We can’t believe it’s almost time to start the new term already! how did that happen?! …Here are some cute back-to-school themed cakes, cookies & projects to get you in the mood!

Image Credits:

Cake / Wreath / Chalkboard / Cookies / Free Printable Lunch Box Notes

Are you having a sweet buffet at your wedding / celebration, or perhaps giving away a jar as wedding favours?  Our work experience student Emily has designed these lovely tags/labels to adorn your jars of treats…

If you’d like to join the library, please email info@inthetreehouse.co.uk with the subject Free Printables Library & we’ll invite you to join. The only stipulation is that you must be a ‘liker’ of our Facebook page, or alternatively a client.

Please show your appreciation for Emily’s work (she created these at the young age of 15! What a talent!) – we’d love your comments on this one please guys…

Enjoy!

Emily, our lovely work experience student has been busy creating this sugary sweet party decoration which would look great over a wedding candy/sweetie buffet. To accompany this, she’s also designing some colourful sweet jar tags for our Free Printables Library later this week… Lucky us!

Here’s the step by step:

- You’ll need a floristry wreath – we recycled this one from our Cocktail Umbrella Wreath DIY project, hence it looks a bit worse for wear!

Recently, Leanne of our Treehouse team was treated to a cupcake decorating masterclass with her aunty Caroline at the wonderful Daisy Cupcakes studio.

We first came across Alison & Daisy Cupcakes when Leanne & Matt, the Treehouse Keeper ordered their incredible wedding cupcakes – they were so impressed with her service and cakes that Caroline & her mum took the opportunity to buy a workshop voucher for Leanne’s birthday. Leanne said it was one of the best presents she’s ever been given…

Caroline says ‘Alison’s cake craft workshops are more than worth the money. Very relaxed, cosy and fun. In just 3 hours, we learnt a lot of Alison’s tricks of the trade. Can’t believe she is happy to tell her tricks to be honest but how fantastic to be able to share something so wonderful and to be such an inspiration to others! Both of us came away creatively satisfied and hugely inspired to have a go ourselves.’

See what delights they’ve since come up with…

These are a selection of some of the beautiful cupcakes Leanne & Caroline have made since attending the Daisy Cupcakes workshop – amazing aren’t they?!

Caroline says: ‘We invested in some tools and equipment the next day, nothing to break the bank, and got going. It’s surprisingly easy, and so satisfying and enjoyable to do. Leanne and I are complete novices yet we are really proud (not to mention surprised) at the results.”

Regular readers may remember that it was recently my little girl’s 3rd birthday – Caroline made these amazing cupcakes to complement our brightly coloured party:

Caroline says: ‘It’s a fantastic skill to have acquired. I cannot recommend these workshops enough, Alison is such a lovely and friendly lady, she made the whole experience enjoyable and has kept in contact with us. Her own cakes are gorgeous little works of art that taste delicious – and, from experience, we can all also thoroughly recommend her own Daisy Cupcakes cakes for order too’

Here’s the birthday girl having a good inspection of them – and they definitely passed the test!! The little ones wolfed them down while many of the grown ups thought the flowers were just too pretty to eat!

Big thanks to Caroline for adding so much to such a special occasion!

I can’t encourage you enough to check out Alison of Daisy Cupcakes amazing creations, as well as her tuition which as you can see, speaks for itself!

It was our little girl’s third birthday party at the weekend – big thanks to all our friends and family who joined us and made it so special… Unfortunately, I barely remembered to take a single photo of the occasion (isn’t that always the way?!) We had a ‘Countries of the World’ theme for the party and I thought I would take 10 minutes out of the extensive quantity of design proofs I have to get through tonight to bring you a blog about some of the ideas/details we incorporated. The whole concept of party themes has a bit of a marmite effect – some people love them and some people hate them. In this case, I wasn’t actively trying to think of a theme for the party at all, but when we put together our invitation list, the vast and varied heritage of our friends and family really stuck me, and we decided to celebrate it – hence our ‘Countries of the World’ theme was born.

