HAPPY GIVEAWAY: Your perfect party outfit

Maxabella loves... Population: 1000.

Cue even more dancing in the streets than usual (or is that just me?).


So, we're going to need a celebration, right?


I couldn't figure out a fun way to have a party on a blog... but I do know that a dazzling party needs a dazzling outfit, so I thought why not supply the outfit and maybe the party will happen?


So I got in touch with three labels that I absolutely adore and that I have raved about on my blog before (because I want them to like me). Guess what, they like me and they were only too happy to provide us with our perfect party outfit.


Cue the marching brass band!

Up front on’ fabulous frock’, we have none other than...

Leona Edmiston

I’m a big fan of this label’s ability to make me want to flaunt my curves rather than hide them.  The winner of our giveaway gets to choose a Leona Edmiston Ruby dress from the fabulous online store. There are so many gorgeous frocks to choose from and stock changes monthly, so you’re sure to find something you love to bits and pieces. I absolutely love that Leona Edmiston has been kind enough to allow our winner to choose the style that suits them best, so it really will be the perfect party dress.

On amaaaaazing shoes, we have...

Shoes of Prey

Seriously, how cool is it that these guys allow you to design your own shoes? Hello Manolo! Shoes of Prey is absolutely amazing and I am saving up to make my perfect pair of leopard print flats. But our winner won't need to save up as they will receive a $220 voucher to put towards designing the perfect Shoes of Prey shoes to match their Leona. Did I just see a duck that was looking particularly fortuitous walk by?

And providing the high notes we have...

Elk Accessories

I adore my Elk Accessories necklaces and pendants and I never fail to get complimented when I wear them. I am very happy to hear that they are launching a ‘Mr Elk’ in August sometime. It’s my dream come true: LOML and I can match! (Just kidding. No, really!)

Anyway, I managed to persuade Elk to contribute a pair of Silver Birdie stud earrings (of course they’re birdies!) to our darling party outfit.

They are go-anywhere-and-look-beautiful earrings, but they will look particularly glam when accessorising your designer party outfit.

So, that's dress, shoes and accessories all taken care of - dazzling indeed.

Won't you look sensational?

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How to enter

One lucky winner takes all. 

• One Leona Edmiston Ruby dress from the online store.
• One $220 voucher from Shoes of Prey
• One pair of Silver Birdie stud earrings from Elk Accessories

Winner selected randomly from comments left on this post by 14.7.11 / 5pm Sydney time (winner announced 9pm Sydney time on 15 July). Please make sure you have an email address attached to your comment profile or included in your comment to win. Oh and because this celebration is all about the following, you need to be a follower of Maxabella loves... to win.

There are lots of ways for to gain entries (just make sure you leave a comment for each one!):

• For one entry, just leave a comment on this post revealling what your perfect party outfit looks like.
• Tweet this post for one extra entry (leave me a separate comment to let me know you tweeted, oh and I'm @Maxabella2 but I'm a hopeless tweeter so don't get excited).
• Facebook for another one (leave me a separate comment to let me know you’ve faced). 
• Write a post about the competition and you'll get three extra entries (leave three separate comments to let me know you've posted, one with a link!).
• Put my giveaway button up on the sidebar of your blog for two extra entries (leave two separate comments to let me know you’ve done this, one with a link to your blog)

<div align="center"><a href="http://maxabellaloves.blogspot.com/2011/06/your-perfect-party-outfit-giveaway.html" title="Party Giveaway at Maxabella loves..."><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr_50A8YQSMiIheXYmIml1E5yYGFctLahJrhiuTsZxIubjmFLp3lzz2RAaAq6rwQg0HJ0YNciw0OiKGHkqE9vvBXrO6LTYsBiDa94keYfZuLF66jWmQIMGrkosR6vKcPI0cu2se4ncqLQz/" alt="Party Giveaway at Maxabella loves..." style="border:none;" /></a></div>

Good luck and have fun checking out the collections at Elk Accessories, Shoes of Prey and Leona Edmiston. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to Prue from Leona Edmiston, Ziba from Two Birds Talking for Elk Accessories and Jodie from Shoes of Prey for not laughing at my random email and being a part of my blog sort-of-kind-of party. Enjoy yourselves!

[Party image found here. Please let me know if this image is yours and sorry I butchered it to make my giveaway button!]

[Oh, and I used this Code Generator to get the code for my button - it was super easy so I really appreciate it.]

Tickled Pink Party

Our darling Badoo turns three tomorrow and yesterday was her first ever 'big' birthday party. While I admit that I'm a little pinked-out, her choice of a 'pink' party was really a match made in heaven for me. 

