A DIY DRESS-UP PARTY - {the actual dressing up}

And finally those promised photos....

This post may just end up in complete disownership of me from certain members of my family*

What can I say... it was a fun day and our dress up collection is full of hilarious outfits!

In my defense, and in the line of fairness, I have also included a shocker photo of myself.

And you are a brave, beautiful family for getting in on all the fun!

* If you are a member of my family reading this post and are mortified that these images are now on the www, please let me know (if you are still speaking to me) and I promise you that I will remove them quick as a flash!

A DIY DRESS-UP PARTY - {setting the scene}

Finally getting around to sharing some more photos of last week's dress-up party for Frog's 2nd birthday!

I pooled my Mum's, my sister's and our own dress-up collection and set it up to look like we were in a dressing room backstage at the theatre, complete with a little dressing room behind a few sheets pegged to the rafters as well as a large mirror surrounded by fairy lights.

I covered a couple of old wardrobe doors that were lying around in the shed with some cheap red fabric and added some glittery stars and we had our own photo booth to showcase our creative outfits.

We have a rather large shed in our backyard and we generally have our parties in there. A major benefit of this party location is that at the end of the day I literally slide closed the doors and leave it for another day to pack up! A week later the dress-ups and decorations are all still there, mostly shrewn across the floor.

My husband hosts a poker night once a month in our shed. As it often takes me weeks....ok months... to finally pull everything down, they've had underwater poker, princess poker, farm poker on haybales and we did actually set up the shed like a 1930's poker den for my husband's birthday last year. I can only imagine what I might find next poker night if I dare to venture into the shed ... with all of those dress-ups still lying around... and after a beer or two...

EASY PEASY DINNER WINNERS #22

image

Oriental Fried Noodle Salad

source

1/2 - 1 Chinese Cabbage or Savoy Cabbage, shredded finely

6 spring onions, chopped

100g lightly roasted slivered almonds &/or pinenuts

1 pkt Chang's Fried Noodles 100g

Dressing:

¼ cup White Vinegar
1/4 cup Castor Sugar
1 tblsp Soy Sauce
2 tsp sesame oil (Optional)
½ cup Olive Oil

Mix all the ingredients of the Dressing in a saucepan. Stir well over low heat until sugar is dissolved. Cool. Combine the Cabbage, chopped spring onions and almonds in a salad bowl. Add dressing and mix well. Just before serving add the noodles and toss thoroughly.

Addition 02/11: This recipe just got even easier! Chang's have now put out a bottle of the dressing that goes on this salad! That just cut down the prep time by half!

This delicious recipe, from the back of the packet of Chang's Oriental Fried Noodles, is a very well known salad recipe and can be found at many a group BBQ when one is required to bring a salad. It is so easy to make and tastes amazing. Add about 300g of shredded BBQ chicken or BBQ pork and you have a meal on it's own.

You may have noticed that today is Wednesday and not Tuesday, the regular day for easy peasy dinner winners. It's just getting too hard for me to do a regular post every week. So this will be the last regular easy peasy dinner winner post with linky. I would like to say a huge thank you to all of you for the fantastically easy recipes that you have passed this way over the last 6 months.

Addition - as the linky tools are no longer free all of the links are no longer accessible :(

A DIY DRESS-UP PARTY - {the food}

We had lots of fun yesterday at Frog's Dress-Up Party.

I thought I'd share this one by breaking it up into a few posts along with some Iinks if you are interested in having your own dress-up or movie/theatre party. The whole thing was very inexpensive and lots of fun. This post is all about the food.

With lots of dress-ups hanging everywhere it looked like a dressing room backstage at the theatre, so the food was along that theme also.

You can buy some of these gorgeous vintage popcorn bags here.

The glitter star wands were made using this shortbread recipe, some bamboo skewers, cachous, edible glitter and creative children.

You can find out how to make these fun popcorn cupcakes here.

For these perfectly themed movie party printables

(water bottles and much more) head over here.

A cheat's cake using one Barbie, a 4 litre bucket of icecream, some maltesers and some sparkling, glittery fabric and ribbon. Served with mini icecream cones. The icecream cake meant I did not make choc-tops which would have been perfect Aussie movie/theatre food!

Take home malteser bags.

This idea and other great movie party ideas (along with free printables) here.

Jaffas would have been perfect here also.

Star sandwiches and star cheeses.

Stay tuned for some very funny dress-up photos of the stars of the show,

adults and children alike...

EASY PEASY DINNER WINNERS #21

It's party time at our house at the moment with the little Frog turning two this week. So I thought I'd share a recipe that we have been having at parties for years, but at this time of year would be perfect for a lunch or a dinner with a bit of a salad on the side. You could even make them into giant rolls. It's always a hit with both vegetarians and meat lovers alike.

Savoury Rolls

{AKA Vegetarian Sausage Rolls}

source: Sanitarium

420g can red kidney beans, rinsed and drained

1 small onion, roughly chopped

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tablespoon chopped fresh coriander

½ cup rolled oats

1 egg*

½ medium capsicum, finely diced

2 tablespoons sweet chilli sauce

2 sheets reduced fat canola puff pastry, defrosted

Milk for brushing

Method

Place kidney beans, onion, garlic and coriander in food processor and pulse until blended but still coarse. Transfer to large bowl. Add oats, eggs, capsicum and chilli. Mix well.

