A birthday picnic in yellow & grey

It's been a busy few days in the Inspired Occasion headquarters with two fun events last weekend, styled by us.

We promise to share both of these with you over the coming weeks, but for tonight, we are showcasing a stylish picnic that we styled on Sunday. This one was special, as it was for my birthday and being the client for once, was super fun!

I really wanted something simple, yet stylish. Relaxed, but pretty. Lots of good food, that had to be easy to eat and transport to a local park. We settled on a yellow and grey theme, with lots of fresh flowers thrown in.

We set the scene with a simple invite, encompassing all the details, which I cheated and emailed out to all our guests.

Given we are in Melbourne, we knew we would have to be wary of the weather. It's been a crazy couple of weeks, with sunshine one moment and pouring rain the next. So even though we chose a local park, we decided to purchase a marquee to protect us from the sunshine and/or rain.

As it turned out, it was a beautiful hot day - and we were very grateful for the marquee and the shade it provided. However, some of the photo's do have a slight green tinge to them due to this... please forgive this and enjoy the photo's!

I had a go at making string lanterns... so happy with how they turned out. 

Let me know if you are interested in a tutorial.

My fabulous Camberwell Market find table... with a lick of paint, it was perfect!

Lots and lots of food! Alex put together a fabulous table with; anti-pasto, some wonderful cheeses, smoked salmon, deli meats, chicken wings, mini quiches, lots of dips and some of Alex's famous home made meatloaf. All served with some crisp breads, lots of good champagne and even some of my favourite girly beers! 

We finished up with carrot cake (with extra cream cheese frosting!!), my mum's home made lemon slice and some chocolate dipped wafers...By that point though, we forgot to take any good photo's - so you will have to imagine how good it was!

It was a really lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon, surrounded by friends and family - who could want a nicer way to spend your birthday.

I have to do some special thank you's to my husband, Alex's husband, my mum and my step-dad for carrying all this set up to the park, putting up with my 'fussing' over the table, waiting until I had taken 500 photo's before they were allowed to eat and then helping us to pack it all up again at the end! And also to Kristy for amusing the kids while we set up - what a gem!

Another big thank you to Alex for all her help - she really does a great job, is so patient and is able to pull a clients vision into reality! Trust me - I can vouch for her!

Thanks for sticking with me - I know it's a long post tonight. We will be back tomorrow night with another fabulous Euro style post from Claire.

Cheers,

The Big Give - Some early Thanks

Well, the count down is really on now! I am sure I have said that (or something similar!!) before in other posts relating to The Big Give (here, here and possibly here), but now that the calendar has flicked over, and the little app at the bottom of my screen says DEC 2, we are starting to feel the excitement building!

We had a workshop today with our fabulous committee and are really pleased to be able to pass on some thank you's to the companies, individuals and families who have put up their hands to help out. So without further ado - some BIG thank you's.......

We have been able to secure a venue (thanks City of Yarra); we have chicken to roast (thanks Baiada Poultry); fresh fruit & veg (thanks Bungle Trading); yummy cupcakes (thanks Sweet Statements) and an amazing MC to host us (thanks BPCA). 

We will have presents for all of the kids attending (thanks St Bede's Primary School), a real Christmas tree (thanks Sage Building Services) and almost 100 volunteers to serve our 300+ guests on the day (thank you x 100!). We have even put a call in to Santa, who will be making a very special appearance this year!

Our partner organisations have also been very generous with their donations and we can now finalize the remaining items required for our Christmas table - ham, beef, plum pudding and custard, and of course, bon bons (big thank you to Our HR Company, Gour family, 4ward Consulting, CBA, Growhard Australia and St Vinnies Parkville). 

We also have some fabulous ladies working hard to create some wonderful decorations for the venue, which will add a wonderfully festive feel to the day.

So, as you can tell, it's all coming together!

We do have a final request... we really need your help to provide each of our adult guests with a gift. 

This year, we have decided to give each adult guest attending a $30 Safeway or Coles voucher - so that they can make their own choice about selection of grocery items. Hampers and gift packs are certainly lovely, but what our guests really value is the ability to choose items that they need from the supermarket.

When you next head to the supermarket to do your weekly grocery shopping, we would like to ask you to consider adding a $30 supermarket gift voucher to your list. If you are able to do this, please post your voucher to:

The Big Give 
St Mary's House of Welcome 165 - 169 Brunswick St, Fitzroy

We are also still accepting tax deductible cash donations via PayPal here if you would prefer this. Either way - we would love your support, in any way that you can.

Thank you all again for your kindness, generosity, support and kind wishes. We will give you all another update next week (after our volunteer information session, which we are really looking forward to). 

Cheers,

Renee and Alex

Tight fit

Snow snow snow, we have had a lot of it here in Copenhagen this week. In fact as I write it is -3 degrees celsius and big fat flakes are falling outside, it is 3pm and almost dark.

Needless to say the best course of action when faced with such frostiness is to stay tucked up in bed. This way you can have the sensation of living inside a snow dome without actually having to deal with the snow. The grand secret of snow being that whilst it makes everything look very soft and pristine white, it is extremely cold.