Dear readers, forgive me the lengthy details, but this is one party I want to remember... I'll understand if you skim read!

'Pink' is such a creative yet easy theme to decorate for. I like to make my own decorations, but I don't like spending a lot of money to do so. I prefer to spend party money on little extravagances like entertainers or monsters or costumes.

So I had a ball creating a pink fairyland scene that cost me virtually nothing.

I used a Martha Stewart tutorial to make the flowers which used paper bags but I wanted a gingham effect and couldn't source any bags. So, I just colour printed decorative paper, folded the sides in and stuck them together with sticky-tape (like a tube), made the necessary gusset folds on the sides and, voila! Once I had my own 'bags', I then just did what Martha told me. The best bit was that by making my own bags I could make different shaped flowers by changing the size of the folds I made.

I even made pockets for the cushions on our daybeds, just so they could be part of the theme. Now, I think we all know by now that I'm a bit of a control freak, so being 'part of the theme' is pretty much essential. The aesthetician (aesthelete!?) in me loves to style and plan parties down to the sweet detail and it's all I can do not to shout 'places everyone!' when party time comes around. My family is very patient with me.

So, even though I can't sew to save myself, I was absolutely determined to cover the blue cushions on my daybeds pink. So I made 'pockets' and pockets only require a straight stitch down two sides. I would have Buckleys of doing a zip or button or anything fancy like that. 

I then used the left-over fabric and pinking shears to make the pretty 'bow' garlands. The fairy bunting  is just paper cut outs stapled onto pink bias-binding that I bought for $2 at the $2 shop (!).

It's difficult to know whether to make 'party day' the day that you do all the celebrating, or hold off to do more on the child's actual birthday. At our place, we just make party day the day and so the Badoo started the morning off with a 'happy birthday' and a pile of presents from her family. Spurred on by the fun of gift-giving, all morning Cappers and Maxi-Taxi were making her little drawings and things as 'extra presents' - do your children do that too?

In the pic above, the Badoo is wearing a t-shirt that my bloggy friend Kasia custom made for her after I won a giveaway on her blog. The shirt is the softest cotton you can imagine and the Badoo was very proud of herself in her '3' shirt. Great birthday gift for any little one, don't you think?

When it was party time, two sweet fairies arrived to take the children on a magical journey to fairyland. It was a relief not to be 'the show' for this party - all the games and entertaining was done by the fairies. They were picture-perfect and absolutely wonderful with the children. 

We used Fairy Crystal and Friends and I'm giving Christina a shout-out because we also used her fairies for Cappers' third birthday (it's become a tradition for our girls - thank goodness I only have the 2!). Christina has delivered a creative, magical experience both times now. I hope you understand what I mean when I say that aside from their skills at keeping sugar-hyped children amused for hours, the wholesome prettiness and quality presentation of the fairy is absolutely essential in these matters and Christina's fairies are stunning down to the very last detail. They were captivating, even for us grown-ups.

They limboed and danced and blew bubbles and sang and told stories and face painted and passed a parcel... even the older boys were mesmerised (although they claimed to be above it all, they actually didn't leave the fairies' sides all day).

The pink themed food was so much fun to make. Generally party food gets the better of me because I don't plan ahead. But this time, with my newly donated extra fridge and freezer space (thanks Gran and Pops!), I was on Easy Street. The Badoo and I baked everything over the past couple of Wednesdays (my day off from work) and froze them ready to be iced. I can't believe what a difference that made to the smoothness of the day and the quality of the cakes didn't seem to be compromised.

Coconut ice, pretty cupcakes with a variety of toppings, little choc-dipped wands, rosy meringues and lurid pink cake pops which were a huge lurid pink mess and I swear I am never making the darn things again.

We made 'pink milk' and poured it into Yoga bottles that I'd removed the labels from (canny eyes will recognise that these are the same 'butter beer' bottles from the Harry party!). Soaking bottles in hot water with a bit of eucalyptus oil makes the job quick and easy. I then just use plain old UHU blue to glue on the labels. To keep track of the drinks, I made name labels by cutting a heart shape out of left-over bunting paper and making two cuts for the straw to slide through.

After scrapping plans to make a Peppa Pig cake (beyond me, I'm no baker!), I just made a standard cake and used the sleight-of-hand of marshmallowy goodness to fool everyone into thinking it was fancy. The pretty little flowers were in the cake aisle at Woolies - who knew? It was a huge hit and absolutely no trouble.

All in all, that wonderful little Badoo and all her friends had a fantastic day and her Mumma did too. Happy Pink Party to us and Happy Birthday my sweetheart! 

May your year ahead be cherished one and may you continue to be that certain cheeky, loving handful that we admire so much.

