Halloween!

We had a halloween party on actual halloween (since it just happened to be a Saturday).  There were sparklers, a little bonfire, mulled cider and apple juice, a slow cooked ham and lots of autumn fruit pies!

My mum grew the little gourds last year for my sisters wedding and I dried them to use again this year.  The colours aren't as bright as they were last year and they are really light and hollow sounding but I think they still look pretty nice on the mantlepiece.  This year I've added some fresh pumpkins (which will end up in a soup or something in a bit) and some leaves, twigs and pinecones picked up from various walks as well as some poppy seed heads from the garden.

The smaller guests dressed up, George was a cat and meowed lots.

We had sparklers and a little bonfire in our cast iron garden stove outside.  It was so mild we even ate our tea outside too.

The sticks for the bonfire proved more interesting than the sparklers for some of the guests.

There was lots of food, including tonnes of sweets as well as these three pies which are from the left - boozy rhubarb (made with the rhubarb I strained out of my rhubarb liquer), blackberry and apple and the last one is apple.

This one was my favourite - I bought the little leaf cutters on eBay.

No party is complete without bunting in my opinion so I spent the Friday night before the party making some out of the pages of an old book and a sharpie marker!

George makes all sorts of marvellous art projects at nursery so I added these to some black and white string to make a spooky garland.

I love this glittery bat!

My sister gave me some spider web decorations which came with their very own spiders.

An autumny flower arrangement.

I had planned to carve lots of pumpkins but in the end I just did this one simple one.  Will try harder next year!  I made a pumpkin cake with the stuff I scooped out of it but after cooking for what seemed like an eternity it was still the most squishy inedible thing unfortunately.

I made this garland out of a sponge painting that George had done.  It was full of lovely autumn colours so I used my star paper cutter and cut out lots of stars and glued them to some black and white butchers string.  I love the idea that every halloween I'll be able to get this out and hang it up - whereas  the painting would have been up on the fridge for a while and then got put in a pile with the many other masterpieces he has produced. ;-)

Some more bunting, this time it's just ordinary printer paper and a sharpie marker taped to black and white butchers string.

We strung some rope lights along the bench in the hall which I really love.  They are so sparkly!

All in all it was a great party, now the back yard is pretty much finished I'm hoping we can have lots more gatherings out there.

Two parties in one day....

On Saturday I experienced my first ever surprise party! My sister organised a surprise baby shower for me and my friend Kerry.  I honestly wouldn't have believed that they all could have pulled the wool over my eyes so completely but they were very sneaky and I didn't have a clue until we pulled up at my house and there were lots of cars outside and balloons at the door!

It was great fun although it took my a while to get over the shock!

There was lovely bunting made from old book pages.

Our Mexican bunting was still up (I had wondered why when I suggested taking it down both Dee and my mum said why not keep it up!)

Lovely marbled balloons (from the pound shop of all places!)

Me and Kerry the mums to be.

There were baby themed party games including guess the flavour of baby food - which I am demonstrating above and sniff the nappy and guess its contents which my mum looks mightily surprised at here! (they ranged from pesto to nutella and I can tell you what would normally be perfectly tasty took on a whole other dimension in a nappy context!)

All the guests had a go at decorating some baby vests.  They were very cute indeed.

The house is now filled with lovely flowers and feeling positively spring like.

As I was completely unaware that this party was on the cards I had also organised a birthday party for Dee that evening.  After all the excitement of earlier, I didn't take many photos that night but I was rather proud of the cake I made (4 layer salted caramel and chocolate) so here are some photos of it!

It was iced with a chocolate ganache and I sprayed it with edible gold spray paint.

The layers were from the bottom up... vanilla, caramel, chocolate caramel and chocolate all sandwiched together with salted caramel.  It was very yummy even if I say so myself.  You can find the recipe here.

It was certainly a party filled day and I was knackered by the end of it but I wouldn't change it for one minute (although I may have put more make up on before I left the house, as well as made the bed and cleaned the bathroom had I known so many people were going to be in the house!)

Wedding!

Its been a few weeks since the wedding but I’m finally getting round to posting up some pictures.  It was an amazing day, so much fun and possiblyone of the only days it didn’t rain in June!



The tables all set ready for tea in the hall.



Paper boats and washi tape flags as place names.



Favours - little jars of homemade Rhubarb and Champagne Chutney, made by me and my mother in law with rhubarb from my own garden none the less! (A while ago I made some printable Rhubarb Chutney Labels which you can still download here)



My mum made all the flower arrangements for the church and the tables in the hall, they were all from her own garden or from friends near by and included sweet peas, honeysuckle and little daisies.  On the tables they were arranged in golden syrup tins and ordinary tins which my sister had decorated with ribbons and lace trim.





We decorated the hall and a marquee (which was outside for milling about in before tea)  with all the bunting and paper chains we made at the wedding making session back at the start of June.  As well as making fabric bunting we also made bunting out of doilies cut in two and sewn on to bias binding or ribbon - I had seen some mexican paper cut bunting on line but it was sooo expensive so i decided to go for this version instead, and with doilies from the pound shop it worked out very reasonably indeed!



The cake was carrot cake made by my mother in law and it was absolutely delicious.  In the background you can see a blackboard with the seating plan drawn out, the hall was once used as a school house and I just couldn’t resist writing on the blackboard!



Me, my sister and my sister in law.  Me, my bridesmaids and my family travelled to the church in this 1940s charabanc bus.  It was so much more fun that going in a normal wedding car and me and my dad got to sit in the back seat! My sister and I made the bouquets.



Smooching in front of the bus!



We also had this 1960s bus to transport everyone to the evening venue for dancing. Its a bit hard to see in this pic so I will try and find a better one somewhere!



This is where we all went dancing in the evening.  It is an old lightship moored in Strangford Lough which is now a sailing club!



And finally a picture of the back of my head!  My friend Sarah did my hair and my make up - she is one talented lady - both still looked good when I finally went to bed in the wee hours! (She also makes beautiful jewellery but she doesn’t have a website yet)

Anyway it was such a lovely day and although it was hard work making everything in the run up to it, it was so worth it! Thanks for reading!

Wedding making....

One of my favourite things lately has been making all the different bits and pieces for the wedding - the dress, the favours and of course the decorations.

Over the Jubilee bank holiday I organised a making day at my house with crafty family members and friends.  It was such a great day and we got so much made (so much more than if I’d been making by myself, many hands and all that)  The chat, tea and cake (baked by my talented sister) made the day fly in and i could hardly believe how much stuff we ended up with.  I don’t want to give too much away before the big day so i’ve only got a few shots at the moment but I’ll put up photos of the finished decorations once its all over!



working on many metres of bunting.



I really don’t know why I am pulling such a strange face in this one!



oodles of paper chains



Hard at work pining bunting together



My mum busy at the sewing machine



Yet more sewing - Carol and Tineke



More old paper creations



I look a bit manic in this picture, I don’t know why as it was a really lovely day and not stressful at all (although my sewing machine had given up the ghost by the end of all that bunting!)

Everybody seemed to enjoy it (or maybe they were just being polite because I made them lunch!) and we agreed that we’d try to get together again for another (non wedding related) making day very soon.