Twirl with Tulle

I think I can never ever get enough of tulle in all shades of pink.

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much love

A Fairy Garden Tea Party: Cassandra and Camilla turn 1!

This post is long overdue I know. I think it took me so long to organize my thoughts on how this entry ought to be. I have so much aspects of this that I want to share, from the planning to the actual execution of everything to how the party went. I want this post to be as helpful as possible to other moms out there who wants what's best that their budget would allow.  I am no expert. I will admit to that now. I still hope you guys will be able to pick up a thing or two. 

Tea Party for Two set up in front

On picking a Theme

I immediately knew that I wanted to do a Tea Party. My favorite pasalubong from my dad growing up was this pink tea set and this Barbie doll from my sister that she got from London that spews phrases in a Brit accent. "Let's have a tea party" Oh so posh right??? My initial plan matured into a Fairy Garden Tea Party theme during the planning process.  My sister was going to be doing my dessert spread and we both have this vision of how we want pastels and blooms for the cake and desserts.  Then I have the image of my girls in wings so they just got to be fairies in there too! We were overwhelmed by ideas that we wanted. The hard part was narrowing down the elements that we will include. Since the theme was abstract in nature, not concentrating on a cartoon character or a movie, it is important to keep the focus. Gladly after much deliberation, we were able to settle on colors and the elements that we will include.

On Decorations

What I like about conceptual themes is that the possibilities are endless! Again what you have to watch out for is having too much ideas that you want to execute. Think of your budget, time constraint, physical capability (if you have to do some DIY) and of course how they will look altogether! Choose areas that you will splurge on and which ones you are willing to compromise. I decided that I will concentrate my efforts on making my centrepieces. Each table had a green teapot I scored for php 50 each at Dapitan used as vase for pink roses, a mayo jar (we collected from other households) again as vase for alstroemeria and a picture frame from Regalong Pambahay showcasing Sandra and Lila's monthsary photos as table numbers. We also placed white cups with pink pretzels for snacking before we opened the buffet since we didn't hire food carts anymore.

What was such a challenge for me was thinking of what to do for the stage area. Gone were the days when we can easily just have a tarp printed and put two balloon standees on each side. What was a major challenge too was figuring out how to stick things without doing damage to the wall. I am so lucky to have Ycoy of La Belle Fete a cousin of mine and at that time, soon-to-be "boss", swooped in at the last minute and created my back drop. We used my divider at home and stuck butterflies as if they are a flutter. The effect is subtle yet simply stunning! We just topped it off with two huge portraits of the girls and placed topiaries to achieve the garden feel.

With Ycoy Sitchon of La Belle Fete and my sister dearest of Sucrerie

What we decided to splurge on are the food and entertainment. We hired a great magician/host named Alex through Bing Daza of Dazzling Celebrations. Our food was catered by Hizon's Catering and our dessert spread is by my sister. I am so lucky that she has added baking and cake designing on to her resume. Our dessert spread and birthday cake were made by her. Everything was wiped out in such a short time I wasn't even able to try any! Our sweets spread boasted of Neapolitan cake, vanilla lemon filled cupcakes, meringue bites, madeleines, and egg candy balls.

She conceptualized and made every single thing in this dessert spread!

I was already so impressed with this cake and this was before my sister took additional lessons to refine her craft.

And just to tie everything together and reinforce our theme, I asked my friend Sygryd of The Playground to design our invitation, food labels, stickers for the loot bags and the tea bag labels for the giveaways.  

A closer look on the labels designed by Sygryd of The Playground! She captured our theme perfectly!

To show our thanks to our guests we handed out teacup with tea bag tags and sugar cookies made by my sister of course!

Another nice touch would be for the celebrant's family to dress up in theme! I am so happy and proud my boys were also willing to look dapper for the day =)

My family say hi to you all!

All in all what is really important are the kids right? If I were to do things differently I would have sat back and relaxed more! HAHA I am always in a frantic frenzy during our events! I really wish I was able to take more photos with my kids and with our guests! At the end of the day we just really have to let it go and enjoy! 

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much love

P.S 

To help you with your party planning!

Divisoria Mall and 168 Mall

The best place to score for prizes and small knick knacks for your loot bags. 

Tabora Street

For your crafting and DIY needs 

Dapitan

I scored my tea pots and tea cups here. They have a lot of ceramics, plates, cake stands and a whole lot more!

Regalong Pambahay

They have a warehouse along Pioneer where everything is 20% off.

Baby Monthsaries 1-11!

I know I promised a post on my Twins' Monthsary Pictorials so here goes...

Like I explained in my previous post (here) each one is significant to the current physical/emotional stage they were at at that time. Well ok fine - also my whims and moods!

As they were only capable of lying on their backs obviously - this is their 1st month photo! I was so happy my sister was starting a cake decorating class at that time and we were able to borrow a mock cake! teehee I aslo thought of a constant which is the picture frame with the month on it!

On their 2nd Month it may seem that they regressed! HAHA They are not even awake in this photo! I placed them in their changing table just to have a different setting. 

On their 3rd month I felt it would be appropriate to dress em up already! So out came the gingham dresses! YAY! haha They were also starting to sit up with support so hence this position. It took many tries since Lila kept on falling onto Sandra - after a dozen tries I decided to just go with it! Turns out nicely still I think!

On their 4th Month I wanted to show them sitting on their respective Bumbos but to no avail. They kept squirming and getting off! So I had to make do with this! Make sense too since they have mastered supporting their heads up at this point! This is actually one of my faves too. And take note, they are already sporting the headbands that I made. I think it was around this time as well that I got a yaya. 

Sooooo! This the 5th month was when I was all excited since they were more agile and mobile! Silly me! Of course that also meant a harder time to get them to stay put for a photo!  All I got from outtakes were them trying to have a go at my camera! Glad was able to capture this one =)

Look at my babies all behaved at 6 months. NOT! I had extra hands to help me with this. Good thing mom was here as she didn't want to miss their first feeding! HAHA It is really a miracle I capture these things!

7 months was all about crawling and crawling and grabbing. This pretty much showed that.  You can just imagine my frustration at this time! This was literally a work out for me! I had to keep going back and forth trying to put them in their proper place!

At 8 months my babies have perfected standing up! This photo is so inspired right?? HAHA Even took the effort to have a theme and make them tutus! This was also around the time we got this miracle of a mat (I forgot the brand but it is available at Hobbes and Landes) . Best buy ever as this allowed them to explore without getting hurt! It is soft yet sturdy so they can easily tread on it and roll around. 

Another inspired post! I cannot help it when I checked that the RL coat their godmother gave them fits already! So I just had to have this shot done! They took turns wearing that coat but it fit Sandra better =) So Lila had some fix up from Momma the Stylist! HAHA What she is wearing is a dress turned backwards =p See also that the picture frame is already MIA. I tried but gave up when all they was have a go at it!

At 10 months was when they had their first swim! Their late christmas gift from another godmother came in handy too! Aren't they just adorable in their swimsuits?? =)

And on their 11th month I was seriously in full party prep mode.  I was already done with their headpieces and made them wear this flower blooms! My cute little fairies!!!

I hope you guys enjoyed looking through their 1st year with me. I'm getting all teary eyed but really I just can't wait for them to keep surprising me. They are growing up into such beautiful individuals and shaping up to be unique from each other it is getting me all excited.

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much love