- The (very pink) end - 

Feted, not jarred

I'm nuts about school fetes. The cake stalls, the white elephant, the dinky games involving hacky sacks and tin cans. The sheer old-school at school fun of it all.

I've been busy getting creative with jars and stuff to make jars for the 'Jarbola'. I didn't even know what a Jarbola was until Cappers carefully explained that it was when you get a jar of pasta sauce and you eat the sauce and then you put stuff in it but you have to clean it first and then you get a ticket on it and the winner of that ticket gets that jar.

Oh, like a bottle raffle. With clean jars. I get that.

The Badoo and I created six jarbolas to take in tomorrow. A jar of soliders; a jar of glow-in-the-dark dinosaurs; a jar of hair thingies (all pink, this is the Badoo in charge after all!); a jar of sherberts (pink); a jar of mini-chuppa chups (mostly the black ones because we don't really like the black ones around here); and a jar of pretty jewellery (pink, pink, all pink). We made little tags to add a bit of school fair festivity.

If I could fill my fantasy Jarbola jar, I would fill it with Benefit Benetint in rose, Eve Lom Cleanser, Creme de la Mer and Moroccon Oil.

What would you put in your fantasy Jarbola jar?
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I'm linking up to Our Creative Spaces this week. I know filling jars with stuff isn't exactly creative,
but I'll take what I can get!

Harry Potter party for Maxi-Taxi

Whoa, Nellie! Happy Mother's Day to me (and to you too, if you're a mumma). I've spent the day cleaning up after Maxi-Taxi's 7th birthday party yesterday. My sister-in-law Lucia, LOML and I went Harry Potter mad and had a fabulous time at Hogwart's schooling 10 little Harrys and 4 Princess Harryettes.

The invitation to attend Hogwart's school of Witchcraft and Wizardry was despatched by owl delivery.

The students arrived at Hogwart's Castle and were requested to knock three times to be considered for entry.

Once their name was checked off the roll, they were invited to change into their uniforms.

And sign up for the House Competition and Potions Class.

The Sorting Hat decided who would be a Gryffindor, a Slytherin, a Hufflepuff or a Ravenclaw. None of the Harrys wanted to be in Gryffindor so it was decided the Harryettes would be the snakes. Each student received a house badge to wear on their robe.

Then it was time for the house competition. It was a treasure hunt race to see who could find the quidditch snitch first. Each team had a different set of clues that sent them on a hunt all around the house and garden.

Gryffindor stumbled on their final questions, mistaking the white wishing chair on the front verandah for the lounging lizard chairs on the back verandah (it's a common mistake). Their error cost them the snitch and they limped home in fourth place. The medals went to the Ravenclaw boys in first place followed by the lovely Slytherin girls and the Hufflepuffs in third place.

After the excitement of the competition and a bit of mad free play involving rock climbing in the Forbidden Forest...

... it was time to use their wands to burst the floating bubbles...

... followed by a flying lesson on the trampoline.

A refreshing drink of Butter Beer saw everyone ready to settle down for class where Professor Lucia taught them all how to make their own Minstry of Magic memo owls.

Then it was over to the chocolate fountain to coat breadstick wands with chocolate and dip them into cauldron pots of surprise sprinkles. The wands were washed down with a magic potion drink (two drops of food colouring dried on the bottom of the glass, covered in ice, lemonade turns coloured in the glass!).

Following dinner of Oozy Parcels (sausage rolls) and Goblins Fingers (mini-hot dogs with tomato sauce), we hit the dessert table for the real food!

Hedwig Owl Pops (raspberry cake pops decorated as owls)

Dragons Eggs (left-over easter eggs!)

Quidditch Balls (cheezels)

Goblins Boogers (popcorn)

Wizards Hats (cakes with mini-ice cream cones filled with marshmallows)

and Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans (jelly beans).

Stuffed to the tips of our wizards hats, we settled in for Professor Moody's Potions Class.

Professor Moody showed us an amazing dragon's egg that was lit red from within, a volcano in a bottle explosion, a breathe capture and firework's in a jar. We cracked open some glo-sticks and danced around while the volcano exploded.

The sparkler-ladden cake made it's entrance and Maxi barely got a look in as the candles were blown out by his over-excited friends just as the final school bell sounded.

Hogwart's lessons were over for the day, which was just as well as the Professors were absolutely exhausted!

Lessons learnt: 

1. You can never have too much fun at a child's party. 

2. You can never have too much fun preparing for one either. 

3. But, oh no, the clean up! And the sore feet! And the sheer exhaustion! Argh!

xxx Happy Birthday, my sweet Harry xxx