Current Obsession - Vintage Blue Mason Jars

My current obsession is the Mason jar. Not any old mason jar though, it has to be vintage and it has to be blue. My absolute favourite colour is soft blue in all of its hues and these little beauties just sing to me. Such a humble little item, but they are just so gorgeous, especially filled with peonies *love*.

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The biggest obstacle to me not having these all over my house is that they were manufactured in America  and are very hard to come by in Australia. Their popularity has soared with their use in weddings, parties and as highly collectable items. If we were lucky enough to be living in the US you could potentially pick them up at flea markets and bric-a-brac stores for as little as a dollar !!! Not so in Oz unfortunately as they are quite pricey to import.

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I will definitely have these on my list to hunt for if I ever make it over to the USA. If anyone has a Mason jar that they no longer want, it can find a loving new home with me!

Miette Cookbook

I have been coveting Miette's new cookbook ever since I heard about it over at Eat Drink Chic and more recently Bakerella posted the recipe for the Tomboy cake which is the cover image on the book.

The demand for the book has been so great that I was on a wait list with the Book Depository, but when they finally had it back in stock I quickly ordered my copy. I have been waiting with bated breath for my little package to arrive in the letterbox and today it finally came! yay, I love getting something special in the mail other than the dreaded bills.

Miette is a gorgeous little bakery in San Francisco and this is their first cookbook filled with their signature sweets. One of the things Miette is known for is their sweets of a smaller scale with a lot of their cakes only 6 inches.

Don't you just love how a new cookbook inspires you to rush back into the kitchen and start baking. Look how delightfully sweet this book is with it's scalloped edges.

Such big, beautiful, full colour images, certainly have me inspired. I love a cookbook that provides an image for every recipe, I like to know what the finished product is supposed to look like!

Check out the mouth watering Fleur de Sel Caramels. Yum yum, these will definitely be featuring on the dessert table of our upcoming 30th Country birthday party.

 Delicate pale pink meringues

Who could resist this raspberry tart?

I have been searching for a good lemon curd recipe, so this is on my to-do list.

But, first and foremost I am going to have a crack at the Tomboy cake. It just looks so cute and yummy, and at only 6 inches I won't feel half as guilty if I end up eating half the cake!

I am off to the kitchen to rattle some pots and pans, if you would like the recipe for the Tomboy cake you can find it here on Bakerella's site.

Have a lovely day.

30th Country Birthday Invitations

Just finished the print and assembly of the invitations I designed for the rustic country 30th birthday party. 

A lovely package all wrapped up with brown paper and string ready for delivery. Hope the birthday boy likes them. 

I loved using the brown and blue colour palette. I wanted to make the matte brown envelopes a little more interesting, so I customised them by adding lovely striped paper on the inside flap which was individually hand cut and glued in, this was madness in retrospect as it was a time consuming task, but I was happy with the end result.

Invitations all wrapped up and ready for delivery to the client

Hope you have a lovely weekend, let's hope we see a little sunshine.

Take care,

Inspiration - Rustic Country 30th Birthday Party

Starting to pull together some ideas for an upcoming 30th birthday party to be held in the country. Loving some of these inspiring images.

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Love the rustic bunting and hay bales as chairs used in this party.

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Cute vintage packing boxes can have many uses.

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Casual drinks served in tubs and a cute and effective way to have flowers featured on each table. Thinking about using re-cycled tin cans as well tied with twine.

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Honey party favours. Straight from my brother-in-law's bee farm. Sweeeeeet!

A little polkadot

Definitely got to do some toffee apples - Haven't had one of these since I was really little, (for the big kid in us all?)

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Thinking about using the muslin bags as late night snack bags for when the party-goers get the munchies.

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When it comes to a party, you can never have enough bunting in my opinion.

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When the sun goes down, time to start toasting marshmallows.

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Love the idea of the hanging jars. This will look great hanging above the dessert table with bush flowers and tea light candles.

