Kerryn turns 40

My lovely friend turned 40 this week, and luckily for me it  meant an opportunity to do some projects I've loved for ages.
The first one is simply fabulous, and once again I'm astounded at the generosity of some people out there.  This girl in particular is super clever at party planning and is always sharing her talents - Jordan Fearney from Oh happy day!  I'm in love with pretty much everything she does, and one in particualr is a postcard project.  It involves emailing 25 different pdfs to the friends of one person, for me it was the friends and family of Kerryn.  They then print off their pdfs onto cardstock and post them to Kerryn, and when she receives all 25 pieces they will fit together to make a puzzle and spell out the phrase "I'm so glad you were born".  And Jordan has made it so easy by making all the pdfs downloadable in one hit, as well as a bit of a spiel to put in your emails to explain to people exactly what to do.  I think this is such a beautiful project, and I am so grateful to Jordan for being so clever!

http://ohhappyday.com/2011/05/postcard-birthday-poster-diy/


Jordan has posted heaps of other great party and styling ideas as well as free printable projects on her blog so head on over and have a look!

And I finally got to make these flowers, as seen on Green Wedding Shoes

What fun we had!  The theme for Kerryn's party was Spring Racing (this is because her birthday is the 1st August which is apparently the horse's birthday) and she wanted to recreate the marquees they have at the races.  Big old fashioned rose bushes are synonomous with the races, but they are not at bloom in people's gardens in Perth at this time of year so she just had to make some!
They actually require doublette crepe (double layered crepe paper) which I am yet to find in Australia (if anyone knows where, please tell!), but  someone explains how to make it yourself here.  We used ordinary crepe paper which still looked great but had a tendency to "flop" - not something you would like to happen on your wedding day!  This was fixed by strategically placed "dobs" of craft glue to hold the outer petals up.  They are a bit time consuming and fiddly but once you have done the first one they got a lot easier.  And I don't think you would need to do heaps for a wedding anyway.  I just think they look so striking in the photos!

Kerryn's house has a big deck on the back enclosed with cafe blinds, making it the perfect setting for a "marquee".  And once they had added some artificial turf, fairy lights, two chandeliers (left over from our wedding decor), some wine barrels, plants, the crepe paper roses and of course a red carpet - the place looked fantastic.

Kerryn loves to bake (and is great at it) so of course that meant doing her own birthday cake.  She turned to Donna Hay for inspiration, as we both very often do - the woman is a genius!

 It looked and tasted fabulous, and the colours of the macarons are actually quite subdued in this photo, the purple ones were much brighter in real life.  For once Kerryn decided to give herself a break and NOT make all the macarons - they were made by Maison St Honore at the Freo Markets.

Kerryn asked me to make red velvet cupcakes (I found a super easy recipe here) and I was desperate to try making some buttercream roses

Image from Mad Baker

But to be a true red velvet cake it must have cream cheese icing, and as hard as I tried I couldn't get it stiff enough to maintain a perfect shape without sacrificing the taste.  So I compromised, and I think in the end they didn't look too bad

I WILL attempt those beautiful buttercream roses one day though!  If you would like to try there are some good tutorials on youtube; this one is by a funny guy called "happy happy cake".

Happy Birthday Kez!