Afternoon tea anyone?

It was my niece's 20th birthday this month and I got to make her cake. She wanted a proper tea service for her present and an afternoon tea party celebration, so the cake of course had to follow the theme.

I had lots of fun making a miniature tea service out of fondant and once the pieces had dried, painting them with gold edging and little roses. I was really pleased with the finished cake and my niece loved it. 

I found a really helpful tutorial on how to make the tea set (take a look here) which I followed to make the tea pot and handles on the tea cups. I made the tea cups by rolling out the fondant reasonably thinly and cutting a circle and a rectangle and then forming the rectangle into a tube and fixing it to the circle before adding the handle. 

I filled each of the tea cups with some piping gel that I coloured brown which made it look like black tea/coffee. If I do a similar cake again, I would try to make the tea look milky and to fill the milk jug with "milk" - but that's something to figure out next time. I also filled the sugar bowl with real sugar on the day which worked well.

The finishing touches were a vase with roses in, a celebration cake for the middle of the table and some "jam" sandwiches on each of the plates.

© 2014 Nicola Noble: Please observe the rules of copyright and blog etiquette. If you use my ideas or images, please link back to my blog. And do let me know - I'd love to take a look.

Chocolate party - Alpine village cake

Sophie's 8th birthday party was all about chocolate (see my previous post here). The obvious choice for a cake was an all out choco-tastic creation but no cakes I found online inspired me. I have learnt from previous years that if the cake isn't particularly creative I feel cheated and disassisfied with the end product so I needed to come up with something I could really get my creative teeth in to. Cue Alpine village cake.

I don't know where this idea sprang from and I couldn't find any similar cakes to what was in my head so I had to build it as I went along. First piece of inspiration came from the Lakeland's fairy tale village moulds and I used this to make chocolate houses. Using milk, dark and white chocolate, I poured melted chocolate into each part of the moulds for mix and match houses. Sadly I didn't do a very good job of tempering the chocolate and all but the dark chocolate rooves bloomed, but actually it didn't notice once all the other decorations were on and the chocolate still tasted good!

I had also collected a selection of chocolate sprinkles, hearts, jazzies, pebbles and other bits along the way which all got put to good use. I ended up baking one rectangular sponge and two 9" circular ones (chocolate sponges of course) and layering them for a staggered mountain slope sort of effect.

I knew I wanted to a stream across the cake and that idea developed into a babbling mountain stream ending in a lake. I mixed two colours of blue fondant together, but didn't totally mix them so there was some marbling still. This ended up looking fab and I finished off the stream with some sugar sprinkles I had left over from the Octonauts cake I made earlier this year.

I had the mountain stream coming out of a chocolate pebble and I edged the mountain lake with some more of the chocolate pebbles and some of the small chocolate sprinkles. The finishing touch for the lake was some piping gel (something new for me to play with) which I spread across the lake for a water effect. This worked fantastically and I will definitely be playing with this again another time.

The strange indentations on the picture of the plain green covered cake above were deliberate! They turned into a footpath from the top house, linking it to the house on the mid-levels and I added some orange chocolate Matchmakers to provide some steps for the little chocolate people I added right at the end (sadly no photos of the cake with these little guys on) to get down to the lake and their friends in the bottom house!  

The finishing touch was to add literally a hundred plus fondant flowers in lots of bright colours, Sophie's name and a number eight candle placed behind the silver Happy Birthday.

For the first time Sophie had very definite ideas as to how she wanted the cake but I couldn't really understand or translate some of these into reality. Thankfully, she was very happy with the finished cake so all was good in the Snowballs house.

© 2014 Nicola Noble: Please observe the rules of copyright and blog etiquette. If you use my ideas or images, please link back to my blog. And do let me know - I'd love to take a look.

It's all about the chocolate ...

We decided on a chocolate theme for Sophie's 8th birthday party this year. Originally I was thinking that the party guests could make lots of chocolate goodies (such as chocolate pizza and chocolate rice krispie cakes) but when Sophie came up with a guest list of 20 children I knew that this wasn't going to be feasible, so Plan B was created.

Plan B swiftly took shape with some help from Pinterest (where else would you go?) and I came up with games involving huge amounts of chocolate to fill the two hour party. As always, I did the planning and pulling the activities together and Mr Snowballs did the amazing job of keeping 18 children entertained and stuffed with chocolate goodies on the day.

I couldn't find any invitations I liked that included chocolate so I came up with a simple one made from chocolate jazzies stuck onto rice paper with a bit of melted chocolate, and the rice paper stuck onto the invitation with the party information printed on the back (the rice paper stopped the oil from the chocolate "glue" seeping through and spoiling the back of the invitation). Sophie drew the ribbons and bow for each balloon. Feedback was that many of the parents didn't get to see the "balloons" as they were consumed pretty swiftly. And a word of advice to anyone thinking to copy this, make sure the pens and glue glueing the rice paper onto the invitation are non-toxic as the rice paper was also peeled off and eaten by quite a few of the children!!

As I mentioned above, the party was full of games that involved chocolate in lots of ways: including chocolate anagrams to start, guess the chocolate bar (you could tell the chocoholics straight away in this game as they were the only ones to get almost all the answers correct!) ...

