Thursday 17th December, 2009

Merry Christmas From Bridal Survival

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From all of us here at Bridal Survival, we wish you a very Merry Christmas! To all of our customers, collegues and friends- we have so enjoyed you being with us in 2009! We’re looking forward to great new things in 2010!

Bridal Survival will be open for shopping through the Christmas period, however new orders will not be dispatched between the 18th of December 2009 and the 4th of January 2010.

Filled under: Bridal Survival News Posted by:  at 3:21 pm
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Wednesday 16th December, 2009

Roll Up Roll Up To the Circus Party!

We were a little eager yesterday to get this entry up- so we posted our we love Wednesday early! When we said we loved the circus recently, we had a plan in mind! While this isn’t quite wedding related, with all the talk of beautiful parties around the blogosphere – we decided to share the party we recently threw for a 30th birthday in early November!

The birthday boy was a shy one, so we decided a barbecue in a park, surrounded by friends and family was the perfect way to celebrate. We chose to surprise him with the theme (which made it all the more fun to decorate for us!)

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We decided a 30th should be fun so chose the Roll Up Circus invitation from Alannah Rose Stationery. We found great circus fonts on the iDiY blog and created maps for guests and stickers for the back of the envelopes.

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We made bunting from cotton fabric (bought from Spotlight) in pale blue, royal blue and red fabrics alternating between checks and solids. Red, pale blue and dark blue balloons from Pink Frosting were tied with red and blue ribbon into big bunches and hung onto every point of the rotunda.

We know adults like a few drinks! So we bought big plastic tubs in reds and blues from Bunnings and filled them with ice. A circus themed birthday banner was designed by Charmed Beginnings on Etsy.

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Each table was dressed with a pale blue cover from Spotlight and red and white striped table runners from Details Details.

We sat galvanised tin buckets full of smarties and blue foil covered mints on each table filled with pinwheels. On recommendation of Gigi & Lulu, we bought instructions, sticks, pins and beads from Pinwhirls and set about making masses of pinwheels using red, blue and white paper form our local scrapbooking shop. To make the paper double sided, we printed fun patterns of stars, stripes, polka dots, checks and circles onto the blank sides.

We bought a few sets of juggling balls on ebay to keep guests entertained- we had a few amateur jugglers there on the day who were able to entertain the crowd with their skills!

As a sweet treat, we made white chocolate chip cookies in the shape of stars and elephants (cutter bought from Bake It Pretty) and decorated them with brightly coloured smarties. Each guest was given a red foam nose or stick on false moustache bought from ebay to get into the spirit of the festivities.

It’s certainly not a circus without popcorn, so we bought the good stuffed! Hot buttery popcorn was freshly popped from Flossy’s Fairy Floss, our popcorn boxes came from Bake It Pretty.

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Our favourite part of the day, was indeed, our lolly buffett! We laid a handmade red and white striped table cloth and packed the table full of circus treats! Freshly popped from Flossy’s Fairy Floss, filled popcorn boxes came from Bake It Pretty, galvanised tin buckets held single serves of white raspberry fairy floss from Flossy’s Fairy Floss, jam jars were filled with lollipops.

We placed traditional red toffee apples from Toffee Apples onto white trays,  red and white striped paper drinking straws from Bake It Pretty were a fun touch for guests drinks. White paper bags tied with red ribbon and the Roll Up Circus gift tags from Alannah Rose Stationery acted as guest’s gift bags to be filled with sweet treats. Handmade signs printed in red and blues invited guests to dig in!

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To top it off, the birthday boy’s favourite cake (chocolate of course!) took centre stage!

Of course, being a wedding blog and all, we do hav to bring this back to Bridal Survival! So here are our survival tips for a stress free birthday party (especially helpful if you’re away from home like we were!).

– Buy online! Except for our scrapbooking paper, the ice tubs, the party bags, lollies and a few things at Spotlight (table cloths, bunting etc) we bought everything online. As an online business, we’re obviously big supporters of online shopping but it also made everything so easy! We didn’t have to trek all over town to pick things up and everything came straight to our door! We could have bought even more online had we been more organised!

– Book the venue! We knew the park we had chosen for the party was very popular for picnic gors and so we made the decision to book our rotunda. It did cost money but it was such a relief to know we had our venue and didn’t have to get there at 3am and camp out! We arrived on the day to a sign with the birthday boy’s name on it and the ease of knowing the venue was ours for the day.

– Pack a box of essentials (we almost packed our bridal emergency kit but did resist!) including sticky tape, suncream, scissors, matches, string, tea twoels, garabage bags and anything else you think you might need. This was close by to us the entire time and came in handy endlessly!

– Pack items in order of getting them out. We used our big plastic tubs for the drinks from Bunnings as storage for all of our party goods. We placed everything in order of how they needed to come out- table cloths were put on the top with table runners, while juggling balls were on the bottom.

– Tablecloths make a colourful decoration abut are also wonderful for covering picnic tables which are often not the cleanest surfaces for eating off of.

