seven things: for a first birthday party!!

Elroy's first birthday is approaching faster than I can quite get my head around. I love parties, I love cooking and decorating, and making completely useless things like garlands, and I love balloons! So there was no chance I could let this opportunity pass without having a little party. This weekend we will celebrate with family and friends in a local park. These are some of the things I have been inspired by:

1. Oeuf crown, I managed to get one on sale from Little Bambinos
2.  Poppies for Grace fancy number one cake topper
3. Zebra balloon
4. Rainbow pure beeswax candles
5. Balloons, balloons and more balloons - I've loved this image for so long!
6. Paper platters
7.  Party hats

Birthday roses

I celebrated my 30th (yikes!) birthday while I was away in Paris, but on saturday night I had a dinner at home with my friends, we had the juciest pan fried stripey trumpeter, swedish potatoes, champagne, lethal cocktails and cake.

Despite the sore head on sunday I had such a good night and have the most amazing and generous friends. One of my gifts was a bunch of roses from Rose, they are from her nanna's plant and are so so beautiful. Her nanna was just like my surrogate grandmother in many ways so they mean a great deal to me.

Birthday Cake

Today was my nanna's birthday so I made a very chocolate-y chocolate cake. I've been so inspired by Nikole's cakes, when I was thinking of how I might decorate it, the little ribbon flags came to mind. Mine are clumsy and not nearly as beautiful, but it was a lot of fun!

Oh and I took the top photograph at 8am this morning, I am so impressed to have light like this in autumn!

On a Tuesday

Today:
* I struggled to get out of bed this morning, I could have slept so much longer
* I’ve had Paul Simon’s 50 ways to leave your lover stuck in my head (thanks to my brother who picked me up last week with paul simon blearing in the car)
* I’m enjoying autumn fruit, pears and apple are so good
* I watched the sky turn black at 3pm and then the rain pour down

And finally I’m excited to announce the winner of my little birthday giveaway! with the help of random.org, drumroll please……


Congratulations Rebekah from Little Byrd please send me your details and I will get that out to you in the post asap, and thank you everyone, so much for all your well wishes!

This weekend

Thank you so much for your kind birthday wishes! I had a lovely evening out for dinner followed by a big chocolate cake made by my mum (so good) and was given some very nice pressies including a sheepskin for my desk chair, and the new angus and julia stone album.

I didn't mean to stay away so long from here but my internet crashed and I've only just got it back, also I can't believe the weekend is over already, it whizzed past! I hope everyone had a lovely one.

Birthday Giveaway!

Today is my birthday! Being on a normal work Tuesday it doesn’t feel like a day for big celebrations, but I’m looking forward to a nice dinner with my family tonight and drinks with friends tomorrow.

Anyway I tend to love giving presents as much as receiving them, and thought it would be fun to have a little giveaway. So if you’d like one of my milk butter & eggs shoppers just leave a comment and I will draw the winner next Tuesday. Good luck!

And the winner is....

Thanks to a little help from random.org I'd love to announce that comment number 15 (Kee and Fi) has won the little liberty bird and postcard set! Fi if you send me your details I will get that off to you as soon as possible. Thank you for all your lovely kind comments, it was wonderful to read them, it made me feel all warm and fuzzy : )

Oh the picture above is completely unrelated but I did go and see the Crafty exhibition (the program is in the basket) last week, it was really inspiring and there were some great pieces.

Belated Blogiversary

Hi there,

So I mentioned last week that it was little glowing lights second birthday and that I would have a giveaway to celebrate, and here it is! A little belated, due to the fact that it's been too dark all week for me to photograph the little liberty bird I have made to send out! But I would like to thank everyone who reads, leaves lovely comments, and sends me great emails, it is definitely the best part about blogging! This year in particular has been hard for me (the end of my relationship, and serious job issues) it has helped me to have this as an outlet to share the things that I love. So thank you!

Please leave a comment by next wednesday and I will draw a winner for the bird and a set of my postcards.

Catherine
x

Grey Saturday

it's one of those grey rainy days where the washing is hanging in front of the heater, the dishes need doing and I'm still in my pyjama's. I've been watching Twilight on dvd (and now I HAVE to read the books!) and opening an exciting parcel from Dublin. See it's my birthday on monday, and I love birthdays, mostly I love other people's and buying gifts for them, but this time I have indulged myself and through my aunt's in-laws in Dublin scored some beautiful Cath Kidston goodies.

Cake

We celebrated my mum’s birthday yesterday, she is very lovely and special (not to mention a little crazy and lots of fun) and I figured deserved no less for her cake. I put aside my fears of cooking sponge cakes and had my second-ever attempt. It must be something that falls under the category of practice makes perfect and was a vast improvement on my first attempt. This time the eggs were fully at room temp, the oven was warmed and the mix master was doing it’s thing. The recipe is by Stephanie Alexander (via Maggie Beer).

