oh la la

a few photos from our day trip to Paris on Tuesday, what a beautiful city, amazing food and great company....

derby ducks, brixton village, honest burgers & jake bugg

last night the derby ducks were down visiting London and we decided to try out Brixton village for pre gig grub, we stumbled across honest burgers and were impressed with their delicious burgers and rosemary salted fries. I opted for the Beef Special,which was amazing, we then headed off to see Jake Bugg @ the O2 Brixton Academy, favourite track had to be his acoustic performance of "Broken" at the end, tear in the eye moment... thoroughly enjoyable evening out!
also i forgot to mention the beautiful and quirky lampshades in Brixton village, photos below, may have inspired me for a future project..... also we were loving Lara's crazy disco jacket and matching blinged up phone cover! dazzletastic!!

second craft of christmas: crackers

so here is our second Christmas craft: handmade Christmas crackers...

I decided on using jewel tone wrapping paper (all from Paperchase) and mum went down a more traditional theme of the 12 days of Christmas. They were fairly easy to make, once we got the measurements right and really pretty, here are the results...

and here are my mum's gorgeous crackers, 12 days of Christmas themed, gorgeous or what....

materials

Toilet rolls (2 per cracker)

double sided tape (or glue)

scissors

pretty christmassy wrapping paper ( i used plain and patterned)

ribbon

cracker pulls

chocolates or small present to go inside (we opted for lindt reindeers)

method

1 - cut one of the toilet rolls in half

2 - Cut plain paper to around 30cm wide by around 12-15cm long (dependent on the size of your toilet rolls)

3 - mark the centreline of the paper

4 - cut the patterned paper exactly the same width as your toilet roll and the same length as the plain paper (12-15cm)

5- mark the centreline of the patterned paper

6- matching the 2 centrelines stick the patterned paper on top of the plain paper

7 - with paper the wrong side up, stick the long toilet roll, with double sided tape onto the centre of the plain paper, then leave roughly 3cm gap and stick the 2 halves each side of the long toilet roll.

8- then wrap the toilet rolls in the paper and fasten with tape, ensuring you have put the cracker pull between the the paper and toilet roll.

9- place the present / chocolate inside

10- wrap your ribbon roud each end of the cracker and tie in a bow, et voila!!!

shopping list

cracker pulls 

- http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000VKPRWU/ref=ox_ya_os_product

paper - 

http://www.paperchase.co.uk/all-christmas-wrap/icat/wchristmaswrap

oh la la! off to Paris we go...

what an amazing surprise i got yesterday.... i was presented with some presents at sunday lunch by my mum and sister as clues for a day out they had planned for me next week, first present was a stripy t-shirt with a bicycle on it, next up 3 little pictures my mum had drawn, french bulldog, Eiffel tower and a lady in a stripy t-shirt, then a necklace with an Eiffel tower pendant and finally a lonely planet of Paris!!! Yes we are off on the Eurostar to the beautiful Paris next Tuesday for the day, how blooming exciting..... need to brush up on my French... tres excitement!!

Photo of the week

pretty pretty pink roses in my makeshift jam jar vase, hopefully will brighten up this gloomy week!

best of crackers 2013

take a look at my inspiration for the weekend ahead, second christmas craft will be christmas crackers.

i am hoping ours are going to turn out just as gorgeous and hopefully half the price... watch this space

Thornback & Peel £55 for six

Liberty's £49.95 for 6

Selfridges £65 for 6

Liberty's £34.95 for 6

Not on the High Street £9.95 each

mum's beautiful bauble wreath

very jealous that mum's wreath is 10 times better than mine, look how gorgeous it is......

Vintage bedroom

Just wanted to share with you a couple of snaps of my vintage dressing table, bought from e-bay for £90, bargain!!

first craft of christmas: bauble wreath

yesterday was the first day of our "12 crafts of christmas"!!
we decided to make a bauble wreath, having been inspired by Kirsty Neale's book "Hoop-La - 100 things to do with an embroidery hoop", it was pretty easy and very effective, have a look below..... mum hasn't quite finished hers yet but I will post some photos once finished.

materials

embroidery hoop 10in
gold ribbon 3m
100 miniature 2cm baubles
double sided tape
clear plastic thread

method

1. wrap the embroidery hoop with the double sided tape ( I used tape with no backing, to avoid problems with peeling this off)
2. wrap the ribbon around the whole wreath, make a bow out of the remaining ribbon, thread the screw at the the top of the hoop through the back of the bow.
3. tie your clear plastic thread around the screw then thread the baubles on 2 at a time, then wrap round the hoop once and repeat, until all baubles are used.

shopping list

pack of 100 baubles 
http://www.paperchase.co.uk/invt/00517119/

gold ribbon
http://www.paperchase.co.uk/invt/00473872/

embroidery hoop 
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005BX9VAQ/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

handmade first birthday card

my lovely friend Vicky made this beautiful card this week for her little nephew max, top marks!

project: 12 crafts of christmas

the festive season will soon be upon us, and mum and i have decided to set sunday afternoons aside to dedicate to a different christmas craft, here is a sneak preview below, first post will be up next week, if you want a clue, we have been buying miniature baubles and ribbon .....