 ... pass the chocolate orange without using your hands ...

 ... chocolate dress up (where you roll a dice and when you get a six you have to put a coat and gloves and scarf on and cut off squares of chocolate using a knife and fork!) ...

 ... moving smarties from one plate to another using suction power through a straw (they were surprisingly good at this) ...

 ... and my favourite, chocolate kisses, where you place a square of chocolate on the party guests lips while they are lying down and the last person to eat the chocolate wins. A lot harder than it sounds as the chocolate starts melting.

 Mr Snowballs made it harder by adding slices of chocolate orange along the way!

After each game, the winning children (everyone was a winner according to Mr Snowballs) got to visit the Chocolate Shop for a small chocolate prize. By the time it came to sitting and eating the birthday tea, lots of the children were suffering from chocolate overload. Some judicious eating of cool carrot sticks and they were ready to tackle the chocolate fountain, which they had all been waiting patiently for since they spotted it at the start of the party!

Chocolate overload or not, the children had a great time and the party girl enjoyed it more than all the rest. And Mummy enjoyed the mountain of chocolates left over for the next week!!

I am just launching a series of Host Your Own Party guides. These are aimed for those of you who want to host a great party for your child but don’t know where to start? The Host Your Own Chocolate Party pack gives you all the information you need to organise and run a chocolate-tastic party and all for only £4. Send me a mail for more information or if you would like to buy the guide.

 

© 2014 Nicola Noble: Please observe the rules of copyright and blog etiquette. If you use my ideas or images, please link back to my blog. And do let me know - I'd love to take a look.

Roll on the summer ...

It might still be the middle of winter and the weather we have been having recently is so far from anything summer-like it's hard to remember what summer is like. But a crafting session making butterfly pictures and I can forget about the hurricane force winds and torrential rain for a short time.

I recently discovered affordable box frames from Ikea and have been having fun making pictures to go in them. I love the butterfly pictures I have seen in the shops and decided I could make even better versions of them.

 

I have a cute little butterfly sizzlit die which I used. The best, but most time consuming, part is playing with all the patterned papers I have and matching them with a background I think goes. They came out really well and I even got an order for a bespoke one.

I surprised the little girl by adding her name to the picture and she was delighted with it, matching perfectly with her newly decorated purple and pink bedroom!

If you like the pictures, check out my Folksy shop where you can buy them. The shop is a new venture - a place to sell my pictures and cards and allow me to expand my creative output! Don't worry if the pictures have gone though - mail me and I would be happy to create a new one just for you.

Now - back to dreaming about balmy summer days and fluttering butterflies ....

© 2014 Nicola Noble: Please observe the rules of copyright and blog etiquette. If you use my ideas or images, please link back to my blog. And do let me know - I'd love to take a look.

Explore, rescue, protect! It's the GUP A ...

Justin had an Octonauts themed birthday party this year. I searched the web for inspiration for his cake and fell in love with a few ideas, especially having a cake with the GUP A on it (you have to know the Octonauts to know what this is!)

I wanted to make some of the characters myself too, rather than use the toys that Justin already had but I wasn't sure if my modelling skills were up to the task but they turned out so cute I fell in love with them! I started with Captain Barnacles and Kwazi but then Justin also asked for Peso and Tunip and, as they fitted really well on to the board, I was happy to oblige.

I baked two 9" round cakes (which I coloured blue) and one 12" rectangular cake (plain coloured). The round cakes sunk a little in the middle (I always wonder if this is because of the colouring?) but it didn't matter as the GUP was sat right on top. I chopped the rectangular cake to make the GUP - it started out a bit small but with some jigsaw-puzzle-type skills, some judicious carving and the glue properties of buttercream, you couldn't tell once it was covered in fondant.

I used three different shades of blue fondant - two ready coloured and one I coloured myself for the board. I decorated the round cake with a strip of wavy fondant in two colours and decorated around the edge with brightly coloured seaweed and corals with some pearl sprinkles to fill in the gaps.

The GUP A was actually quite straightforward to decorate: I did a strip of teal icing around the bottom half and a semi-circle over the top. The join was hidden by a rope of icing around the GUP. The cockpit comprised a small teal semi-circle on the bottom, a black semi-circle behind the characters and a raised strip to the front of the cockpit with some small controls for Barnacles and Kwazi to use. A couple of circles, some eyes and some shiny teal coloured sugar balls all around and it was finished, apart from the dangly bit, fins and propeller. I made these and added some pieced of cocktail stick then left them to dry for a few days so that they would hold their shape. The cocktail sticks were then used to fix the various bits onto the GUP.

© 2014 Nicola Noble: Please observe the rules of copyright and blog etiquette. If you use my ideas or images, please link back to my blog. And do let me know - I'd love to take a look.

Explore, rescue, protect! An Octonauts party ...

Justin was five a few weeks ago and he wanted an Octonauts party.

I managed to get the invitations out before Christmas: I found a cute picture of the front of an Octonauts book and fiddled a little to come up with something I was happy with.

