Hen Do Craft Activity

This past Saturday was my hen do! I wanted it to be a low-key, home made kind of affair so we went out for brunch, played some games, made pizzas and did a craft activity. Because it wouldn't be my hen do without a craft activity!

A few weeks before, my sisters and I were out shopping when we found a bunch of these white pleather jackets in a charity shop. I didn't want sashes or cheesy t-shirts for the hen do but I agreed to everyone having these bizarre jackets. They were only £3 each and I can't say no to a bargain!

I organised the craft activity for the day. I kept it simple by going with 'decorate your own make up bag'. I bought a pack of 10 canvas make up bags from Amazon and then raided my craft room for supplies. Apart from the bags I didn't have to buy a single thing. I just have that much craft stuff!

The supplies included; fabric paints and pens, fabric, ribbon, sewing cotton, buttons, beads, Sharpies, sequins, fabric stars and flowers, leather pieces, and googly eyes. I laid everything out on a table at one end of the room and let people rummage through.

I also printed out a few inspiration images to get people started.

The good thing about this activity is that it didn't require a teacher, which would have been me, to walk everyone through it. I just introduced the craft and then we all got on with it, which meant I could take part too.

This is what everyone came up with! I love how they're all so different, and how everyone got involved with the activity even though they're not as in to crafting as I am.
I would definitely recommend this kind of activity for a girly gathering. Just provide some drinks and snacks and you're go to go!

This Week I...

...went to my friend Lizzi's Hen Do in Edinburgh!

It was a pretty packed weekend with lots of fun activities.

First up was a cocktail making masterclass at Revolution. The class is made for hen parties and was really fun. Our barman James even made sure to include non-drinker me and Lizzi's pregnant sister. Non-alcoholic strawberry woo-woo = yum! 

On Sunday, after a night of karaoke, we had a much needed spa day. I had my first proper massage which I found to be part relaxing, part torture. 

After the spa we headed to a hotel for afternoon tea. The food was amazing and there was so much of it! This photo only shows half of what we had. Little smoked salmon bagels, warm scones, sticky toffee cake. And it wasn't miniature portions like regular afternoon teas.

Hen Do Wristbands

For my friend Laura's hen do my friend Lizzi and I made these wristbands for everyone to wear. We made 16 all together. When Laura was younger she loved 101 Dalmatians so we wanted to reference that in the design. 

The first thing we had to do was find dalmatian print fabric. We looked in Hobbycraft and online but could not find what we were looking for so I offered to paint the fabric myself. To make the task a little easier I made a stamp with the print design on from an old rubber. 

The wristbands are made of a section of a plastic bottle with a strip of card stuck on which is then wrapped in the printed fabric. I image-transferred the text on to plain white fabric which was cut out glued to the wristband.

We bought some metal bottle caps to hang from the wristband, sort of like the tag on a dog collar. These said 'if lost' on one side, and 'please buy me a drink' on the other. Miraculously my circle paper punch was the exact size of the bottle caps which made cutting out the circles a lot quicker.

We made small holes in the ends of the bands and threaded black elastic through.  

For the bride-to-be's wristband we added gemstones and her tag read 'I'm tying the knot' 'so buy me a shot.' A phrase courtesy of the hen party I passed when on holiday in Nashville a few years ago.