Alas, sometimes leaving the warm confines of the apartment cannot be avoided. Going outside these days involves several layers of clothing, beginning with thermal underwear and ending with a fluffy hat. How to make oneself look respectable in such a gettup is almost beyond my powers. Simple jeans and boots are the best solution. But there are only so many days that you can wear jeans before you begin to crave a little femininity in the form of a skirt (and also jeans do start to smell weird after a while, I mean, you have to wash them at some point right?).

Luckily some genius person invented tights for occasions such as these. After days or weeks of jeans there can be nothing more glorious than slipping into a pair of thick woolen tights (or two for extra thermal layers) and getting all girled up in a nice skirt. 

Sadly, unless you have the legs of a baby giraffe you have probably not ventured into the realms of the boldly coloured tights featured so heavily in the last few seasons. But you need not discount them completely, because they do look fabulous on little girls...in fact  there is also nothing cuter than little girls in skirts and tights.

This winter there has been an explosion of adorably colourful ruffle skirts and cute smock dresses colour blocked with bold tights. Ribbing has been popular (as seen in these efforts from Wheat). 

If you want something a bit more fun Petite Bateau make polka dots look more stylish than you would have thought possible. 

If there was ever a less harmful way to live vicariously through your daughter it is surely with a colourful selection of tights, what girl doesn't want bright (insert favourite colour here) legs? 

Wanna swap legs?

After all, unless a herd of baby giraffes wanting to trade legs comes along, the rest of us aren't going to be able to pull them off quite so easily any time soon. 

Wish as we might.

Take care, 

Claire.

The Big Give... 4 weeks to go!

Today marks the count down for The Big Give, with only 4 weeks until the big day! While one part of me is slightly worried, mainly due to my own lack of Christmas shopping (!), the other part of me is super excited that we will be part of such an exciting event.

Last night was the first of two volunteer nights and the dedication and enthusiasm in the room was magic. We will be coordinating nearly 100 volunteers on the day and will be spending a good part of the next week working out where best they can assist on the day.

We are also pleased to let you know that we have had some really generous individuals and businesses step forward and volunteer goods, services and cash. Thanks to these fabulous donations, we are now able to tick some of the most important things off our list including; a venue, tables, chairs, most tableware, a Christmas tree, chickens, fresh fruit and vegetables, gifts for the children and an amazing MC.

There are still a few things on our wish list... maybe you can help us out?

- 30 large plastic table cloths
- 350 large plastic plates
- ham/beef
- grocery gift cards for adult gifts ($30 value - Coles, Woolworths etc.)
- art & craft supplies for our children's activity area

If you happen to be based in Melbourne, we also have some paper decorations being made by a fabulous group of mums. If you have an hour or two to spare and would like to make some decorations - please let us know and we will send you the details.

Thanks to everyone for your offers of support and sponsorship. Every little bit helps with an event such as this! All of these little (and not so little) donations mean that Christmas will be that little bit more special for those who can't do this on their own.

Cheers,

Lakage Drømme aka Layer Cake Dreams

When I was small the layer cake was an object of mystery and wonder for me.  The most appealing thing about layer cake, in my opinion, is the naughty extra layer of icing. It is cakeish, but not dry, soft but more wet than spongy… Ideal for little taste buds really.

Of course the other reason that the layer cake was so interesting to me was that until recently, I had never actually seen one of these elusive cakes produced - my mother’s own baking efforts running more along the lines of oatmeal slices and rarely involving chocolate. 

The obvious question dogged me- how do they bake it with the filling inside?

Eventually I figured out that the layer cake actually consists of two cakes (or one cut in half), with the filling piped in post baking.  Probably you have also realized this and figured, as did I, that it was all just far too much bother to actually make one when you can purchase a very good cake, prelayered, from the local bakery.

cake image via I am Baker

As it turns out a layer cake of some description is virtually mandatory for all birthday’s (especially childrens’ birthdays) taking place on Danish soil. And this year I was called upon to make one. Like most tasks that seem insurmountable, the layer cake actually turned out to be quite easy. Yes, that’s right; you do not need to be a domestic goddess to pull this off.  

Needless to say we had a few wobbles (e.g. I would not recommend attempting to divide or ice the cake before it is thoroughly cooled), but the point is that it tasted delicious. Last week I had a second go and the aesthetics were considerably better.

Anyway, it seems a shame for all children to grow up knowing so little of the secrets of layer cake (i.e. it is actually two cakes and they do not bake it with the filling inside). And it strikes me that spending an afternoon tackling a layer cake with your kids in the run up to the next birthday party could be well worthwhile. 

The beautiful thing about it is that not only will the kids have heaps of fun, but you needn’t worry about ruining the birthday cake. As my stepmother said to me on the phone from Australia as I frantically attempted to recover my first effort- chocolate icing will cover a myriad of sins…

I would recommend this Jamie Oliver adaption. Or if you’re feeling a bit chocolately ambitious and want to really mess up the kitchen this Nigella Lawson creation is perfect. 

Cake via Jamie Oliver

So, no excuses; get your kids into the kitchen and get layering people!

Take care,

Claire