Handmade Mother's Day

This year, inspired by Junkaholique's amazing handmade Christmas presents, I am trying to make as many presents handmade as possible. I'm not doing too badly, with a few birthdays under my belt so far I have made a variety of things including some moisturiser and bath salts, but I've always had a bit of 'proper' present like a voucher or something as well.  For Mother's Day I decided that I would just give homemade things so I made a selection of bits and pieces for my mum and my mother in law.  I went with two different soaps, some bath milk and some chocolates....

For the soap I made two different scents - Rose & Vanilla and Jasmine & Rose Geranium.  I had dried my Valentine's Day Roses in the oven and added them to the soap but they lost their lovely deep red colour.  I bought translucent shea butter melt and pour soap so it should be nice and moisturising but I think I might try the opaque version the next time as I think it might look nicer! I wrapped each of the soaps in some greaseproof paper and then made a little card sleeve to go over the top.

For the Rose milk soak I used this recipe from Hello Natural, you were supposed to add red food colouring to make it a light pink colour but I could only find gel food colouring and it just didn't cut the mustard!  I think it still looks pretty nice though.  I got the little glass jars from the poundshop!

For the chocolates I used my new favourite truffle recipe!  They are the same ones I made for my valentines day chocolate box and they were equally as delicious this time round.

A close up of the soap packaging.  I was rather proud of this!

All in all I was pretty happy how it all turned out, I packaged it in a gift bag with some tissue paper and I think it looked lovely.  There were no complaints from the mothers anyway! 

I am now quite addicted to making homemade soap and bath things.  It is incredibly fun and satisfying, I strongly recommend having a look at all the lovely recipes and ideas over at hello natural.

Valentines cards....

It's that romantic time of year again so I've made some Valentine's cards and you can get one for that special someone in your life over in the shop!

They're all printed on recycled kraft card and come with snazzy colourful envelopes!  Plus there's free postage to the UK.  Order by next wednesday to make sure you get it time for the big day!

Shop Update....

I have finally gotten round to taking photographs of some of my new prints and have now got them up on the shop.  Do take a look.....

You can also buy them in person at the Yard Gallery in Holywood.

Craft Fest 2012

sorry for the lack of interesting posts lately.  I’ve been so busy working at the BBC story fest sessions and getting ready for Craft Fest I haven’t had a chance to get all the lovely posts I’m planning done!  I’ll get there next week I promise!  This weekend though I’m taking part in Craft Fest at Castle Ward in Strangford.  Its the second year I’m doing it and I’m really looking forward to it.  When I did it last year it was the first proper big craft fair that I’d done and it really inspired me  - meeting the customers and seeing what sort of things the were looking for and also meeting the other exhibitors, it really made me think about the sort of things I’m making.  

So if you’re free this weekend do try and head down and take a look.  There will be loads of different stands as well as workshops and demonstrations and on top of all that you can take a tour round the big house - where there is also an exhibition of work going on -  My book Until Further Notice  will be part of the exhibition.

Hopefully see you there!

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!