Toy Drive Kids Party: Give & Be Sweet!

Hello Design Dazzle fans!  I’m Nancy from A to Zebra Celebrations. I am excited to share my latest holiday party with you! 

Theme: Christmas toy drive party ~Love~ Give~ Be sweet~

Christmas is the perfect season to give to others.  I am encouraged to teach my daughters that we are to love and share with others who are less fortunate.  Parties don’t need to be about them all the time.  I told them we were hosting a kids holiday party where their friends could come and donate a Christmas gift for other little kids who might not have parents, or might be sick in the hospital, etc. They were excited!

My friend Lindi made the invitation, tags, and labels: Love the Day

Party styling and ideas: A to Zebra Celebrations

Thank you favors bags and paper straws:  Cakes and kids too

Cupcakes: Buttercream Bling

I am always looking for ways to throw a great party on a budget! I also like to reuse and recycle a lot of my decorations.  The backdrop behind the desserts table is scrapbook paper for $.16 cents a sheet at Michaels.  I spent less than $5 to put that together.  I have a basket with tons of Christmas ribbon so I added those bows on the paper to make it look like "gifts".  The Christmas trees were cut at my local scrapbook store. 

I pulled out all of my Christmas decorations I have collected over the years.  I buy most of my decorations after Christmas when they are on sale for 75% off and even 90% off at Hobby Lobby.  I also shop at garage sales and Goodwill for jars, platters, tablecloths, etc.  You'd be amazed the treasures you can find!

I bought all the holiday candy with coupons and some at the Dollar Tree.  It was great to receive donations from some websites since this was a charity event.  The cute paper bags and white cupcake stands are from Cakesandkidstoo.  You could contact your local stores for donations as well. 

My friends were happy to help as well.  One of them made the cutest brownies in the shape of a Christmas tree! They were a hit!

Yummy delicious cupcakes from my friend, Courtney. She is local and has her own business, Buttercream Bling. 

Polka dot market was happy to donate plates, napkins, cups.  I made the table runners and ribbon garlands to dress up the table.  Green punch made with lime soda and lime sherbert, hot cocoa and bottled water. The kids loved it!

The kids enjoyed making Christmas crafts.  I got all the ideas from Pinterest.

I set up a table where all the kids put the gift they brought to donate.  I also made a "THANK YOU" banner with scrapbook paper.  

The girls received a cute Christmas clip from Masterpieces of Fun Art. They were adorable!

Here are all the happy kids!

Thank you all for letting me share my ideas! I hope you all have a fabulous Christmas!

Photography: http://www.jamiegibbsphotography.blogspot.com/

Invitation, tags, party circles: http://www.etsy.com/shop/lovetheday

Christmas clips: http://www.etsy.com/shop/MasterpiecesOfFunArt

Paper straws, paper bags and cupcake stands: http://www.etsy.com/shop/CakesAndKidsToo

Banners, table runners and styling: http://www.etsy.com/shop/atozebracelebrations

Candyland Dessert Table Ideas

 Hi there,



Kiki here from A Little Polkadot in Sydney Australia! we are so thrilled to be sharing with you a little bit of Christmas Wonderful with our Christmas Candyland dessert table.

Christmas is a magical time of year - it's a time to be with family, to take a break from work, we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ and little ones wait excitedly to see what Santa will bring.



We celebrate Christmas in Australia a little differently it's usually REALLY hot - it's the middle of Summer! and a typical Christmas day in Sydney involves a feast of Lobster, Prawns (Shrimp) and Smoked Salmon, Oysters, freshly carved Ham and an array of yummy salads with pavlova and fresh berries for dessert! Once all that has settled it's pool time, swimming and having fun well into the evening. A little different from how our Northern Hemisphere friends celebrate - but this Christmas Candyland Dessert table that we created works fabulously WHEREVER you are!



Little ones will have so much fun helping to bring this table together from gingerbread men to snowmen meringues and north pole cupcakes it's a feast for the eyes and so much fun!

