This is Noah Brink. For those of us who have the privilege of knowing 9 year old Noah, it is definitely an unforgettable experience. He may have been to your house or attend your school. Maybe you’ve played sport with or against him. You may have even seen him dance or perform on stage. Perhaps you’ve just met him once, briefly. Whatever your personal relationship with Noah, he makes a strong and lasting impression on you. He’s just that kind of kid.

His energy, enthusiasm and curiosity for life make him stand out amongst his peers. His compassion for others, humour and intelligence along with his perfect manners give him a special charm you don’t easily forget.

Sadly, for Noah and his family, he has recently been diagnosed with a very serious heart condition, the result of a 15mm hole in his heart. This has come out of the blue for the Brink family. Noah has taken the news with his characteristic optimism and stoic determination. However, for the family, the emotional concerns for their little boy and their fears for his wellbeing are overwhelming and ongoing. Their issues are further burdened by the very practical realities they now have to deal with to ensure that Noah gets the best treatment and outcome possible. An illness of this severity seriously impacts on the whole family.

Today was an important day for Noah. He had to have major heart surgery. Noah will now be required to be in Brisbane for several weeks in intensive and special care units. Consequently, both parents are considering either quitting their jobs or taking extended unpaid leave to support and care for him while he is in the Mater Children’s Hospital. Whatever their decision, there will be limited or no income in the family. At the same time Miguel and Justine, Noah’s parents, need to maintain a regular routine and normal day care for their baby and a stable high school environment for their eldest boy until such time as they can get Noah back home to begin his recovery. This whole process is full of uncertainties.

Friends of the Brinks, who love and value Noah and understand how hard this is going to be on the whole family, are calling on all  friends, their friends, friends of friends, classmates, parents, teachers, team mates, anybody who cares about this story and those who might just hope that others would do the same thing for them, are asked to buy raffle tickets to assist the family at this difficult time. Please buy as many $10 raffle tickets as you can to help raise $5000 for the family to help with the serious financial difficulty they are facing.

The hope and aim is to promote this fundraiser widely through Noah’s network of friends, schools, sports clubs and supportive local businesses via the Noah’s Recovery Facebook page and by sending emails to our close knit community in the Byron Shire and well beyond.

Family friends of the Brinks, the Lowry family has generously donated a night’s accommodation at their beautiful Villas of Byron and the Byron Beach Cafe has also offered a dinner for 4 people. We are now calling on everyone to help this cause. Remember, time is something of value you can donate whether you are a chef or a cleaner, a gardener or a dress designer. Maybe, because of Noah’s name, you could hold an Ark party. Come in twos.

Above all please remember Noah and his family today and over the coming weeks and months.

If you can help in any way way, please contact me at Home Made Parties and I will forward your messages on, or directly to Taliah (byrontaliah@gmail.com) at Noah’s Recovery.

Noah, you are in our prayers.

Let’s support this boy and his family, and all hold our children just a little tighter tonight.

Jane xx

Raffle #1  Noah’s Recovery

First Prize:

1. The Villas of Byron – one night ( value $750)

luxury 5 star accomodation in the heart of byron.

Www.thevillasofbyron.com

2. The Beach Cafe- dinner for 4 ( value $300)

www.byronbeachcafe.com.au

award winning food, ultimate dining with a view

www.byronbeachcafe.com.au

3. prettybird.com - $200 voucher

quality fashion online shopping

www.prettybird.com

byron bay results training – best training session you will ever endure!

The best of the best when it comes to fitness training

6.. Affordable Gardencare Byron Bay- 2 hours of garden spruce up

Thankyou Baz and Kim Crichton

Www.passionateflowers.com.au

Second Prize:

www.targabyronbay.com

www.nakedtreaties.com.au

5. Mary Ryan’s book store-  A very special new release book-

Carla Coulson, chasing a dream

value $60

www.maryryan.com.au

Award winning restaurant

www.osushi.com.au

4. Santos Byron Bay- $50 voucher

www.santostrading.com.au

We urge people to purchase as many as possible and get more chances to win so many fantastic prizes !

Silent Auction items

Simply go to our Facebook link and message us your bid (by item number and or description). In May (when we draw the raffle prizes) we will also announce the highest bid for each of the items below and the winner will have 24hors to pay or it will revert to the next highest bid.

