Dress Up your Lampshade Fun

 

Hi bloggers, I'm taking a small break from the Wedding series to report back on a fantastic workshop day on Saturday. Saturday's workshop was the second of its kind as we hosted this workshop for the first time a few years back and it was such a huge success we had demand to do it again, so we did! As usual everyone created some fabulous lampshade designs and we wanted to share them all with you here on the blog......

First up is Heidi's lovely shabby chic lampshade......

 

 

 

Pauline brought with her two small lampshades and decorated them up in the same style to match each other.....

 

 

Zoe and Oceaniana brought with them some lovely beaded lampshades and took out every other beaded panel to fill with fabrics and lace......

 

 

 

 

Diana had a lovely shaped lampshade and adorned it with beautiful vintage fabrics, lace and trims....

 

 

 

Next up is Mags who brought with her a magnificent shade. The shape of the lampshade really stands out with her simplistic design.....

 

 

Finally we present to you Chris's lampshade with wonderful natural tones and plenty of lace!

 

 So that sums up our day and we all had such fun having a catch up over some tea and cake in the garden during our breaks.

As always I just want to thank all the ladies that came on Saturday, we enjoy hosting these workshops so much and they wouldn't be able to run if we didn't have you lovely ladies attending them so thank you so much for your support.

I know you're all looking forward to the next one and guess what.....so are we!

 

 

 

 

 

Wedding Series: Afternoon Tea Reception

 

Hi bloggers, so this is the fourth post of the Wedding Series and today we are moving onto the Wedding Reception Venue and all the pretty little details. So let's start with the venue itself......

Venue: The Talbot Inn, Cuckfield, Sussex

We came across this venue for the wedding completely by chance. On the way back from a visit to a local craft shop we were driving through the village of Cuckfield and noticed The Talbot Inn with its beautiful outside dining area and clocked a small function room above the pub that turned out to be a new extension for the pub. As soon as we got back we started researching the pub and found their Facebook page which showed recent events that had been hosted in the function room, so we were straight on the phone to my sister and arranged a viewing for the next weekend, when we fell completely in love with the place!

Outside dining area with the upstairs function room in the backdrop.

As you walk through the door there are a set of stairs that lead up to the function room, keeping it separate from the pub.

So let's see what we had to work with.....

We arranged for the venue to provide tablecloths and the china needed for the afternoon tea while we provided the pretty little details. As you may be able to see in the photo the venue had some lovely 'lightbulb' lights and also some fairy lights wrapped around the beams which added some lovely detail in terms of lighting.

 

We decided to deck the place out with doily bunting, keeping in theme with the wedding invitations. I have to say this is also a really cheap way of making a large amount of bunting as all you need is some twine and a couple of different sizes of doilies.

 

 Flowers were the perfect accent to decorate tables and ledges around the venue. We used tin cans and Kilner jars to put the flowers in decorated with some burlap, doilies and twine. We sourced flowers from a local supermarket and became florists for the day by making our own arrangements to fill the jars and cans. To keep the bunches of flowers together we used tiny elastic bands around the stalks of the flowers to stop any drooping over the edge.

 

Top table with the flowers as a backdrop.

For the table centre pieces we used tin cans to put the flowers in, placed on top of some vintage books. We included a vintage Paris postcard sitting next to a table number designed to look like a postcard. Guests were only assigned to a table, leaving them to choose what seat they took. For that extra vintage touch we attached the table numbers to a plain thread spool.

 

 

 

 

 

Instead of a guest book my sister wanted to use these feedback cards to place on the tables for guests to give their feedback and advice for the happy couple. The cards were sourced from Marks & Spencer and we bought a box of small pencils from eBay.

 

Keeping in with the theme of the Afternoon Tea my sister decided to give tea bags as a favor. Herself and Ben chose two of their favourite blends of tea and I designed a pocket envelope for them to go in that included an appropriate quote with the date of the day for the guests to keep as a keepsake from the wedding day. I have to say the quote was not my own - I was inspired by Pinterest!

 

As guests entered the venue and walked up the steps they were greeted with some more flowers - this time in the form of a large pot plant that had a sign for Joanne & Ben's Wedding reception pointing the way for guests to follow......

