Purple Speak

I sometimes wonder if I follow any blogging etiquette at all. I read an entire list someplace, and it got me so bogged down.  Now everything I say seems so contrived. But guidelines are a good thing right? Do I say ‘right’ too much?

Anyways, a while ago a friend asked me to create something in purple for her daughter’s first birthday. Here’s what I made.

The ‘1’ is thermocol covered with handmade paper. There were purple and white pom-poms….

 … and  a birthday banner.

 Have I broken any rules yet?

Yeah... and my blog post titles are going to be super random too :D

P.R.E.C.I.O.U.S

There is just one little girl in this world who I would do anything for. Just an itsy bitsy thing who makes my heart melt every time she says “aa-aaunty”. My niece, Shruthi, celebrated her 4^th birthday this October.

She loves twirling around in poofy dresses till she’s dizzy! So my sister decided that Shruthi would enjoy a ballerina themed party. Here are some details!

I really wanted to try the ‘Rose Cake’ in a light pink shade with the new Americolor food colours a friend brought from the US for me. So I used this opportunity and made one.

The ‘ballerina’ unfortunately didn’t come out as well as I'd hoped. I piped it out with melted white chocolate and dusted it with silver luster dust from Wilton. Though it didn’t look great, it was delicious! Obviously! It’s chocolate!

My sister made a gorgeous cupcake stand. Unfortunately we didn’t get any pictures of just the stand.

The cupcake toppers and birthday banner is TomKat Studio inspired! I downloaded some of her free templates and changed them around to suit the ballerina theme.

I used some of the remaining toppers on straws for the kids. Also in the last minute I came across some party hats in pink. The kids loved them!

We found some white paper bags for party favours for the kids. The silhouette was my sister's idea. So pretty!

The cake was chocolate with buttercream frosting.

Shruthi loved her cake…

...and all the presents!

Gettin' Hitched!

A friend of ours got married this June. Her sister-in-law threw her a lovely bridal shower... and... I was in charge of  decorating! Well technically, I kind of kept asking if I could help and me thinks I put her in an awkward place and she couldn't refuse. So much for wedding etiquette huh? I wonder if they were planning to invite me in the first place... hmmmm.... food for thought.

Her wedding colour palette was ivory, brown and pink. I simply love damask and decided to use it on the paper products I designed for the shower.

And now onto a whole bunch of pictures with bad lighting. The bride-to-be was welcomed in with a banner that read 'Blessings!'.

Martha Stewart's pom-poms were everywhere. Obviously!

I love perfume bottles! The clear shimmering glass and beautiful shapes make me feel like a child at Christmas. I have collected a few over time and used them here to put in a couple of pink Dutch roses. The tall vases are drinking glasses with shiny silver pebbles and twigs. To add to all that shimmer, we (my sweet assistant a.k.a husband and I) strung little crystals (fake plastic ones) on them. The dry rose petals are from a whole lot of potpourri the bride-to-be supplied.

The glass votives with pink tealights were the bride's sister-in-law's idea. They were so pretty all lit up. This was one time I wished I had an awesome fancy schmancy camera.

And finally, favour boxes!

Baby Shower

Finally!

After dreaming of planning a small party for a really long time, I got a fabulous opportunity to organize my sister-in-law’s Baby Shower. Boy was I happy! I’ve browsed through so many ideas over the years and was just dying to have an opportunity to use them in a small intimate setting so that I can keep costs low and see how all those ideas stocked up in my head would translate in real time.

When the opportunity did come, stream lining the ideas down to a realistic number was the most difficult part. The rest came easy! I did have a ton of help from my husband and two of my SIL’s best friends. So it was all relatively stress free too. 

We decided on a late evening terrace party. I decided to go with paper pom poms and paper lanterns for décor. There is something so wonderfully summery and light about those pom poms that I simply adore.

Paper pom poms were super easy and fun to make. But those paper lanterns were a pain to even find in stores. When I finally did find them they had huge pictures of Santa Claus printed on them, but after some careful peeling off of the printed areas of the paper and sticking white tissue paper they were passable… when lit up.

 The party started late evening, so for lighting we used our Christmas fairy light set. Actually three sets of fairy lights. That and two lanterns had the terrace pretty well lit.

I love the idea of a wishing tree and just had to have one. I had a branch of driftwood lying around the house that my parents had picked up on a beach of the Andaman and Nicobar islands. It was perfect for the occasion with a shell holding the paper tags.

The ‘Celebrate!’ banner is a free download from The TomKat Studio. Initially I planned to design one but ran out of time.

For favours I made little pram boxes for Choco-Pies. My friend brought me a couple of boxes of brads from Michaels when she was visiting from the USA and I’d been waiting to use them ever since. So I used them for the roof of the carriage to help fan out the paper.  

That was super fun planning… can’t wait for when I get to do something like this again. 

Oh! And before I forget... there was cake! It doesn't look like much all butchered up in this picture... but it was a chocolatey world of D-E-L-I-S-H!!! *drool*

Humf!

As much as that sounds like utter exasperation, its not. Humf is this little purple guy and the blue one's his mum and the pink thing's his friend. They live in a show on Nick Jr. as I have now learned.

I was asked to make a birthday banner with the Humf colour theme. This is what I made. Next time round the ribbon will definitely be green. And as always... my banner photography is just plain bad.

Evolution of my Birthday Banners

I heart birthday banners! They’re such a fun expression of joy and almost always creep their way into a birthday planning process. After years of using the regular store bought version, I decided to make something on my own. So the easiest was to rip off the ribbon on which the alphabets hang and stick them haywire like the image below.



For my dad’s 70th birthday, I decided to make one on my own. So I used those tacky alphabets as stencils and drew them out on pretty white paper, cut them out and pasted them on pretty dark blue paper circles and strung on a dark blue ribbon. Here’s the image and it’s really sad that the beauty of that paper is not captured on this photo. I have a point and shoot camera and this is as good as my pictures get :(



Sometime down the road, in my boredom, I decided to start a company that specializes in kid’s birthday party paper products. Like banners, party hats, decorations etc. I went about designing a birthday banner drawing inspiration from various banners I came across on the internet. The banner featured below was designed on Photoshop and hand cut by me.




And that’s how my version of Birthday Banners go…