-Paper Airplane competition – this ended up being mainly a game for the dads! Just give anyone who wants to play a sheet of paper (we used airmail handmade paper from Paperchase) and 30 seconds to make their planes. We had two rounds, distance flying and precision flying!

- Mexican paper garlands – these beautiful decorations are really good value and very bright and cheerful.

- World music – there are loads of compilation CDs available but for us, it was an opportunity for my other half to traipse the internet for a good few hours putting together the playlist – any excuse!

- ‘Around the world’ puzzle, it’s so lovely, both for the party and for home.

- (Above) This Travel Doodling & Colouring Book by Usborne made the perfect Pass-the-Parcel treat.

- I collected some hats from far & wide from charity shops, for some reason, they were mostly worn by the grown ups!

- I got these African percussion instruments and foreign children’s costumes from our local Plymouth Play Association – (box of instruments £4 to hire, costumes £1 each for a week).

Hi all – I hope everyone’s had a great weekend… Sorry it’s been a little quieter than usual on the blog, we’ve been up to our eyes in design proofs, finding a premises for our vastly expanding team and hosting my little one’s 3rd birthday party yesterday – it was a really special day with our family and friends there to celebrate the occasion with us. I’ll be posting various features this week with cute party ideas, but for today, I wanted to share with you the latest addition to our Free Printables Library - these cute popcorn bag labels:

These make an exciting snack at any party or wedding, and are really easy and cost effective to produce. Simply order some striped sweet bags online (e.g. they’re a few pounds for 100 from Ebay). Fill them with yummy popcorn (we got a few supsersize bags of Butterkist from the supermarket), and stick on our cute and colourful labels. The popcorn stays fresh for around 48 hours, so you can prepare them in good time.

If you’d like to join our Free Printables Library, you must be a client from past or present, or a ‘liker’ of our Facebook page. SImply email us at info@inthetreehouse.co.uk with the subject Free Printables Library and we’ll invite you to join. We use an online file sharing system whereby the print-ready PDFs take up no space on your computer…

Hope you like them!

Morning all! Continuing with the party preparations for our little girls upcoming birthday bash, today’s blog post features the party bags we’ve been preparing. As we’re having loads of bright colours to decorate the hall, I wanted the party bags to reflect this while still having a natural and recycled look, and first and foremost for them to be cost effective – the idea for these homemade pinwheel party bags came after much pondering! There’s a DIY tutorial of how to make the pinwheels here on our Facebook page – they’re so simple and quick to make, and you can stick them on anything!

If you’re curious about the goodies we found to go inside the party bags, all is revealed here…

Morning all – so, it’s currently 01:57am and I’m sat fuzzily gazing at my new Macbook Pro blogging about homemade party decorations involving about a hundred tiny paper umbrellas. Thank goodness I love my job. Life In the Treehouse has reached its craziest heights yet, and we are pulling off some pretty horrendous hours at the moment to get all our orders fulfilled and keep things ticking over. If you are waiting on an email from us, please do give us a nudge and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. Before I crack on with showing you the latest in our instalments of DIY projects, let me share some VERY good news – we have a new full time member of staff starting on 8th May who’ll be working as a Design Assistant to complete client’s proofs where an order for our existing designs has been placed. (I will remain the only designer taking care of bespoke work and new ranges). Matt has a wealth of experience in the design and print industry and I am so excited about the contribution I know he’ll make to In the Treehouse. I look forward to introducing you soon.

