The cutest little ballerina party

We were very excited to see the latest edition of the OH Baby magazine and check out the most adorable little ballerina party featuring lots of our products

Here's a few of the pics and links to the products so you can re-create the look at home:

 The Little Dancers cupcake cases & toppers are so pretty

How sweet are these Little Dancers party tiaras?!

Milk & cookies in style! 

A pretty healthy option

To see the full article check out issue 30 of OH Baby magazine or you can purchase just the article here: 

http://www.ohbaby.co.nz/parties/party-themes/ballerina-party/

We love the Little Dancers products from Meri Meri and stock most of the range including the products featured above and lots of others, you can check it all out here: Little Dancers

One of our favourites is this adorable garland which is equally at home in a little girls bedroom as it is at a party

Another favourite is the ballerina theatre centrepiece which is a stunning addition to your party table 

For serving your drinks either use doilies & ribbon with plain bottles or how about our doily print bottles with paper straws:

Serve fruit cups & snacks our Sundays pink polka dot baking cups - they're great for single serve desserts & snacks as they're grease proof inside. 

Team with some wooden forks or the cute printed wooden spoons

The wooden cones are a great option for serving popcorn and we also stock the stands for easy presentation

And everything looks prettier with the addition of some doilies, we've got lots of designs and sizes to choose from. These frills & frostings doily sets are one of our favourites:

We've got some other pretty ideas over on our Ballerina party board on Pinterest and we did a Ballerina party blog post a few years ago with some more inspiration including some great cake ideas so pop back to that one too: For your little ballerina

If you come across any other pretty ideas please share with us in the comments below!

Fun at the Food Show

We had a great time at the Auckland Food Show earlier this month. Thank you to everyone who stopped by our stand. We really enjoyed meeting lots of our customers and look forward to seeing lots of you in store soon too!

  

Check out the cake!

Thank you to our friend Janine from Temptation Cakes for providing a fab cake for us again this year, it was a lovely complement to our fruity party table. Here's the link to their website so you can check out more of their amazing cakes & get in touch: www.temptationcakes.co.nz

A big shout out & thank you to our helpers:

Trish aka The Baby Coach who specialises in helping families deal with the challenges that new babies bring by providing expert advice and strategies for all things baby related. You can find out more about the services Trish provides over at www.babycoach.co.nz

Emma from Bumble Beads who is a regular helper on our expo stands. Emma makes handcrafted glass beads (lampworking) and beautiful jewellery from her beads as well as semi-precious stones, shells, pearls and crystals. Pop over and check out her facebook page to see some more of her work: Bumble Beads

And of course thank you to all the Pixies for helping at the show and keeping the shop staffed during the show too!

And last but definitely not least, to Mr Pixie who carries all our boxes & helps with set up & pack down :0)

Giant balloon love!

We have been having lots of fun over the last month with the introduction of helium filled balloons at our retail store. We've always sold balloons but we can now fill them too :-)

Our favourites are definitely the life sized 'air walker' balloons ... here's some pics of some we have filled over the last few weeks and here's the link to all our air walkers: air walker balloons

    

 

  

While these giant balloons certainly make an impact if you want something smaller we can help too as we have a wide range of foil and latex balloons in stock. We're currently expanding our range so if there is anything specific you're looking for just let us know. 

Here's a few recent additions to our range:

   

  

Foil balloons

  

            36" latex balloons                   printed latex balloons

 

Number & letter foil balloons

We also now stock the little 5" latex balloons which are great for displays. We've got some in our window at the moment as bunches of grapes which look really cute :0)

plain coloured mini balloons

Here's the link to view our full range of balloons & decorations: shop for decorations  These are all available online and in store.

Cute ideas for Valentines Day

I've seen lots of cute inexpensive Valentines ideas with clever plays on words so I thought I would share my favourites. There are links included to the printables too, hope they provide some inspiration.