Can't wait to see how it will all come together.

Our little boy is just plane sweet - Up in the air party

We are super excited today as we have just realised that Callum's first birthday party has been chosen to be featured on Babyology, only the BEST website for all things hip and happening in the baby world.   

We have been so overwhelmed by the response to our wee man's first birthday party, thank you all for your lovely comments and feedback. We would love to say a big thank you to Nikki Tandy for featuring us on such a hip website, we really are chuffed !

Callum has been rather obsessed lately with pointing his finger and loves nothing more than pointing to the sky with an excited Oooh Oooh as he watches the planes flying high. Given that he is the first grandchild in the family and that we were also having a naming ceremony for him we wanted it to be a fun celebration for all.

When it came to a theme the idea was 'plane' simple (okay I promise that is the one and only pun). Pale blue, red, white and grey are a favourite colour combination of mine and once I had settled on the little plane the invitations came together really quickly.

The invites were printed on heavy white stock and the edges trimmed with a corner punch. The red envelopes carried through the flying plane motif with the plane stamp found at Kikki-K this was stamped with white ink and then the trailing dashes were individually hand drawn with a white paint pen.

The bamboo cake forks were stamped using a red ink pad and the words "here comes the aeroplane" were hand written on each fork using a light blue paint pen.

Trudy did a fantastic job on the cake. We only had about 30 people attend but we wanted to create height with the two tier cake to enable the silhouette design to really work. The bottom tier is a classic chocolate mud cake and the top tier is a Styrofoam cake dummy. Great idea if you want to save money on cake but still make it look good. 

I discussed with Trudy the idea of having a cake with a silhouette of Callum and myself with him pointing to the plane in the sky. Trudy ran with the idea and after taking a photo and modifying it to a silhouette she hand painted the image onto the cake. The little red plane was hand made out of fondant. I think the whole cake tied in nicely with the invitations and theme I had created.

The dessert table featured a lolly bar with take home lolly bags. The cute muslin drawstring bags were the perfect size for a scoop or two of the lollies and these were personalised with the little plane motif which was printed onto iron-on paper, individually cut out and ironed on. Blue, red and white lollies followed the theme.

Some of the yummy items we created were Vanilla Bean Panna Cotta with Raspberry Coulis. These were served in shot glasses and proved to be a big hit.

A little tip is to tie the spoons to the shot glasses before pouring in the panna cotta and coulis as it is quite a fiddly task and will send you bonkers. Keeping the spoons all to the same side and the ribbon tied at the same height creates a nice uniform effect when lined up together on the platter. The spoons can remain tied to the glasses and refrigerated until you want to serve.

We also wrapped mini Lindt chocolate bars with our own wrappers featuring the words "Our little boy is just plane sweet". These were also the perfect size to fit into the lolly bags.

Trudy made some moreish aeroplane gingerbread cookies covered in red fondant. These were sealed in zip lock bags with a thank-you tag that read "thanks for flying by".

Strawberry and Vanilla macarons were so popular they were snuffled up by the end of the day and the baby blue vanilla marshmallow was also a winner.

No party would be complete without a toast to the birthday boy with these cute little chocolate milk bottles.

Customised bunting printed on 200gsm card stock and then cut out and strung with twine.

The birthday boy cutting his cake and blowing out the candle.

Credits and suppliers:

Cotton muslin bags -Sharnel Dollar Designs

Bamboo cake forks - Donna Hay General Store

Milkglass Cake Stands - Sweet Style

Straws and Mini glass milk bottles - The Little Big Company

Lollies - Goody Goody Gumdrops

Printable Invitations, dessert table signage, lolly bags, thank you tags and bunting - The Little Oak Tree

Cake, cookies and catering - The Little Oak Tree

Photography - The Little Oak Tree

Please drop us an email at thelittleoaktree@exemail.com.au or leave us a comment if you would like any more info on any of the items featured in the party.