The Party Is Over!

G'day to all you lovelies out there in blogland! I've been meaning to pop back in to update you all on the craziness that is life at the Meares' Madhouse ... but I've just been too KAPOOPED! :0) After the full-on preparations of gardening, cooking, cleaning (thanks Mum!!) and general organising and reorganising that happened around here in the lead up to our fund raising Garden Party, the ol' batteries this last week have just been flat ... but they're recharging. :0)

So ... a huge thank you to all of you who have been texting, commenting and emailing  to wish us well with our Garden Party ... it went REALLY well and we raised around $1,200 to help the Bloom Asia House Flip, which is in turn raising funds for a new Bloom Asia training centre in the Philippines. We were pretty chuffed about that! :0) And Leanne, who is the hard-working (slightly crazy! Tee! Hee! Hee!) lady doing the house flip, was able to join us for the afternoon and she said it was the very first fundraiser that she could just sit back and enjoy without having to do any of the organising or work, so that was nice, too.

Since I was buzzing around madly like a bumble bee on speed, I didn't get to take a lot of photos, but did snap a few towards the end of the day, so grab yourself a cuppa and get comfy. :0)

We set up a couple of shade tents under the lovely big gum trees at the front corner of our yard and strung colourful bunting around it and through the trees. The pretty colours looked rather festive fluttering in the breeze. :0) Mum and I then raided my ever-growing stash of vintage embroidered linens ( I LOOOOOOOVE embroidered vintage tablecloths!!!) and set the tables in vintage/shabby chic style with mini milk bottles tied with pretty ribbons to hold sweet chrysanthemums as the centrepieces. We had around 30 people in the garden ...

Here is the 'Naughty Table' all giving their best 'royal garden party' waves. Some Friday Nighters in that bunch ... which explains the 'naughty table' label! :0) And my Dad's brave cousin Bernie is just to the left of the pic there with his lovely wife Bev ... so nice to have them join us. :0)

There were lots of pretty sweetie-treaties to nibble on ... you can see the almost empty plate of yummy savoury scrolls to the side there ... you had to be quick. :0)

MORE sweetie-treaties! Oh ... and some healthy, delicious fruit skewers there too! :0) Nobody could complain that they didn't have enough goodies to choose from. :0)

All of the ladies (and brave gentlemen!) who attended also received a little giftie bag to take home with them ...

They were just a little 'thank you' to people for coming to support our fund raising efforts and had some GORGEOUS bits and bobs in that were donated by some AWESOMELY WONDERFUL people. Firstly, there were some pocket-size recipe cards popped in there so people can make their own garden party treats.

There was sweetly scented tea light candle in each bag, generously donated by the lovely Kelly at Zhi Ba Candles ... three of her gorgeous candles were also offered as one of our door prizes. I LOVE these candles! In case you hadn't already worked that out! Tee! Hee! Hee! Thank you Kelly!!

There was also a little packet of chocolaty deliciousness ... handmade chocolates donated by the talented Pam ... and another BIG bag of these delicious treats was donated by Pam as one of our door prizes. YUMMO!! :0) I'm not a huge chocolate fan, but I DO love white chocolate and I DO adore Pam's chocolaty treats. :0)

And Craig Stibbard of Craig's Highfields Hardware kindly donated packets of seeds so that our attendees could have a bit of colour BLOOMing in their gardens ... pun intended! :0)

My GORGEOUS beautician, Wendy, of Beauty With Perfection in Toowoomba very generously donated a neck and shoulder massage as one of our door prizes ... and the lovely lady who won it promptly turned around and gifted it to Leanne because she felt doing the house flip probably meant Leanne needed to relax more than she did ... AAAAAWWWWW!!! What a sweetie!

Now ... November 19 was not only the day for our Garden Party, it was also the birthday of my Bestest-Buddy-Since-We-Were-Nine Lynette ... who was able to come and play for the weekend - YAY! And as soon as she walked in the door, she was given two jobs! Tee! Hee! Hee! It's a good thing she loves me! :0) And she was the lucky winner of one of our other door prizes (the numbers were popped in the giftie bags, which were given out at random as people arrived) ... 

A FANTASTIC miniature garden scene created by Mum's Partner-In-Mischief, Marg ... who couldn't join us for the day due to family commitments. Can I tell you ... this little garden scene was EXQUISITE!! The flowers were teeny-tiny and perfectly formed, each looking like you could reach out and pick it to go in a miniature vase in your miniature house. Fiona ... Christine would have LOVED it! :0)

So ... that was our Garden Party. A big thank you to everyone who came along to enjoy the day with us and help raise funds to assist girls in the Philippines and a HUGE thank you to everyone who donated prizes and gifties or helped on the day. And the BIGGEST of thank you's goes to my FABULOUS parents who put in many hard, hot, sweaty hours of helping us get the garden in shape for the party and Mum spring cleaned most of our house in the lead-up, too ... apart from the bits that she tricked me into cleaning! Tee! Hee! Hee! It was nice to be able to provide an enjoyable afternoon for friends, but even nicer to help with the work Bloom Asia is doing. Our donation goes with our prayers that these girls will not only leave horrible situations behind and gain new life skills to support themselves and their families, but also that they will truly be able to BLOOM into the wonderful women they were meant to be.

If you would like to learn more about the work Bloom Asia is doing, or make a donation to help set up the new training centre in the Philippines, you can pop over to their web site HERE.

So ... you can see why our batteries were a bit flat this week. :0) But by the end of the week, we were starting to spark up ... just in time to catch up with some special blogging buddies for dinner on Thursday night ...

It was wonderful to catch up with the Fabulous Fiona, quilting fairy extraordinaire and one of my longest-known (I won't say oldest! Tee! Hee! Hee!) blogging buddies, Chookyblue. Here we are during a brief lull in the chatting! :0) The really nice part of the three of us catching up, is that my Beloved Geek Boy, Fiona's Hubz and Mr Chooky all get along well and enjoy a catch up too. And blogging stars that we are (COUGH!! COUGH!! COUGH!! :0) ) we needed our very own official paparazzi ...

Fairy Girl was being sprung from boarding school for the Christmas break ... each of us ended up with one of these funny selfies on our phones when she took pics! :0) You can see GB and Mr Chooky in the background. What a fun night we had, even if GB and I had to duck off a bit earlier than we would have liked to retrieve GB's Dad from the Bris airport. Thanks for a great catch up, gals!

Righto ... and now that Chookyblue is very likely rolling her eyes at how long my post is (Tee! Hee! Hee!) I'd best sign off. OPAM gals ... only a few days left of this month, so don't forget to update your sidebar lists and email me or my GORGEOUS Partner-In-Crime Sweet Peg. But right now ... I'm off to finish my SSCS gifties to get them in tomorrow's mail ... I think I just heard Chookyblue's whip cracking! :0) Til next time ...

BEAR HUGS!

CHEERS!
KRIS