1. The Grand Burees of Byron – 2 nights ( value $1300)

www.gardenburees.com.au

5 star luxury accomodation in the heart of Byron Bay

2. Donatella Parisini – family photo shoot ( value $750)

www.donatella.com.au

best photographer full stop…… if you dont already know her work then look at her website… amazing

3. Dominique Sutton- painting

Nude on a beach

oil on canvas 750x 750
Dominique Sutton @ timolsengallery.com

local proffesional artist with an international following.

3. Narissa Butler- waterclour and ink print

beautiful watercolur and ink print from the very talented Narissa Butler from melbourne.

Www.narissabutler.com

Fancy a shamrock cupcake topper? Me too. Thanks so much to Heidi at The Pink Peach for letting me use this pic. I love pink and green – perfect for a girly St. Patrick’s day.

I also contacted Laura at Laura’s Little Party to see if I could post this pic of the cupcakes. Luckily she agreed. And you can get the free printables by Love Party Printables here.

I especially love the whole gold coin pot of gold at the end of the rainbow vibe going on here. And the double cupcake wrappers. I used double cupcake liners for my bedtime stories pyjama party – I think they look so cute.

If you are into biscuits (cookies for you US gals) you can’t beat these leprechaun cookies from Sweeten your Day. Jen allowed me to use these adorable images – thank you.

Now, for the icing on the cake (or the cookie in this case) here is one for all you Irish dancing mummies. Irish dancing shoes (hard and soft) and comp dresses. This will be us tomorrow. We will drag out the soft shoes and white socks for a St. Patrick’s day concert.

Isn’t this amazing. OK I didn’t really post it to inspire you – who can bake this sort of art? It’s more I just had to share it somewhere – amazing after all. Nikki at Tikkido created these – she has an Irish dancing daughter too (so we have a bond!) for her daughter’s party. Yep, amazing.

Now, if you aren’t up for baking, you can’t go past this. Popcorn. Seriously, what could be more simple. And when it’s put in decorated jars all matching the theme you’re ready to party.

Thank you to Kristy at Make Life Cute for letting me use her image. This one should inspire you. Or if you aren’t into popcorn what about white chocolate cheesecake cups? They would look equally good.

So, what are you waiting for, go get baking.

Happy St. Patrick’s day to you.

Jane xx

Hi All.

Tomorrow is St. Patricks’ day. The day when everyone in the country is Irish. Or lucky. Or drunk.

It’s a special day in the Home Made house as I have an Irish dancing daughter, so the day is always busy with dance commitments. Also it’s my Mum’s birthday on St. Patrick’s day, so we have extra reason to celebrate.

Anyway, I rarely pass up an opportunity to decorate the Home Made house, so I thought I’d share with you these pics to inspire you (and me) to go get green this St. Pat’s day. Dig out some green treasures and display them. Then get crafty with your circle punch and sewing machine and make a cute (green) mini dot bunting.

And if you just can’t handle the green decorating cuteness any more, how about a chair cover? I just couldn’t believe this when I saw it. I ‘sew’ want to make one. Or six.

Now, I have to say, when I saw these pics, I knew I wanted to blog about them. You may know I like to ramble on about my own things and use my OWN pics on my own blog BUT this was just too cute not to share. So, I contacted Jennifer at Double the Fun Parties and she let me use her images. Thank you so much. I hope I did them justice. (Oh, if you want to check out the rest including the printables used click here).

However you celebrate all things green, I hope you have a great one.

Jane xx

Stick around as later I will be posting some baking inspiration too.

A Mermaid Party. And because I am desperate to give you all my ‘healthy party food recipe’ for ‘mermaid salad’ it seemed fitting to show you a cute little mermaid party first. This one comes from Cakes by Sharon and I love all the home made details. Oh, and the cake. I love the cake! And the colour scheme. I love that too. And the party favours – they are sweet.

And the birthday girl Lucia, isn’t she lovely? What a lucky little girl.

All the baking and styling for this mermaid splash was done by Sharon from Cakes by Sharon (thanks so so much Sharon for letting me use it).

I hope you’re all inspired. (I so want to have a mermaid party.) Just wait for my next healthy party recipe – if you can’t wait, there are recipes here and here!

Jane xx

Photography by Samantha Pearce Photography 

Printables by Emma Stationery

Happy Halloween Party

Candy Cane (red and white) Christmas Party

Fantastic Friday Feature: Cakes by Sharon

Rainbow Party

(I think I will have to do an entire post on this!)