The kids will love helping to decorate these Gingerbread Men and they fill the the house with the most wonderfully heady scent of honey when they are baking you'll just love making them and here's the recipe...

Honey Gingerbread Men

(recipe by Kim Coverdale)

150g butter, chopped

1/2 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

1/2 cup honey

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda, sifted

1 egg lightly beaten

1 tbls ground ginger, sifted

1 tsp mixed spice, sifted

1/2 tsp baking powder, sifted

3 cups plain flour, sifted

Royal icing to decorate.

METHOD



1. Place butter, sugar and honey in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring, for 3 minutes or until sugar is dissolved. Bring to the boil. Remove from heat. Stir in bicarbonate of soda. Transfer to a large, heatproof bowl. Cool.



2. Stir in egg, ginger, mixed spice, baking powder and flour until combined. Divide dough in half. Shape into discs. Cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 1 hour or until firm.



3. Preheat oven to 350degrees/320degrees fan-forced. Grease 3 baking trays. Line with baking paper. Roll 1 dough disc between 2 sheets of baking paper until 1/8 inch thick. Using a 3 inch gingerbread man cutter, cut shapes from dough, re-rolling dough scraps. Place, 1 inch apart, on prepared trays. Repeat with remaining pastry disc.



4. Bake, 1 tray at a time, for 8 minutes or until just firm to touch. Stand on trays for 5 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.



5. Once cooled decorate with royal icing. You can buy pre-mixed royal icing from cake decorating suppliers - you just add water and beat the mixture.



Another super fun treat that we featured on our table is the adorable Meringue Snowmen.

These are a little trickier to make but they are just so cute - you must give them a try!

Basic Meringue Recipe

6 egg whites (at room temperature)

pinch of salt

1.5 cups castor sugar

METHOD:



Beat egg whites and salt until soft peaks form, add castor sugar a spoonful at a time and beat until the mixture becomes thick and glossy.



Pipe the mixture into "snowmen" using a 3/4 inch tip by piping a mound for the body, "C" shapes for the arms and a smaller mound for the head.



Colour a little left over meringue orange and pipe a "carrot" nose onto the snowmen with a #2 tip.



Bake the Snowmen in a low temperature oven 195 degrees for 2- 2.5 hours, turn the oven off and leave meringues inside to cool.



TIP: If your meringue has a beige tinge once cooked, your oven was too hot, make a new batch and cook on a lower temperature.



Once your snowmen are done decorate them with a little hat made from chocolate fondant using mini round cookie cutters and a strawberry sour strap as a scarf.  Lastly, pipe on little eyes using melted dark chocolate.

We also created a white chocolate truffle tree as our centerpiece to the table - really simple to do, simply paint a cardboard cone the size you want your tree to be in melted white chocolate then using a little melted white chocolate "glue" white chocolate truffles onto the cone....and voila! a gorgeous edible tree!

We thought little "North Pole" cupcakes were just too cute not to have on our table.

The canopy backdrop that we used is quite elaborate, but you can create an equally striking backdrop by simply hanging a panel of fabric on a wall behind your table using 3M hooks or covering pre-stretched art canvasses with fabric - you just need a little imagination.



We shot this table back in May this year and only had a week to prepare for it!  You can seen a feature on our Christmas Candyland Table in the current Holiday Issue of Romantic Homes magazine.



Our very best wishes for a happy and safe holiday season.



Kiki &  Di

                                                  

Old Fashioned Peppermint Stick Candy 

 Make Your Own Truffle Tree - White Chocolate Truffles













Stripe Red White Michael Miller One Yard

Candy Cane Stripe Cupcake Wrappers

                 ******************************************************

A few years ago we celebrated Christmas in Australia. It was a huge highlight and memory my family will never forget. And yes, lobster, ham and shrimp were the delicious main course. It was a wonderful time to celebrate Christmas Down Under with our loved ones.



Thanks girls for sharing this beautiful Candyland Dessert table! It is so adorable. You girls ROCK!

Toni xo