party. We planned a Garden Party with a Pink & White theme for 5 of her little friends and our family.
We had a perfect day weather wise and everything else about it turned out pretty perfect too. Everything came together really well and we had a lovely time with special people.
We haven’t hosted any of Miss T’s parties at home due to lack of space so I was excited to be able to use our home this time. There is a really cute out-of-the-way garden area on our section which on the house plans is actually called “the Secret Garden” and it’s one of my favourite places on the property. It’s where we look out to from the dining room and always is so calming and peaceful with it’s willowy trees and plenty of birdsong. I wanted to have the party in this area because it’s perfectly sheltered from the sun on a hot day, and even if it was cloudy the canopy of trees would still create a special little enclave for a Garden Party.

Every other party I’ve had for my kids – both 1st birthdays – and even Miss T’s second party last year have been with a lot of people and no real theme. I wanted to use this opportunity for a more intimate gathering and more of a themed event. My background is in Wedding Planning & Event Management and I realise that getting as into this party as I did was my way of satisfying that crazy planning itch.

I had heard Tissue Balls were a cinch to make and a quick Google visit directed me to Martha Stewart’s tutorial which I found very straight forward. Apart from the central ball, I made all mine half the size of the recommended balls and was so thrilled with how cute they turned out and how easy they were to make. These were to provide the main ‘decoration’ for the party. My brother hung these from the trees in varying heights and because of the mosquitoes that I felt sure would join the party, I hung a couple of rice paper lanterns that had citronella tea light candles in them too.

Pink & White is easy enough to stick to when it comes to sweet treats, but I was stuck for ideas when I had to consider the savoury options; so back to Google I went.

We served a yummy menu with a variety of goodies, but one of the best things I discovered in my quest for a ‘healthy’ and ‘savoury’ pink & white combo was the incredibly scrumptious Watermelon, Feta, Black Olive & Mint Salad by Nigella Lawson. Oh my… a delicious way to use up your watermelon and to bring a little something different to your regular salad repertoire!

For the baked variety – I tried several recipes from my new favourite baking blog SprinkleBakes where everything, and I do mean everything looks incredible! Unfortunately, not all of them turned out as picture perfect or as tasty as I had hoped, but one that did turn out great was the Colourful Spiral Cookies which just looked so cute and perfect for our pink & white table. I didn’t have so much luck with the Snowball Cakelettes or the Cotton Candy meringues – despite spending $10 on a tiny bag of cotton candy granules from the Candy Man in Mt Eden which I’m sure are just coloured/flavoured sugar! It may just be me though because I tried a Donna Hay recipe for Rose Swirl Meringues and they too were an absolute FAIL! Anyway, I’m about celebrating successes so here is a picture of our cookies:

In a lot of foodie magazines lately and on a lot of gorgeous blogs I read, I kept noticing the little coloured straws paired with wee milk bottles as drinking vessels. I really love this look and wanted to incorporate it into our celebration. I found a delicious recipe for Pink Lemonade courtesy of Martha Stewart. It was probably a tad strong for the kiddies, but it looked perfect and I didn’t want to just add pink colouring to fizzy lemonade, so for me, this was a good alternative and I’ll definitely make it again. I got our straws from Bubbalooz and our bottles from DotsnSpots.

And lastly – the cake. After my mammoth effort on my Lil Man’s 1st birthday cake just 2 months ago, I didn’t want to be dealing with fondant again, or something as ridiculously time consuming as that cake. Not to mention working with fondant in this extreme heat/humidity. So… I opted for something simple but classy. I cobbled together a couple of different recipes and came up with something I was very happy with in the end. It tasted pretty good too!

When I tucked my darling girl into bed last night she said “Mama, I just remembered I wanna tell you something.” She wrapped her arms around my neck and in the cutest little 3 year old voice said “Thank you for celebrating out my party, I loved it”. ‘Celebrating out’ seems to have morphed from when I was telling her I was “planning out her party celebration” whenever she’d ask what I was doing for the past week! My little blue folder was a constant source of curiosity for her. To know how happy she was at the end of the day made all those late nights last week worth it.