Ladybird Garden Party - photo shoot

It's been a pretty big week for us here at The Inspired Occasion...

You may have seen us in the media - which has been so exciting for us, and we were also THRILLED to have ended up in the Top 25 blogs for Party Planning over at Circle of Moms (you will hear more about this shortly)!

We also managed to put together a small dessert station for a photo shoot on less than a days notice! Luckily we had most of it prepared for a Christening we had today so as much as it was a rush to pull it together, we didn't have to start from scratch.

However, we did have to use what we had - not having time to order anything in, so we are very luck to have a good supply closet! Although - looking at these photo's - we obviously have more red smarties in than pink!

These cupcakes were so delicious! In the photo shoot the poor kids had to hold them for almost 2 hours before they were allowed to eat them - talk about torture!

Marshmallow, chocolate and edible glitter... mmmm yum!

These little tote boxes are available from Candy Soirees. They are so adaptable, we have used them a number of times now and they come up wonderfully each time.

We recently invested in a fairy floss machine - any excuse to use it!

Hope you enjoyed our little dessert station and all had a wonderful weekend!

The Inspired Occasion

Ladybird Baby Shower

There is something so special about baby showers; the opportunity to celebrate a new life, to spoil a new mum and to have a few laughs and champagnes with friends.

So, we were thrilled when we were asked to do a baby shower for a gorgeous friends 2nd baby. She knew she was expecting a girl and really gave us free reign to come up with something fun and stylish. How could we say no?!

We chose a theme of spring fresh colours with pink, red and a light green. A ladybird seemed a perfect fit, so we changed her around a bit and gave her a red and pink coat instead of the usual red and black.

For the afternoon tea, we provided a small savoury table and a small dessert table - perfect for 12 ladies.

The savoury table featured; hand made scrolls with delicious fillings such as olive and feta, as well as the traditional ham and cheese, hot pastries, zucchini slice and elegant finger sandwiches.

The dessert table included; carrot cake cupcakes with a dreamy cream cheese icing (can you tell this is one of my favourites?!), an assortment of slices, some mini chocolate cupcakes, fresh scones with jam and cream, white chocolate cake pops and some fresh berries.

The highlight of the dessert table though, had to be the divine cake that Alex made. It's a chocolate mud cake with a butter cream icing and dusted with a pink edible glitter. The design was inspired by this one made by 'I am baker'. As soon as we saw it, we knew our gorgeous ladybird baby would look divine lying on top of it!

We also set up a simple drinks station for the girls to toast the guest of honour. With buckets of champagne, decorated glasses and individual mineral waters for each of the guests, it was lovely to be able to carry the theme across.

And what's a baby shower without games? We provided a 'guess the baby in the bottle' game, a trivia game, a 'pin the dummy on the baby' game and finally, a baby ballot to guess the date and weight of the new arrival. The girls all got into it and had a lovely afternoon.

Finally - big congratulations to the guest of honour on the safe arrival of her baby girl. Mummy and baby are both doing extremely well!