I was very late in organising the actual party (for me) and only sat down and planned the games the day before the party, although I had sourced the party bag goodies and party plates before Christmas (as I learnt to do after his very first birthday when I left it until after Christmas and snow meant the things didn't arrive in time!) 

Justin had 10 friends and the party was held at our local community centre (where we've held previous parties). I bought a blue net and some inflatable fish to decorate the room and we made some jelly fish out of plastic food cartons and plastic carrier bags.

We started the party with an Octonauts Creature Hunt. I was "forced" to play some of the Octonauts games on the BBC website to win some creature cards, which I saved and printed out. These were then hidden around the room  and each child was given a creature chart at the start of the games. Once they spotted the creature they then went to Sophie and her friends (the helpful big girls) to get the creature stamped off with a froggy stamp (the closest stamped we had to a sea creature!).

Next game was Fish Egg and Spoon Race. We have a great set of egg and spoons from Early Learning Centre and the children had fun running up and down the hall trying not to drop the eggs!

After that the children played Ball Pool Creature Rescue. I filled a giant bucket with ball pool balls and dropped in selection of sea creature bath toys. The children then had to reach into the bucket and pull out one of the sea creatures (without looking).

The next game was Musical Islands. We laid out large pieces of paper (the packaging saved from a recent Amazon delivery!) - one for each child. The children danced around the islands until the music stopped - they then had to stand on an island. An island was removed after each round and the child not on an island was out of the game. The last one on an island won.

This was followed with Calico Jack’s Treasure Hunt. I have been saving the plastic eggs from Kinder eggs for a very long time and I put a haribo sweet into each egg and hid them around the hall. There were enough for each child to find three eggs and two of these were large ones with a mini-packet of Haribos in.

The final game before the food was served was Octonauts in the Sea (this was a variation of fishes in the sea). The proper game works like this: set up a circle of chairs facing outwards and each child sits on a seat and is named either Captain Barnacles, Kwazi or Peso. A caller calls out one of the names and the children with that name get up and walk around the outside of the circle. The caller then calls different things:
- the sea is getting rough = the children start running
- tide turn = the children change direction
- shark coming = the children run back to their chair.
The last child to return to their chair is out and turns the chair facing inwards; they can play a version in the middle of the circle for fun.

In reality this proved a bit too tricky for 4/5 year olds and Mr Snowballs just got them all up at the same time and got them to run or change direction or return to their seats as per the game rules. They all had lots of fun.

I also set up a table with some Octonauts colouring as a quiet activity for those children who didn't want to take part in every game.

The party bags were just simple paper bags with a label for each child in the Octonauts logo. I found a font that is similar to the Octonauts font and used this (see here). They each got an inflatable fish, a magic fortune teller fish (remember those from your childhood?), an Octonauts colouring book (I saved the images from the BBC website and then printed them four to a page and stapled them into a booklet), and some sweeties.

Mr Snowballs excelled himself this year with running the games and all the children had a fantastic time - even the shy ones were joining in by the end of the party. And with all the help I got from my family (who are amazing) the party was a real pleasure to organise and run.

Next up, the cake ...

© 2014 Nicola Noble: Please observe the rules of copyright and blog etiquette. If you use my ideas or images, please link back to my blog. And do let me know - I'd love to take a look.

Christmas craft fair - more Christmas decorations

I haven't had a chance to write a blog post for a little while and although Christmas seems such a long time ago, I wanted to share the last of the Christmas related crafts we made for our school Craft Fair.

We had some plain white tiles which we made into Christmas decorations. I added the letters NOEL in red glitter paper and silver sparkl snowflakes to some ...

... and I decorated others with Christmas trees in pink and green glitter foam.

I painted the edges of the tiles to give a neat finish: cream on the Noel tiles and green on the Christmas tree tiles.

I was inspired once again by something I found on Pinterest: a simple tree made by folding a semicircle of card. I used the large scallop Bigz die which I then cut in half. It took me a few attempts to get the fold just right but once I had a template, the folding was very quick and easy. I added a glittery star to the top of each tree to finish it off.

I then punched two small holes at the top of each tree and threaded the trees onto some bakers twine for simple bunting. I found it was neater to add the star after the tree had been threaded (see the two pictures above for the difference).

I also cut some letters out in matching paper, punched two small holes into the top of each letter and threaded onto the twine. The only one that caused me problems was the A as I couldn't get the two holes next to each other - making the letter slightly lopsided!

I also made a simple Christmas card with the folded tree, although I didn't make any to sell at the fair. 

The last Christmas thing we made was some cute reindeer food. Some muesli and edible glitter was put into small bags then sealed using the Top Note die folded in half and stapled over the top of the bag. A red glitter circle for Rudolph's nose, white circle eyes with a black dot in the middle and some leafy antlers and it was ready to go. All finished off with a cute poem found via Pinterest! These were incredibly popular at the Fair and we even had people asking for some afterwards ...

We did make lots of other things for the fair (not Christmas related) and I'll be posting details of these soon! 

© 2014 Nicola Noble: Please observe the rules of copyright and blog etiquette. If you use my ideas or images, please link back to my blog. And do let me know - I'd love to take a look.