So, on to today’s feature – as regular readers may be aware, it’s party time in our house soon – our beautiful, wonderful, ray-of-sunshine little girl is turing 3. I’ve been trying to plan the party in small chunks over the last 3 months, as it’s rather a big one. 85 and counting on the guest list. a hall to decorate. tummies to feed. fun to be had. invitations to be sent. major disasters to avoid. I know what you’re thinking – it sounds like a ridiculous amount of party for a 3rd birthday  - this is the influence the Nigerian half of our family brings, and I’ll admit, her first birthday party was a bit of a terrifying affair to plan (I am English after all – wouldn’t a cup of tea and a game of ‘pass the parcel’ be more appropriate?) – year 2 was wonderful. Year 3, Temisan is soooooo excited and so much more involved in making decorations, proudly giving out her invitations and making the party bags. Apart from anything else, given the fact that I have literally had the social life of a squirrel in hibernation for the last year while setting up In the Treehouse, I just cannot wait to get all our friends & family together and have fun…

Our latest party decoration experiment worked out pretty well, even if I do say so myself:

So simple, no need for a step by step tutorial with this one – I just bought a foam floristry wreath from ebay.com (around £2.50), as well as a box of cocktail umbrellas. We cut down the umbrella sticks by around an inch each so they wouldn’t go through the other side of the wreath, then one by one, just stick them in until it’s covered. Suspend from a bright strip of paper and hey presto!

Over the next few weeks, stay tuned for loads more party ideas, cheap to produce, fun to make and pretty exciting to look at…. Come back soon

You may have noticed that whenever a special time of year comes around, I search the web for some inspiring little treats to get us in the spirit! With Easter in mind, I had fun finding these – hope you like them.

I love these cute little Spring garden cupcakes above!

Easter Nests by the Vanilla Clouds & Lemon Drops blog – Ah, now here’s a recipe I could manage! These really take me back…

These Easter Bunnies look kind of achievable don’t you think? I might try them with my little one soon…

This week, I’ve started to think about my little girl’s 3rd birthday party in April (trying to do a little bit of organising every week so it doesn’t just creep up on me!) - I know I want some watermelon there somewhere, so did a bit of research and am feeling just teeny weeny bit inspired by these cool ideas… Hope you like them! x

I love these cookies! (although somehow, I doubt they’d look quite like this if I cooked them!) http://glorioustreats.blogspot.com/2011/05/watermelon-shaped-cookies.html

Watermelon Frosty: http://kblog.lunchboxbunch.com/2011/05/watermelon-frosty-or-margarita.html

Watermelon Ice Cream Cones: http://www.bakersroyale.com/fruit/fruit-salad-ice-cream-cone/

Now this one is ambitious! Watermelon Shark: http://www.watermelon.org/Carvings/Shark-30.aspx

Watermelon Lollies – these look fun! http://hiphiphoorayblog.com/

Watermelon Stars - little bitesize chunks of fun! http://hiphiphoorayblog.com/

These amazing little Reindeer treats were made by Bakerella (www.bakerella.com), who are maestros in cake pops – Cake Pops have been storming the internet steadily over the last few years, as they can be decorated in so many ways and are (supposedly) easy to make. I decided to take on the challenge with my lovely 2 year old, and make some reindeers of our own for her nursery Children In Need party.

Cake Pops are made by crumbling up a baked cake, mixing in melted butter, sugar and cream cheese, rolling them into little balls and baking them. The crumbling job is fab for little ones, (although can be messy!). As we had limited time, instead of baking the initial cake to crumble up, I bought ready made plain fairy cakes from the supermarket.

My regular blog readers will know from my attempt at Creepy Cobweb Cupcakes a few weeks back – it seems I’m not destined to be one of those mums who can make a recipe actually look how it’s supposed to! In fact, it turns out I’m the sort of mum who remembers at 8:30am that my child has a ‘Pirate Party’ at 9am that same morning, scurries around looking for stuff to make a costume out of, gets her to the party in an outfit made of an old haloween outfit and some bin bags (so sorry love) and then is told the party is indeed next week. hmmm.