Cut each pastry sheet in half. Spoon mixture down one of the longer edges. Brush opposite edge with milk. Roll, starting from the mixture edge, to enclose filling. Repeat with remaining pastry sheets.

Brush logs with milk and cut each log into 5 even lengths.

Bake in hot oven, 200° C for 20 minutes or until crisp and golden.

Makes approx. 20.

Serve with Sweet Chilli Sauce.

I've obviously sprinkled a few sesame seeds on mine too, just for that extra touch;)

*I have substituted the egg for some grated zucchini when making this recipe for vegans and it works really well and I've brushed the pastry with rice milk.

For a ridiculously easy sausage roll recipe (of the carnivorous variety) check out this Cheats Sausage Roll recipe here.

Now it's your turn. Link in below with your easy peasy recipes sometime this week.

If it's party food, dessert or a main meal, it doesn't matter.

Just don't forget to mention this linky in your post so that other people can join in the fun!

AT MY HOUSE...

We have no side fence in the back yard at the moment as the neighbours have decided to rebuild their garage. Unfortunately our sandpit, fort and cubby house had all been made attached to that garage wall. As a consequence of their short term redundancy, I've had to allow digging in other parts of the garden over the last few weeks...

Which has been met with much excitement and creativity. The cubby house stove is now situated right where it should be next to the herb garden. Many beautiful smelling brews are being concocted.

As a quick update for veg. about - herb garden growing fantastically (see below),

vegie garden not so fantastically.

It was back on track after the possum destruction when I put the smelly seaweed fertiliser on it regularly and everything revived amazingly and really started to thrive... until last week when I had a friend over and I forgot the chooks were out... still growing, but quite the worse for wear.

If you've been cooking some simple meals of the edible variety, unlike this particular concoction (though so lovingly and carefully made), then head on over here tomorrow and join in the fun of easy peasy dinner winners. It is becoming quite the resource - thanks so much for all of your great recipes every Tuesday!

THIS SATURDAY I'M GRATEFUL...

...for Grannys, for 100% healthy ice-cream and for creative expression!

We are at Granny's again this weekend.

Weren't you just at Granny's last weekend you ask? Well, yes.

Last weekend we had a big family weekend here, this time it is just myself and the kids. We are here because the father of the house is working all weekend and I just wasn't up for another single parent weekend. Not sure if I'd be coping without her at the moment.

Thanks Granny... again.

Granny makes the best ice-creams. She puts frozen fruit through her juicer and makes these colorful, healthy and pure fruit creations. They are always a hit! These ones contained nothing but mango, strawberry, pineapple and banana. Blueberries and raspberries taste delicious too.

Goose's creative expression through the fashion of the skirt/skirt look makes me smile. When dressing this morning, she experimented with the look of a skirt as a top. She liked the look. We were only going to Granny's after all. When packing her own bags for Granny's house, she decided that she didn't need to pack any tops at all. Apparently tomorrow, she'll be wearing jeans on the bottom and, you guessed it, a skirt on the top.

What are you grateful for?

Check out what others are grateful for every Saturday over at Maxabella land.

P.S. If you are interested in making some of these, Granny uses this kind of single gear cold-pressed juicer to make her ice-cream.

AND THE WINNER IS...

The names were beautifully drawn out of a hat by the lovely Goose.

Congratulations Maria.

I'll send you an email and get your postal address to send these gorgeous postcards to you!

Thanks for everyone who entered my very first giveaway and for your encouraging words.

I know they meant a lot to Jane.

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

More Wordless Wednesday here.

EASY PEASY DINNER WINNERS #20

So, today's recipe isn't exactly a dinner, but it is easy peasy!

As I am still at my Mum's I forgot to pre-upload the photos that I had planned for today, but this one was in my camera. Next week stay tuned for a winner of a vegetarian sausage roll recipe.

I quickly whipped this up the other day when some friends were coming over around afternoon tea time. I had hardly anything in the cupboard as being without a car for the last few weeks (due to a certain incident) had meant few trips to the shops. What I love about this recipe is that I always, always have these ingredients in the cupboard and it only takes 20 mins. in the oven. I've been known to quickly put this together 5 minutes before impending arrival of guests on many an occasion.

EVERYBODY'S FAVORITE SLICE*

3/4 cup sugar

1 cup SR flour

1 tbs honey

1/2 cup coconut

1/4 cup sultanas

125g butter

Place in a mixing bowl all dry ingredients. Melt together the butter and honey and pour into the dry ingredients. Mix thoroughly. Press into a greased, flat tray and bake in moderate oven for approx. 20 mins. Top with lemon icing if desired.

You may or may not have read in this post, that my very clever sister Clare made a new header for me and a new button for easy peasy dinner winners every Tuesday. Please feel free to put this on your side bar or on your easy peasy post and link it back to here.

Now it's your turn, link in below with your easy dishes, dinners, desserts, snacks, whatever, but please remember to link back here so that others can join in too!

* 'Taste & See Anew' - Bible Society of Australia.

This recipe from B. Hall, Stawell Branch.