Afternoon Tea Baby Shower

This year has been full of pregnant ladies and babies, and two of those pregnant ladies just so happen to be my sister and her sister-in law. This seemed like a perfect excuse to make up a dessert table and have an afternoon tea (here is the first dessert table we did). Afternoon tea's and dessert table's are brilliant because they give you the creative licence to do whatever you want with the decor and the menu.

We decided to make the invitations ourselves (which we had a lot of fun doing), most of the pom poms were home made as was the bunting hanging from the table. Food wise we had a mix of home made and shop bought which turned out really well, because if you don't have time to make all the food there are so many bakery's, deli's and other food places that do brilliant food for occasions like this. It always worth having a look around in your local area for places like that. For serving dishes we used a combination of things that all three of us had, what our mothers had and we hired the tea cups and tea pots from the bakery where we got the cake from (And the dish ran away with the spoon). Flowers also make everything look prettier, we decided on one big pitcher of flowers and a few smaller jars of flowers dotted around the table.

All in all I think it was a big success and it just goes to show that a mix of home made and shop bought can work really well, and just have fun with it. Here is the vlog of the whole thing

  

Dubai Diaries: Travelling

At the end of august my sister and her family got to go to Dubai for a month. I was really happy for her but there was small part of me that wanted to go as well seeing it had been about 6 years since I had been on a holiday. About a week before they were going to go my mum suggested that I should go and see them while they were out there. So next thing you know I'm booking my plane tickets, hotel room and getting very excited to go to Dubai for a week. This was the first time I was travelling abroad on my own and I was rather excited. I watched a couple of films, read my book and had some surprisingly good plane food and before I knew it I was in Dubai. So here is just a little video of my flight and getting to my hotel.

First Birthday Party

Now we all know that children never remember their first birthday party, so bearing that in mind my sister really wasn't intending to do anything for my niece's first birthday. Also it did come a day before my cousin's wedding and everyone was busy with that. However my mother, brother in-law and sister's father in-law started talking about do something for the occasion. On the actual day we just had an impromptu lighting of candles on a bakery bought cake with just the people who were already over at our house. Then a week later we ended up doing a proper thing at my sister's in-laws. This was an excuse to make up a dessert table, which to be honest me, my sister and her sister in-law were more excited about putting that together than anything else. Here are some pictures from the occasion.

I wasn't going to put any pictures of the impromptu thing but I like this
 picture of my brother in-law light the candle

On the party day, barbecue on the menu

It was lovely eating in the garden 

For the dessert table: Brownies with hearts on made by me 

Biscuits made buy my sister's cousin in-law 

Vanilla cupcakes with strawberries and Thorntons smiles on top of buttercream
made but my sister's sister in-law

The whole dessert table 

Buttons, paper straws and mini spinning wheels  

Chocolate cupcakes with white chocolate buttercream and gold glitter covered cherries, also made by my sister's sister in-law

Even though my niece was actually asleep when we did the actual cake cutting a lot of fun was had. I can't believe my niece is actually 1 years old mashallah, it just seems like yesterday my sister told us she was expecting. Here's wishing her a long, happy and prosperous life inshallah.

Vintage Tea Party

The other day me and few of the ladies in my family attended a charity Vintage Tea Party at The Living Room in Manchester. It was hosted by Islamic Help who are a volunteer run charity and are the founders of the Smiles Better campaign. The Smiles Better campaign works with people who have been victims of acid burns. They help victims who live in counties that don't have the adequate medical and legal help to restore their lives after these horrific attacks. They have other charity events going on through out the year if vintage tea parties aren't your thing just check out their website or Facebook page to find out what they are doing next. Unfortunately we had to leave a bit early but here are a few pictures from the event:

Loved the tea set 

Mmmmm cake

Islamic Help Cake 

You can't have a tea party without tea

Loved the lights and drapes

We did a 'get to know each other' game and this is what we ended up with 

Had the pleasure of meeting the lovely Amena of Pearl Daisy

Of course it was raining on the way home