The Bridesmaid's Tambourines

Photo: Paul Summerfield

Not being much of a flower person I wanted to find something different for my bridesmaids to carry. After a bit of searching I settled on tambourines and they were one of my favourite wedding decisions!

Photo: Paul Summerfield

I scoured Ebay and found these ones for £3 each from a seller in China.

I decorated the tambourines with ribbons matching the colour scheme of the wedding; gold and pink. I had some in my stash already but also turned to Ebay again for a few more options, including some that matched the colour of the bridesmaids dresses exactly.

I wanted to personalise the tambourines so I used my wood burning tool to write my bridesmaids' names on the inside.

Photo: Paul Summerfield

The tambourines were so fun and I love that they're a little on the quirky side.
The girls jingled in time to 'Ho Hey' by Lennon and Maisy Stella (from the Nashville tv show soundtrack) as they walked down the aisle ahead of me. They rang out along with the claps and cheers when Andrew and I were pronounced husband and wife. And the girls used them to make themselves known during the speeches later in the day.
The tambourines also turned up on the dancefloor in the evening with anyone that felt like the tunes could do with a little something extra.

The Wedding Cake

Photo by Paul Summerfield

The cake, like my flowers, was another thing I didn't want to spend too much money on. So I turned to the best baker I know. My Mum. Does she now wish I had gone a different route to save her the stress? Probably. But I think it turned out great.

Photo by Paul Summerfield

We wanted a simple, two tiered cake with layers of jam and butter cream inside, covered in a thin layer of butter cream and decorated with berries. And the top layer had to be gluten-free.
My Mum definitely delivered!

She found the cake stand at my Grandad's house and her friend Debra lent us her fancy knife from Liberty. The two of them, with my sister, successfully got the cake to the venue on the morning of the wedding and got it assembled and decorated, all while I was still at home getting my hair done.

Photo by Paul Summerfield

For the cake topper I knew I wanted one of the phrase ones in a fancy font. Andrew and I settled on it saying 'You're my favourite' which is something we say to each other a lot. Because we're adorable!
I used my Cricut to cut out the words from card and glued a wooden kebab skewer to the back. Then I sprayed it gold.

Photo by Paul Summerfield

I am so pleased with how the cake turned out. It looked legit! Though my Mum has said she won't be applying for Bake Off any time soon.

Oh, and it tasted delicious too!

As a memento of the day I took the cake topper, removed the stick and stuck the words to the front of the mount in this frame. I added some paper which matches the colour scheme of our living room and added the frame to our gallery wall. I like how it's a subtle reminder of our day rather than something that screams, 'we had a wedding!'

Wedding Flowers

Hi guys, I got married!

I've been a bit quiet here on the blog for the last few months as I've been busy preparing things for the wedding. I've got lots of diys to share with you and I'm going to kick things off with...the flowers!

I've never really been that bothered about flowers so I knew it was an aspect of the wedding that I didn't want to spend too much money on. I can understand why florists charge what they do, but I thought this was something I could do myself as I wasn't too concerned about the outcome.

The day before the wedding I headed to Tesco and bought just under £50 of flowers, which is everything you see here. I'd practiced making my bouquet back in May, after searching blogs and youtube for how to do it, so I knew which sort of flowers I was after. 

I laid all the flowers out on a long table and got to work. For a bouquet, the key is to make the central bundle of flowers, tape it together, and keep adding flowers around it, taping as you go.

To make it a bit more special I used some small gold balls on wire, which were originally from some Christmas crackers, and pushed them into the centre of some of the flowers.

I kept the stems long so I could keep the bouquet in a vase of water overnight. In the morning I tied ribbons around it and trimmed the stems right before I left.

I also made the button holes for the groom and groomsmen which was very simple. One small flower with a bunch of gypsophila, taped together with twine wrapped around.

We also wanted a small pot of flowers for each table at the reception which would hold the table numbers. 

For the numbers, I used my Cricut to cut two of each number out of card which I glued together around a kebab skewer. I then sprayed these gold to match our colour scheme.

The flowers for the tables were put in jam jars inside various gold pots. Half of these we already had in our house and the other half we bought from IKEA.

We gave the jars of flowers to our guests at the end of the night, and kept one for ourselves and, over a week later, it's still going strong.

£50 of flowers was more than enough and I was able to make an addition pot to put on the registrar's table during the ceremony, as well as make up a couple of vases of the spare flowers for my Mum to have. She had let me take over her house with my floristry after all. 

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!

Minnie Mouse Ears

To go with my mermaid hair bands and my unicorn hair bands I decided to make some Minnie Mouse ear hair bands!

To make the ears I cut out two pairs of felt circles with a curve at the bottom to fit around the hair band. 

I've had this flowery felt for ages but never found the right project to use it. Until now! I thought it would be a fun change from the traditional black and red Minnie Mouse ears.

I sewed the circles together, leaving the curved section open so I could fill them with polyester stuffing. Then I sewed the ears to the hair band. I always make sure to buy hair bands that are covered in fabric, rather than just made of plastic, so that I have something to sew on to.

I then made a bright pink fabric bow to coordinate with the ears and attached that to the hair band.

And then I made some more!

I had a great time looking through my fabric and felt stash for matching colours and patterns.

Which one is your favourite?

Sketchbook Landscapes

Inspired by Minnie Small on Youtube I've been doing some small landscape paintings based on images from Google maps street view.
Have you ever just looked around on Google maps? Dropped the little man on a random spot in a random country and had a walk around. It's fascinating!

The paintings are done with gouache and are quite quick to do. I can get one or two done in an evening which is great for keeping my hand in the painting game without committing too much time.
The sketchbook I'm using is a little A5 one from Seawhite. The paper isn't the best for wet materials, but it was only about 60p so I don't mind.

I had a good look around this lake in China. I'd love to know what that colourful teepee type structure is as I saw a few of them around the lake. I also loved that image of the boy posing for a photo so I had to draw that. I switched things up by using colour pens rather than paint.
I like the mix of images and materials, all relating to one area, so I'm keen to do more pages like this.

Sewing Bows

The drawers I keep my fabric stash in all very full. I'm almost at the point where I can't close them properly. But when my sister is getting rid of off-cuts from her latest costume project, or when someone donates a bag of fabric at work and I get to look through them first, I just can't say no.

So I need to start using some of this fabric that I've aquired. Which is why I've made all these bows!

Clip-on bows seem to be quite popular at the moment (I'm looking at you, Jo-Jo) so I bought a pack of these crocodile clips to attach to the back of the bows using UHU glue. I do prefer to sew clips to the bows, but since these clips don't have any holes in, the glue seems to be doing a good job.

I have a lot of Christmasy fabric which I was very excited to use for a few bows. I'm hoping these will be popular later in the year at Christmas craft fairs.

I also made a few bows with some of my quirkier fabric, like the Pikachu one! I've had it for years and it's so big I can make a lot with it. 

Something I started putting together last year for craft fairs is these surprise bags. They started as a way of shifting old stock but they were so popular I'm now having to make things especially for them.

I made a batch for a recent craft fair which contained a hair bow, a charm keyring and a pack of colour in stickers. They were very popular!

What would you love to find in a surprise bag?