Memories are made of this...

On Saturday I held a party for my Dad's 80th birthday

 He knew he was having a little family party at ours, what he didn't know was that my brother and his family would join us. My brother is a busy university professor and spends a lot of time out of the country. M and I decided on this date for the party a long time ago. We had thought about going out for a meal but then I decided that what could be real fun would be to have an old fashioned party like the ones my M and I had as kids and that I gave to my own children when they were young. My Dad's face was a picture when my brother, sister in law and 2 grown up nieces appeared at the party.

Obviously for a birthday I needed to make one of my cakes. Some weeks ago I got busy designing the plaque. I decided to make one of my popular "exploding" plaques.

I got busy cutting out lots of stars from fondant icing  using my star plunger cutter. I also made some candle holders with the icing. I made a champagne bottle and cork out of the icing.

I wired up some of the stars and pushed them into the neck of the "bottle". I added an 80 to the "label".
I cut out a plaque, piped the words "Congratulations Dad" using royal icing and then added lots of the stars. I really like the bright bold colours.

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This was my finished design which I was able to get made a few weeks ahead.  This meant that all I had to do was to stand  it on the cake (which  I made it on Friday afternoon after work).

Personally I prefer lemon cake but most of my family love my traditional Victoria Sponge with butter cream filling and raspberry conserve.  Here is the cake sliced and spread all ready to put together on Saturday morning.

And here is my finished cake all ready on the table. We had a traditional party tea with all the trimmings. This included pineapple on sticks, pizza, sausage rolls, cocktail sausages, cheese board, pasta salads, salad, crisps etc etc. We even had jelly and ice cream for pudding ;0)  We played silly party games including pass the parcel and matchsticks on the bottle and I even sent everyone home with a party bag. The one grown up thing we enjoyed was to enjoy plenty of champagne! The 12 of us had a ball and  it was just perfect to be together for such a memorable day. Times like this give us such wonderful  memories to cherish.

So unbelievably my Dad is now 80 years young.......! Happy Birthday dear Dad ;0)

My challenge card today is the card I made for him

I used one of my favourite Ladybug Crafts Ink stamps from the Gardener's Delight range. I coloured it using my Promarker pens and highlighted using my Prismacolor pencils. I distressed the edges of the focal and the backing cards...I really like the effect. I added some mulberry paper flowers from Wild Orchid Crafts and the tags are from Lili of the Valley. The 80 is also from LCI, I added some Dimensional Magic to make it stand out. 

I would like to mention that The Ribbon Girls are having a super twine and charms give away. Do check them out.

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;

Joanna Sheen Down in the garden

Papertake weekly anything goes - Happy 5th Birthday Blog hop

Forever Friends anything goes #46

Emerald Faeries Flowers #33

Make It Monday Linky Party #109

Simon Says Stamp anything goes

Whimsy stamp Challenge anything goes #51

My final photo just made me smile.... a certain cat decided to check out the seating before the guests arrived.....

Needless to say he didn't stay there long as my niece brought her little dog with her who just loves chasing cats. Billy sneaked back in again when the coast was clear and everyone had gone home ;0)

After a decent sunny few days  the rain has now returned and the wind has really picked up. A real autumn day. Happy Tuesday everyone,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x