– Pre prepare as much as you can! We were lucky and had the popcorn pre popped, so all we really had to do was make salads, make our circus style cookies and chop onions. This saved us so much time!

– Do A run through the week before. Obsessive much? Perhaps slightly! But when you’re taking a candy buffet to a park far away from your house, you have to be prepared! We set it up the week beforehand on the dining room table to check we had everything and what didn’t work. It helped us prepare things like stacking our popcorn boxes inside of each other (folding them out on the day would have taken a lot of time and they’re a little uneven when first folded) and allowed us to work out how we were going to place everything. This meant on the day everything went straight onto the table without much fluff.

– Ice, ice & more ice! We bought ice the morning of the party go pull pre made salads out of the fridge and put them straight into eskys with ice. Once arriving at the venue, we went and got more ice for the drinks. Nothing like keeping something cold on a hot day!

– Buy single serve drinks. We’re still sad our favourite coloured fizzy drink Izzie Soda isn’t sold in Australia! But we did make the decision to buy all of our drinks in single serves- it allows guests to choose what they wanted themselves without worrying about spillage or heavy bottles, eliminated the need for a lot of cups and meant we didn’t end up with 10 half finished bottles to store! Instead the left overs stay unopened, fizzy and will easily be consumed by us over the festive season!  To make the drinks more festive, we used red and white paper straws from Bake It Pretty.

– Be realistic! As much as perfectly iced cookies, cupcakes and unwrapped glistening toffee apples would have been wonderful on our buffet- had the temperature soared, it would have been one sticky mess! With no way of keeping the heat from our sweet treats, we chose plastic wrapped items that wouldn’t melt!

– Limit breakables. This sounds really obvious but with a lolly table it isn’t! We used tin and plastic (easily found at Ikea, partyware stores, Bunnings or packaging places) to ensure there were no nasty breakages on the day. The best part is, all of it is reusable for future parties and is light and easy to store.

– Don’t underestimate adults love of fun! We had a lot of fun with our guests- red noses, moustaches and juggling balls and even the pinwheels got a workout with guests creating fields of pinwheels around the rotunda.

– Enlist the help of friends! A great girl (who also designed our gorgeous blog!) after hearing about our circus theme, .lent us the carnival goodies from her daughter’s carnival party. Although with the threat of a downpour we didn’t end up using them, they would have been perfect! Pru also gave us the tip off for our fantastic pinwheels! Those who throw amazing children’s parties are a wealth of ideas who often share the love with the great goodies they’ve purchased or ideas (Thanks Pru!)

In true Bridal Survival style- we celebrated a 30th and survived!

Filled under: Bridal Survival Tips, Joyous Ideas Posted by:  at 3:00 pm
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Tuesday 15th December, 2009

We Love…Christmas

Oh we love Christmas! From fairy lights across the rooftops to decorating the Christmas tree! So many beautiful things to discover and so much magic to revel in!

Here are some of our favourite things this Christmas from around the web!

Christmas Cupcake Wrappers from The Cupcake Wrapper Co

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Christmas cards from We Are Messengers

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Wooden deer from Hart & Heim

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Christmas Advent Calendar from Kikki K

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Clove Christmas bauble from Oxfam Unwrapped

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Decoration kit from Polli

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Filled under: We Love Wednesdays Posted by:  at 11:22 am
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Wednesday 09th December, 2009

We Love…Cinnamon

We know this is technically a winter subject, but with the heating on and the rain pouring down, we figured we might be able to get aware with sharing our love of this old spice!

Cinnamon – the word conjures up spiciness, richness and warmth. Taken from a tropical tree the cinnamon bark is rolled while still pliable to form sticks, or ground to make a powder.

The colour is a beautiful russet brown and the smell is warm and spicy. Use the dried sticks of cinnamon in a jar as a casual table arrangement or amongst various seed pods. Tie them up with a rustic bow in a bunch and lie them on a special platter. When their delightful smell fades, sand them lightly and their perfume will be released into the room.
Use the colour as inspiration for a decorating scheme. Team with pale greys, browns, creams, copper and pewter.

Cinnamon comes into its own in food. Think baked apples, custard, baked creamy rice with cinnamon sprinkled on top and cinnamon buns. Any fruit such as pears in red wine, apricots stewed in almond flavoured syrup, or ruby coloured quinces benefit from this most versatile of spices. A mug of hot chocolate or coffee with cinnamon sprinkled on top or a cinnamon stick used as a stirrer is a real treat now that the weather is cooler.

Cinnamon Orange Molasses Cookies from Martha Stewart

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Mulled Cranberry Cider from Martha Stewart

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Apple Cinnamon Rum from Martha Stewart

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Cinnamon Toast from Martha Stewart

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Filled under: We Love Wednesdays Posted by:  at 2:05 pm
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Tuesday 08th December, 2009

Apple Love

We think this photo by Elizabeth Messina is beautiful. Imagine the crisp red of a beautiful apple, marrying under red and green apple trees, serving toffee apples, apple pies…the list goes on!

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Filled under: Joyous Ideas Posted by:  at 9:47 am
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