Our Eid...Day #1

We had a lovely long weekend celebrating Eid this weekend, with plenty of opportunity to overstuff ourselves with food! It was nice to spend the day dressed up, especially with the weather being nice and sunny, and everyone being free for the weekend.

This is what I wore on Eid, which was a pretty mint-coloured kurta with silky pants. My sisters and I didn't get time to order anything online so had a look around the shops, and I ended up going with this outfit that my husband actually pointed out on a second visit to the shops! You can't tell properly but this is a shimmery gold tone to the fabric for a two-tone effect. I loved the colour palette of this kurta, lilacs, gold, silver and mint which for perfect for the warm weather.

I bought this outfit from a small shop in Ilford Lane, East London called Laaj London, which is a fairly new shop (Facebook page here and Instagram page here), where they had a range of different colours. The kurta was quite reasonably priced and fit perfectly, and I thought it was a pretty decent find among the madness of Eid shopping!

We started off Eid with lunch at my mum's house, which is always a tradition for us, as it's the one place myself and all of my siblings descend to get together, enjoy our mum's food and get all of the kids together. Unfortunately I have absolutely no pictures of the food, as we were pretty hungry and I forgot to take any! But just assume the food looked as amazing as it tasted!

We then decided to do something a little different for the evening, with a barbecue hosted by my brother and sister-in-law at their house. My sister-in-law had hired a bouncy castle for the children (which was fully enjoyed by all of us!), and we spent the evening chilling out with family and enjoying the warm evening.

If you know my family, you'll know that the toddlers in my family always steal the show - with credits for their dresses to my mum! The toddlers all wore matching floral dresses (the one in the middle had the dress too, but she wore a lilac dress to match all of her other cousins!)

This year I joined in with an online Secret Eid, which was really fun - there were over 40 participants, and it was fun to see the gifts everyone got! I opened my Secret Eid on Eid day and loved what i received - candles, an engraved personalised bookmark, travel mug, book light, chocolates and a gorgeous box that it all came in.

I also received some beautiful presents from my sisters, including these gorgeous purple heels, and a whole treasure trove of makeup, chocolate and jewellery from my eldest sister.

We finished off the day with a seriously chocolatey cake made by one of my sisters, which was as chocolatey and rich as it looks!

It was a lovely way to spend our Eid, and one which was special because all of the family which got together, which can be rare for all of us! The only thing I wish we had photos of was the outfits for the ladies in the family - we were too busy chasing after the kids and stuffing our faces!

A Baby Shower at The Rose Lounge

I recently attended a baby shower for a friend of mine, at The Rose Lounge in Sofitel St JamesHotel, which is a lovely venue (I forgot to take photos of the lounge but it's very pretty!)

Most of the baby showers I have been to in the past have usually been at the mum-to-be's house, so it was nice to have an opportunity to dress up and enjoy some tea. The baby shower was a surprise for the mum-to-be, and she was very surprised when her husband dropped her off and we were all waiting!

Here's and idea of the food we had - this was a halal afernoon tea, and was very filling - sandwiches, schones, and buns were on the first course, along with a range of teas and lemonades.

After the mains came the desserts (of course!) which were a variety of macarons, cakes and sweet tarts. We all had fun trying the different flavours and comparing the tastes, which were lovely.

One of the things which was really cute was the baby shower favours which were given - hand-made biscuits in the shape of baby-grows, in pink and blue! After we ate we played some games, including guessing celebrity baby names, and guessing people's identity from baby photos - lots of fun as well as a lot of cheating!

I don't have a picture of what the mum-to-be wore, but here's what I wore - I decided to go for a flowy skirt as it was a pretty warm day, with a pretty white top that had pearls all over. I love emerald green, so of course this is one of my favourite skirts!

I love going to afternoon teas, although I will admit, some have tasted nicer than others, and sometimes a nice venue will make the experience so much nicer! I'm looking forward to going to a few more afternoon teas this year (not to mention the pretty ones which come out during Christmas time!) - let me know if you recommend any places!

A Food Review...Sweet, Mile End

I don't often post food reviews, but every now and then I find a new place in London which I love to share. I won't review it here, so hop on over to my other blog and read my review here - but here's a quick sneak of the food - doesn't that freak-shake look crazy?

WEDDING INSPIRATION: Cakes from the Cake & Bake Show 2016

I went to the London Cake & Bake show this last weekend, and thought it was a treasure-trove of inspiration for brides to be, as well as those looking for cake displays for special events like baby showers, bridal showers, birthdays and even just girly tea parties.

I won't post all of the photos of the things I saw (there were just too many!), but wanted to show the variety of themes, styles and cakes out there for those who are looking for more inspiration.

I'll start with my favourite tables, the professionally-made dessert tables - these were beautifully made floral cakes grouped together, made by professional cake companies to showcase their skills. I love that each dessert table had cakes and biscuits to match the whole theme, which looked gorgeous together.

I loved that each dessert table had more than one cake (maybe that's just me being greedy) so that it made the table seem more luxurious and extravagant. I thought this was an interesting alternative to a lot of tables I have seen where the cake is the main showpiece and everything else is centred around the main cake.

I also really liked the colours and textures used for the cakes - lace, floral pieces, ribbons - not to mention some very cool looking mini cakes which looked a bit like bath bombs!

There were cakes on display all around the exhibition, which showed a variety of techniques, themes and colours so that brides aren't just stuck with the traditional plain white cake. I particularly liked the wooden-themed nature cakes below, and the beautiful pearl cakes!

I also loved this beautifully detailed cushion cake - probably took ages to make but doesn't it look beautiful?

The Cake show had a huge number of vendors selling tools to decorate and embellish cakes - there were lots of styles I hadn't seen before such as glittery lace, edible gem stones, detailed beading and beautifully worked icing in a variety of ways.

Macarons are the latest, fashionable edibles for wedding cakes, so naturally we also saw some of these - I loved the giant gold macaron cake below, although not sure how it'd taste!

Another thing that also gets neglected a lot in wedding tables are biscuits - and there were some amazing ones at the Cake and Bake shows. My favourite were these wedding-themed biscuits, such as the wedding dresses, proposal biscuits, floral bouquets and even biscuits for the bridesmaids! I thought this would be great for bridal showers as well as henna night and wedding dessert tables.

There were also some gorgeous cake stands available for those looking to display their own cakes, or even for weddings. I love that these weren't restricted by size or styles (we even saw a huge stand shaped like a horse-and-carriage!)

Another things which has become fairly fashionable recently are cupcake bouquets - they look cute and are fairly easy to make! I thought these looked so pretty, and would made a great centre-piece for a dessert table, or even as a hand-held bouquet!

I also saw some great cake ideas for mehndi events - such as these peacock cakes below. I liked these straightaway because it made me think of the peacock theme I had for my own mehndi - I would have loved to have these on display! I also liked the embellished biscuits below, which reminded me of  a lot of biscuits I've seen for mehndi parties which have a henna design on them.

Cake-pops and meringues are another pretty alternatives to cupcakes or cakes - they look colourful and cute, and would look amazing for a dessert table! My sister has made us cake-pops before and they have looked really pretty on dessert tables (or in our hands!) and I liked the variety of flavours and colours below. I'm less a fan of meringues but I LOVED the rainbows ones available at the cake show - you could have just these on the table and they'd look beautiful!

There were a huge amount of cakes at the show, and we spent a good few hours browsing, buying goodies and also looking at new techniques for cake and cupcake making. It's given me a lot of ideas for future tea-parties, as well as different treats to try out, so watch this space!

You can see more of  my pictures here, and also on my sister's blog here.