Street Party

For the past week I have been a little panicked/stressed, one of those ideas that float in my head popped out resulting in me co-organising a street party to celebrate the wedding of Prince William & Katherine Middleton. There were times this week that I thought I had bitten off more than I could chew, that it would never come together, but today I was proved wrong. I think that the whole day baking yesterday helped to de-stress me, I made fifty five fairy cakes and two victoria sponges. If it all ending up being a disaster at least we would have cake to eat : )

We started at 9:30 this morning putting up bunting and collecting tables and chairs from our local parish halls. We had bunting reaching to all of the houses, the photo below was taken half way through the process and yes that is me!

So at 10:55 we all made a mad dash home to watch the wedding and it didn't disappoint. The bride looked amazing, that dress was gorgeous! I loved the trees in the abbey. I loved all the pomp and ceremony, all of the horses, the carriages, the uniforms. I could gush and gush, but we had a street party to attend.

Everybody had put in so much effort, all our neighbours brought food and drink. Some even BBQed! We had set up a craft table for the children and one of the ladies even did face painting.

I had an amazing day, it turned out so well. It was really lovely seeing all of our neighbours band together and secretly I am very proud of myself.

Tomorrow I am again cake baking, this time for Ella's birthday party on sunday. I have finally finished my fimo characters and my lovely husband who has been running errands for me all week went and got the turquoise icing. So hears to another party, oh and congratulations William and Katherine.

Let's Party!

This week is full on party organising, I am helping organise a street party for the royal wedding and I am also organising my daughter's seventh birthday party. On top of this I am also meant to be getting my challenge ready for the Let's Scrap celebrations for National Scrapbook Day.

For the street party my job for tonight is to cut out crowns for the children to decorate. I have managed to find some great crown templates at www.firstpalette.com hopefully they will go down well. Tomorrow I am making fairy cakes for the party and a victoria sponge. My plan is to decorate the cakes with union jacks, I have never done this before, but saw an easter egg iced this way and thought it would look great. I will take photos of the process and post them after the weekend. I am looking forward to the royal wedding and the street party will be a good way of meeting people in our neighbourhood. Let's hope the weather stays dry.

Sunday is Ella's birthday party, it is at her gym so that makes life a little easier. I am making her a square birthday cake and I am also in the process of making fimo gymnasts to put on top. I will take lots of photos of the finished gymnasts and cake, fingers crossed that it goes all OK. As for the actual party I am sure that Ella will have a great time as she spent much of Easter out in the garden upside practicing her handstands and cartwheels.

As for my challenge I will post more on that, hopefully tomorrow after all the cake making.

Wish me luck x

Travelling back in time

In February my friend Vicky had a special birthday (I made the Phoebe bag for her) and to celebrate that birthday she decided to have a 1940's themed party. It was a great night with everybody really getting into the spirit of it. My Mum found me a tea dress on sale in Cath Kidston and I bought a 1940's style wig off eBay.

I found the perfect papers to scrap the photos, Cosmo Cricket, the colours are perfect. I also used a idea that was on the Trip Down Memory Lane blog. Mel had designed a layout that reminded me of a patchwork quilt. I love the idea, so I have borrowed it. I am really pleased with end result and I can't wait to show Vicky.

Easter holidays are proving to be very busy and the sunshine is proving a great distraction from crafting. My scrapbooking output has dropped a lot. I am hoping that my 100 pages is still doable. I do have other projects on the go that I will hopefully have completed for next time I blog.

Hope you are all enjoying the sunshine x

A finished bag

Here is my finished bag, I finally finished it last night. I have gone for darker colours which are more me and I have also freestyled (a term I learnt from the crop). It took me a few hours but I finally started to really enjoy making the flowers and I think I will be making some more to add to some layouts. I have a thing about buttons at the moment hence there being a few on this bag, I just love them and they are so easy to sew on.

I have another bag in my craft room that is crying out to be decorated, so I am sure that I will be doing more.

I think that now I have finished my bag I should do some more scrapping, I am starting to fall behind with my target, but this sunshine is so lovely, who wants to be inside when it is so gorgeous outside.

Amazing what a little sunshine can do.

The sun is shining and it seems to make such a difference, I spent most of yesterday in my garden, planting the plants that we bought at the weekend. I had forgotten how much I like being outside, so that is why this is going to be short, as I want to go make the most of that lovely sunshine.

I thought I would show you the really simple card that I made for my sister to take to a christening. I used to make cards all the time, but I much prefer doing scrapbooking now. I don't mind making the odd card or party invites for Ella.

I have lots of things in the pipeline that I am sure that can have a little or a lot of craftiness, we are trying to organise a street party for the Royal Wedding, I am seeing lots of union jacks in my horizon. Let's Scrap are celebrating Scrapbook Day and I have put myself forward to organise a challenge (a little scary) and Ella is going to be seven and we have her birthday party at the end of the month. Oh! and it is the Easter holidays.

So lots to keep me busy and lots to blog about, see you soon x

I thought you did scrapbooking??

I can't believe my last post was on the 12th March, it is now April!! I am pleased to say that during that time I have been being crafty, just not had the time to blog about it. I have also managed to become a year older and have a lovely weekend away with my family.

So, what craftiness have I got up too, well I have finished my noticeboard, hooray! I think that it has turned out OK, even though it was not as simple as I thought and cost me a little more than I planned. I could have just bought a new noticeboard, but where would the crafty fun in that?

So here is the mirror before I started. I really liked the frame and it only cost me £9.99. If I could have found just a photo frame I would have used that.

Here is the frame once I had taken out the mirror, it came out really easily, it had just those little metal clips holding it in.

Here is the mirror with it's first coat, I turned it over so that if I ever want to use the mirror I have the option. This first coat was one of four that I did using the Crayola  magnetic paint. The paint was at least five years old, so after the fourth coat the mirror still wasn't magnet, I am putting this down to the age of the paint.

So a trip to B&Q and some new paint and four more coats I ended up with.....

Can you spot where after all that, I broke the mirror putting it back in the frame? So gutted, but I am thinking of adding some flowers maybe to hide it.

So as well as my new noticeboard to go in my craft room I have also made a rubbish bin to take to crops. Unfortunately I forgot to take it this month, but I am really pleased with myself. I did it without a pattern and the help of my Mum, shock horror. Maybe I can do this sewing thing, then again maybe not, what do you think?

Finally onto the title of this post. "I thought you did scrapbooking?" is what my husband said to me last night, this is while I am sat on the sofa with an unfinished project from this months crop at Eclectic Keepsakes. This month Karen had designed a lovely bag with handmade flowers on it. We had to make the flowers, so while I think I may have cracked the sewing thing with my bin, handmade flowers prove that maybe I haven't. I can't show you my finished bag, because I haven't finished it, no surprise there really. I do plan to finish it though, I have a feeling that it might take all week though. So this evening and the next I will be doing my bag.

I have done some scrapbook pages though, I am again without a printer, so many of my pages are without photos. The Range near my Mum and Dad have a great clearance aisle, I have got some new pads of paper for half price! One of these was baby girl themed, I thought that I might finally start on scrapping some of my DD's baby photos. One completed page is a photo of my Mum which was taken when she was three. The stitching on it took me all week, but I love the finished LO.

So what next, well I have some more frames to paint and lots of scrapbooking to do and a bag to finish and let's hope I don't leave it so long before I update again.