Karen's baby shower

  

In my family- nothing is really done in halves. I mean even a quiet dinner can mean that all of a sudden more than a dozen people are here- ready to eat, and all talk so loudly that I swear my neighbours must wonder what goes on inside LOL!

My beautiful cousin is pregnant with her second (and long awaited) baby. She already has a little boy- Lachlan- and very soon there will be another addition to the family.

The following images will no doubt reveal the baby's predicted gender- after all even though we have pretty high tech scanning equipment- it can some times get it wrong ( well we hope not- but it can and has happened).

Karen's baby shower was a collective effort between myself and my sisters. I am in full swing with peak wedding season- and I still wanted Karen's baby shower to be picture perfect, so getting my more than capable family to help was a terrific choice.

Alex looked after the invitations, she made the savoury scrolls- did some styling and organised the games- and Kate- well she provided me with a recipe for her CWA Ginger Slice ( which I must admit is pretty awesome tasting) and also helped with the setting up on the day.

There are allot of grand ideas- when it comes to cake design- from my family. Yes they do come up with some fantastic concepts- but when you have handfuls of paying clients who have ordered their cakes well in advance- anything for the family certainly gets tamed down to what you can "fit in". 

I had in mind what I wanted to do for Karen- and knowing that I had other cupcakes to bake for that week- it was going to be pretty convenient to make her a cupcake baby shower cake.

For any of you that know the Pink Cake Box- form the US- I just LOVE their work! They often do pregnant lady cake toppers and I thought that would be super sweet for Karen too.

I have only ever had to make a pregnant lady ( and that was years ago as a bride topper) so it was a bit of fun for me too.

I learned that I definitely needed to give the mini me a bigger belly!

I had to get this "naked" shot- as I thought the belly looked pretty proportionate- but once dressed- I thought it could have been a bit bigger for effect. 

 

I dressed the topper in a cute chocolate brown dress and left the topper bare foot- barefoot and pregnant hehehe!  

 Keeping with the invitation pink and purple theme- almost every item was coloured to match.

For those of you who read my previous post- you would have read that I recently got some new "toys" and I would be delusional to think that these are the last of my purchases that I will be able to share with you- but for this post I can share about the fabulous mini baby theme biscuit cutters and impression mats I just got.

I have known about these for years- and while I have wanted to order them from the US for some time now- the postage was exorbitant from the manufacturer- luckily- when shopping for a completely different sugar craft product ( yes that is how it usually goes with me) I stumbled across a supplier who had the cutter and mat sets (yes there is other shapes which I may or may not have purchased too....) who was in Australia and who had reasonable postage YEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So with my bib and onsie cookie cutter sets I made gorgeous little vanilla sable biscuits - iced in pink purple and white fondant. Being extremely time poor that week- my original vision of creating a biscuit bouquet- and putting all of the biscuits onto sticks was turfed in favour of arranging the biscuits into the cute apothecary jars I had from earlier in the year.

The table was laden with all things pink- if you didn't have high blood sugar before coming over- then you certainly did have by the time you left.

 

I had also received the Bakerella Cake Pops book in the mail the previous week ( all this online shopping sounds like I have a small problem........) So Cake pops were a definite addition to the table.

The cake pops were yet another family task- Alex rolled the balls of cake- Mum Dipped and decorated them- nice work family!

If you haven't seen Bakerella- check her out- just magic indeed!

Mum had free reign over the cake pop decorations- so it was dark chocolate coating (over red velvet and ganache cake pops- High Extreme GI in case you are wondering) with little pink and purple blossoms to decorate.

There were Musk sticks and Marshmallows- CWA Slice and cupcakes-  Cookies and Cake pops- Fruit Kebabs- as well as Savoury Scrolls, mini Quiches and Sandwiches- and last but not least Strawberry Bavarois- YUM!

A tower of  cupcakes- with the pregnant mummy topper sat in the middle of the table.  

Tiny folded toweling nappies, baby bottles, booties and open gift boxes also decorated the top.

One of my wholesalers had some gorgeous new sugar pearls - which were too pretty not to get and they looked so sweet on top of the cupcakes too.

There was even a deep pink punch- non alcoholic of course. And little take home boxes- that soon needed to be upgraded to larger carry boxes- over cater- never!

 It was a fun afternoon with games and laughter.

Here is the gorgeous Mum to be Karen!

So not long to go now until Karen has her bundle of joy!

Looking forward to sharing some baby pictures when she arrives!

Thanks for reading!

SJ