I love these free printables from Hostess with the Mostess: peanut butter and jelly, donuts and coffee, milk and cookies and pie with whipped cream. Here's the link to download: "Perfect Pairings" Valentine Cards

I dig you! These labels are available to purchase as a download file from Abigail Christine Design's Etsy shop, here's the link direct to them: Hey Valentine...I Dig You by Abigail Christine Design

Need a Valentines idea for someone who loves fishing? How about this great idea from www.shakentogetherlife.com, a Candy Tackle Box

I love this idea also shared on www.shakentogetherlife.com - we go together like peas & carrots :0) If you like the baking cases they've used we have the same ones available in several colours (including the green ones): Sundays baking cases / portion-cups

These whale cookies are so clever - check out www.bakerella.com and see how to create them using a Santa cookie cutter!

If you're looking for pretty lolly bag toppers there are some fun ideas over at www.thebusybudgetingmama.com and there's a cute 'be mine' cake topper too

And here are some fun sugar free alternatives ...

These would be fun to pop in the kids lunchboxes (make sure you use edible markers for the apples & pears if you try these!). Here's the link to all the info: cakewhiz.com

Or you can do similar with these printables from alphamom.com

I found lots of other fun ideas over at Alpha Mom as well, these Hersheys kiss lighthouses were my favourites

This is a nice idea from www.dandee-designs.com for the kids to make for their class mates

Found over at WifeMomGeek.com - mini sports balls. You can download the printables here: sports valentines printables

These Tiny Animal Valentines shared by Sweet C's Designs are a great idea for the boys, here's the link to the printables: tiny animal valentines

Here's a cute idea for someone crafty - printables can be downloaded from lilluna.com and if you need some bakers twine we've got pink, green, blue, orange & black in stock at the moment

There are some more great candy free ideas over at www.growingajeweledrose.com

And if you just need a fun little tag to add to your gift check out these pun-tastic ideas from www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com

I hope you've found some ideas here and if you have any other please post a link in the comments as we would love to check them out

Summer treats

Well it's not feeling very summery in Auckland today but thought I would take some time out from packing for our upcoming move to share a few more ideas for summer parties.

Butterflies is another fun outdoor theme which works well with a picnic, tea party, afternoon tea on the deck ... here's a few ideas

Here's the pretty butterfly cake I made for my daughters 3rd birthday.

One of the great things about a butterfly theme is you can choose different colours and have fun with the decoration.

Helen from Meridian Coaching reminded me this week how cute butterfly cakes are, here's a pic of my version - these were made for a butterfly tea party fundraiser I hosted for Hospice NZ. We always had these at birthday parties when I was a child so they always bring back fond memories for me :0) I also made some butterfly shaped biscuits - a fun party activity could be getting the kids at the party to decorate them.

Don't forget the caterpillar grapes! My daughter looked at me horrified one night last week when I said if you eat all your dinner you can have some caterpillars for dessert, had to quickly put them together and show her what I meant :0) They are so quick and easy - just push grapes on to toothpicks or bamboo skewers then use icing to attach choc chip eyes (although these ones weren't standing up to the heat too good and the eyes kept sliding off so make sure you don't leave them in the sun!)

If you're having a beach themed party I think these would make great favours. I saw a similar idea with plastic spades but I thought that these bubble spade and forks were really cute ... simply add a few lollies in a cello bag and tie it all together with a ribbon. I found the spades and forks at a local discount store and I've used the sea shell lollies from Pixie Party Supplies

Fruit kebabs are perfect for any summer party. You can either make them up in advance or this could be a fun party activity, either have the fruit pre-cut for younger children then help them create their own fruit 'magic wand' or for older children let them cut out their own shapes using mini cookie cutters. You can also add strawberries, grapes and marshmallows.

A great drink serve at summer parties is pink lemonade in pretty bottles with pink vintage style paper straws (I've used the ones from Pixie Party Supplies). There are heaps of recipes around for pink lemonade - my quick easy version is to add cranberry juice to sparkling lemonade.

Oh and here's a simple little summer time tip I picked up on pinterest ... pop cupcake cases on your iceblock sticks to catch the drips :0) 

And a few other butterfly ideas from pinterest