I made two cakes (separately) and joined them with a mix of stawberry jam and fresh strawberries (so excited they are available again!) and whipped cream. It was sooo good (if I do say so myself! Watch out cwa ladies!)

Drumroll please......

The winner of my first blog-iversary prize is......

Sarah from favourito!

Thank you so much for your comment Sarah, I was so excited to pull your name out and I have loved getting to know you since I started all this. I truly appreciate your lovely words and support, oh and you have a pretty cool blog too!

The three winners of the mixed cd are....

laceyj from happy:blissful!
little byrd
and
bree from life at 123 house

Just send me an email with your postal address to little_glowing_lights@hotmail.com and I will get those out to you this week.
Thanks everyone for joining in and celebrating with me.

The Prize

I had intended to find a pize for the blog-iversary earlier this week, but I never had the chance until yesterday. I have selected a little elk tree brooch made from timber, and to compliment it (black and white together is my favourite right now) a little deer key ring. Because I was a little slow buying the gift I will postpone the draw until tomorrow, so if you interested just leave a comment.
Have a happy weekend!

First Blog-iversary!

Today is Little Glowing Lights first birthday! I can't believe I have been blogging for a year now, that went faster than me devouring a new Vogue Living mag (pretty quick!). I have loved the fact that this has allowed me to 'meet' so many new people and share all my interests and creations with other wonderfully kind bloggers. It has been a great experience!

I would like to share this celebration with everyone out there who reads this, so I am currently in the process of creating a little cd of some of my favourite songs to give away to three other bloggers and to a fourth person, well I am going to have a little wander tomorrow and find a special surprise to send your way. So if you'd like to participate just leave a comment and I will draw the winners this saturday.

Thank you so much for making this blog more than just a blank space for my ramblings, I love all your comments and reading your own posts.

Photo from here.

The Desk

The last thing on my wish list, isn't actually on my list anymore! I have been gazing rather lovingly at this desk in Freedom for over the past year (sorry not the best pic of it) and this week made the decision that it was indeed the one for me and ordered it. It is sleek and stylish but has enough to fit things on, all I need now is a space for it (and that's a whole other story, hopefully some changes are going to happen in the next few months) but for now I am dreaming of my perfect creative space with my perfect desk.

Picture from Real Living Magazine.

If only I Could...

Tonight if time and space allowed it, I would be watching Mr DJ Shadow and his trusty side-kick Cut Chemist. They are playing in Melbourne and I am just a tad sad that I will miss them for what no doubt will be so much fun and some funky tunes to dance to. These two are genius, true musical creators and while I've seen them both separately together is where it really happens.

Carrie Basket

This is a bit of an old one around the blogging world but definitely still very high on my list, perhaps more on the extravagant side as I haven't seen any available in Australia (postage would be a killer!) I think it would more likely be a desk file basket as I have seen them used, rather than on a bike, however if I had a bike like the above then it would work perfectly! The hard decision: green or white?

Happy Monday

Monday has crept up on me once again this week! However I'm excited 'cause it's my birthday week (ok so it's not till sunday, but why not try and extend it a little) also it's only a short work week with ANZAC day on friday, two reasons to be happy.

I thought this week I would post a few things that would be on my imaginary birthday wish list, some simple, some far too extravagant but I think that's the best bit about a wish list, the admiring and ohh-ing and ahh-ing over things, not so much the purchasing! The first thing on my list would have to be these crystal cards by etsy seller Banquet, I love the colours and the geometric design and I think I would just have to frame one!

Happy Birthday My Boy

Happy Birthday for yesterday rd! I had such a great time organising a birthday dinner I hope will always be very special for you.

It was a big weekend, but lots of fun and we had fifteen for dinner last night which fortunately flowed very smoothly and the food was wonderful as was the champagne! I have to say my favourite part was dancing with rd once everyone had gone in the candlelight, first seriously and then being silly! Dancing must be the best way to celebrate a birthday.

Pink Glow

I love these glass bottle tealight holders in gorgeous pink hues. If I was throwing an outdoor birthday party for rd (it's supposed to rain so it will be indoors) I would be snapping them up, and could think of nothing better than cocktails by their warm glow in the summer evening.
I am having a super long four day weekend this weekend and I am so excited, not only do we have a big birthday we also have a wedding to go to, it's going to be busy busy, but I do love being busy!

Not the Daveys

I have been suffering terrible withdrawal symptoms from the internet this past week or more because for some strange, unknown reason our phone provider decided to direct our number to the Davey family! Consequently they took days and days to fix it and with no internet, have felt a little like my right arm was missing. Ugh!
Fortunately I have had a little project to work on in the mean time, organising dinner for rd's 30th birthday for this coming weekend. I am very excited (I think he is a little too), I have been working on decoration ideas, little paper origami boxes for sweets to take home and Martha's tissue paper flowers, thinking about food and all the little things to help make sure he has a wonderful night.
Now I am going to catch up on my blog reading I have so much missed during my forced time away!
Hope you're having a great week
Catherine x