Pink Ballet Party

Easy Chocolate Mud Cake recipe

Clown Face Painting

Bedtime Stories Pyjama Party

Best Ever Chocolate Cupcakes recipe

Mascarpone/Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe

Fantastic Friday Feature: K and Co (the blog)

Leave a Christmas Light on

So, there you have it – a great round up, however for some reason my fave post (my daughter’s birthday party) came in at number 13, so because it’s now 2013, here is the top THIRTEEN posts, including my daughter’s party:

A clown school birthday party

Here’s to another year of blogging and onto bigger and better things. Happy New Year,

Jane xx

Just look at poor ‘Santa Paws’ here (aka Pablo!)

It really snuck up on us this year – I mean don’t get me wrong, presents were wrapped and ready since about August (they moved house with us wrapped and ready!) 

Santa lists were prepared in time.

We baked.

We factored in trips to see the Christmas lights.

And we saw Santa too. 

But… school didn’t break up till the 21st December and the days leading up to Christmas were spent picking up family from the airport. And now, as Christmas is finishing up, people are packing up their trees (not us, we don’t put ours down until epiphany on Jan 6th). And, well, I’m not ready for it all to finish yet. There is just something about the hope of joy and peace which comes with the season. Which means it is time for us to start thinking about which ornament we will leave out for the whole of 2013. Every year we select one ornament to encourage us to keep the spirit of Christmas alive in our hearts. In 2012 it was an angel my sister sent over from Tonga, which sat amongst the fruit bowl. The year before it was the Christmas angels that hung on the front door (they were not overtly ‘Christmassy’ so looked perfectly lovely greeting people as they came to our front door). The year before it was a small winter cottage candle holder. We will think about it this year, and I may even post a pic for you.

How about you, what ornament will you leave out this year, to remind you of the joy and magic of Christmas and encourage you to keep the spirit of Christmas alive in your hearts for the coming year?

Yours in the Christmas spirit,

Jane

(Oh and also excuse the new watermark – it seems the more I try the more people are determined to steal from me)

Until next post,

Jane xx

As a clown, I have a few characters in me for children’s parties, and Sparkles the Witch is one of them. Here she is here wishing you all a Happy Halloween.

Jane xx

And remember Sparkles the (Friendly) Witch, Fairy Sparkles or TJ the Clown can come visit your child at their party. Simply contact Home Made Parties or see our FAQs and policies page for more info. 

This is the party we had in the home made house a couple of years ago. It was wild! Plus we had craft activities and games, including the mummy game, the snake game and eyeball and spoon race! Fun! Even Sparkles the Friendly Witch made a cameo at this party!

 And how about this one – it says ‘Keep out’ and he just had to take a peek!

However you spend you Halloween, crafting, baking or decorating, I hope it’s a good one.

Jane xx

I’m trying to get into instagram. Are you on instagram? This is the last pic I posted – it’s what I have been snacking on this weekend.

YUM! (What I should point out is that when I posted this pic on instagram, I had already eaten a large pack of peanut m & ms, a pack of peanut butter m & ms AND a pack of Reece’s peanut butter candy.) You see, I’m feeling nostalgic for US candy given as Halloween is two days away and my sister and my Dad are in the States at the moment.

Now, you wanna know why this is so funny? Well, I have something to tell you all. (Something I didn’t mention on instagram!)

I don’t eat lollies (candy). I don’t eat anything with gelatine. I don’t eat anything with artificial colour. I don’t eat food coloured with cochineal or natural colour 160b (annatto). I avoid food containing corn syrup. I don’t drink coffee. Or sugar drinks. Or refined (white) bread. I never eat peanuts. I eat organic fair trade chocolate. I drink organic milk and only eat cheese set with a vegetarian enzyme. I don’t eat eggs, unless they are disguised and are from a free range certified organic fed supplier that does not also provide battery farm eggs. I rinse fruit and vegetables in vinegar in case they contain traces of pesticides. Before I did my ankle I was about to do my body attack training… Some people describe me as ‘fussy’. I just tell people that I have ‘food issues’.

If you must know, after I had eaten all this I felt sick (now there’s a surprise!) But hey – it’s Halloween! However you spend your Halloween, I hope it’s a good one. And remember kids – if you eat too much candy, you WILL feel sick.

Jane xx

Oh, if you don’t have instagram – see my feed here!