Our reindeer cake pops turned out like this:

So  first of all, obviously they didn’t reach actual cake pop status (ie: they’re not on sticks) – truth be told, the stubbon little reindeer outright refused, and promptly fell to bits when I threatened them with sticks. Still, I think ours are rather full of character, they tasted good and my little girl and I had a great time doing it together. Unfortunately, seeing as there were meant to be 12 (one for each child at nursery), and only 5 made it this far, we had to buy shop bought cakes and eat these ourselves. All in all, not the most succesful baking venture I’ve embarked on! If you fancy having a go at cake pops, (I’m sure you’ll do better than we did!) have a look at this video tutorial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXCm7XTKXRc - I couldn’t find inctructions for Bakerellas Reindeer Cake Pops, and although it’s seemingly not a good idea to take inspiration from mine, I used Curly Wurlys for the antlers, white chocolate chips for the eyes, mini smarties for the noses and some tube piping icing for the smiles. If you have a go, we’d love to see some photos of how you get on, and share them with readers & facebook followers – email photos to info@inthetreehouse.co.uk xxx

My 2 year old and I made these this morning – (I should point out that she was only responsible for stirring the chocolate, and the icing was all down to me) it’s safe to say I won’t be giving up my day job any time soon! We had a fun & messy time making them though. If you fancy seeing if you can do a better job than me, follow instructions at http://halloweenerrific.co.uk/halloween-food-2/top-5-halloween-cupcakes. Good luck!

A little DIY project for you today: our take on the tissue paper pom poms which have been a major trend in the wedding industry of late. Using doilies indtead adds that extra touch of femininity and also speeds up the process a lot – These ones took me around 5 minutes each to make. I love Pom Poms as they’re a great high impact, low budget addition to a wedding reception and you can easily tie in the colours to compliment your styling.

Morning all, hope everyone’s feeling good this Tuesday morning… Here’s a sneaky peak of a bespoke birthday party invitation I designed for little Reuben, son of fabulous vintage wedding planner Tiffany Grant-Riley of http://www.grantrileyweddings.co.uk/. Tiffany is one of the leading ladies of the wedding indtustry and so I was delighted to be asked to design her own little one’s party stationery:

Tiffany wanted something really bright, good fun and memorable and so I incoporated lots of colour, pattern & had a great time with fonts to create the invitation. We provided a mixture of red, blue, green, purple & yellow envelopes to give them that final finsihing touch. Read all about little Reuben’s big birthday bash at http://grantrileyweddings.blogspot.com/2011/10/mini-monsieur-1st-birthday.html

It’s time for another great little DIY project today, involving my latest craft discovery – Japanese Washi Tape (pretty, patterned & colourful masking tape)… This teeny, tiny, two-minute bunting will brighten up pretty much anything, not to mention the many uses for it at a wedding including to decorate your tables, chairs, cake and loads more!

As always, if you give this a go we’d love to hear from you (and see your pictures too!)

Loving today’s DIY project – they’re great for using as place cards at weddings (just stamp on names instead of initials), in centrepieces or as favours… Quick, cheap, simple & fun to make – they’ll brighten up your tables a treat!

If you’re having traditional lawn games at your wedding such as the Egg & Spoon race, Welly Boot Throwing & Sack Races, how about using these as Rosettes for the winners -(minus the straw and with an addition of a safety pin stuck to the back).

As always, you’re more than welcome to ask questions, comment or let us know how you got on making these yourself… Just drop us an email at info@inthetreehouse.co.uk

For more of our DIY projects, click on the tab ‘DIY by In the Treehouse’ below:

Day 3 of our Little Ones’ Week and it’s time to launch our new mini-prints for kids. These cute designs named ‘Mr. Robot’ and ‘Owling Around’ are  illustrated by hand and then digitally ‘scrapbooked’ in Treehouse style with loads of colour, pattern and happiness! They’re perfect for wedding favours or children’s party gifts at only £3 each (this includes the personalisation & framing). With the minis there’s a minimum order of 5, however if you’d like just one for a special little one in your life, we do larger ones in Vintage Style white frames for £15.

Above: “Owling Around”

Above: “Mr. Robot”

Sooo excited to bring you some great ideas for children’s wedding place settings tomorrow! …some really fun and innovative ideas which I can’t wait to share x