 

We also made use of the table on the stairway adding some more flowers and a picture of Joanne & Ben from their Paris trip - where Ben proposed - which also explains the use of Paris postcards as part of the table centre pieces.

 

Once guests made it upstairs they were greeted with a glass of bubbly and came across the table that had a vintage suitcase on for guests to place their cards and gifts in. We lined the case with a vintage doily and included pictures of their parents wedding days. We cut out the word 'Cards' from glitter card using a die cutting machine and pegged the letters to some pink ribbon going across the back pocket of the suitcase.

The table plan was made from a large frame that we covered the insert of the frame with padding and burlap to pin the luggage tags onto.

All these pretty little details came together to provide the perfect setting for an afternoon tea wedding reception. Make sure you check back for the last few posts in this Wedding Series covering bouquets, buttonholes and thank you cards. 

I will leave you with one photo of the happy couple speaking to guests as they enjoy their afternoon tea..........

 

Wedding Series: Bridal Shower Invitations

 

Hi bloggers, so this post may seem a little out of sync in the Wedding Series as I was suppose to include this in my last post but instead of updating the post I thought why not do a post about the Bridal Shower invitations on their own. So here goes...

For the Bridal Shower invitations I used a design software called 'Craft Artist Professional' - which is amazing by the way, especially if you are more of a crafter then a designer. You can download lots of digital kits to the program and then design anything you want. So armed with this amazing piece of software I decided to design the invitations on the computer.

 

The invitations are made out of two parts:- a pocket envelope and a postcard invite. I made the template for the pocket envelope on the computer and printed it out with the phrase. I also used another piece of amazing technology called the 'Minc Machine' by Heidi Swapp. This baby can help you add foiling detail to your design if you print it from a laser printer!! That last bit of information is vital as the foiling will only work with toner from a laser printer.

 

The second part of the invitation was the postcard which I also added foiling detail to to highlight the lace border and also my sister's name. This part of the invitation also included the important information of who, what, when and where.

I finished the whole design off with some peachy coloured ribbon matching perfectly with the colours in the design.

Please stay tuned in the Wedding Series on the blog for inspiration on venue decoration, bouquets and buttonholes, cake design and thank you cards.

 

Wedding Series: Bridal Tea Party

 

Hi bloggers, this is the next instalment of our Wedding Series on the blog and tonight we want to share with you some hen party/bridal shower ideas. I always prefer the idea of a bridal shower rather than a hen party as bridal showers tend to be a more sophisticated affair for all the ladies in the family to enjoy. Although we did add a bit of the party element in at the end and it seemed the older generations were more of the party animals! Anyway let's get started with some decoration ideas.

For my sister's bridal shower we decided to host an afternoon tea party in the garden - thankfully the weather was on our side.

 

We used our large table that we usually have on hand for our craft workshops and got to work decorating it with vintage tablecloths, vintage china and of course some beautiful flowers!

 

We bought some decorations from Hobbycraft including paper fans and pom pom decorations - which are really simple to put together and can be saved again for future parties. We also included some doily bunting as well.

 

 

I wanted everyone to have a badge so got to work on some handmade rosette pins that indicated their role in the bridal party....

 

These were placed in everyone's place on their tea cup and saucer....

 

 We welcomed everyone to the party with some welcome drinks which consisted of either Raspberry Lemonade or Elderflower & Rose served in these gorgeous glass bottles with a straw, a sprig of mint and a raspberry or too popped in as well.

 

Now let's get on to those all important games.....

We started the fun with a little icebreaker game called 'Who has the Groom?'....

I got this excellent idea via Pinterest and owe my thanks to Abby from Normal Activities blog. Inside each envelope was a tuxedo with a celebrity face photoshopped on top. However one of the tuxedos had a picture of the groom and whoever got that picture won a prize (in this case all the prizes were Hershey's Kisses).

The next game we played was called 'He Said, She Said' and again this was inspired from Abby's blog.

 

Everyone was given a tiara (to represent the bride) and a moustache (to represent the groom). As the hostess I was in charge of asking the questions and the guests had to guess who had said what. Since my sister knew the answers it was her job to hold up the tiara or the moustache to provide the answer for everyone else. I think this game was the most successful and easy to play whilst eating at the table. 

 

 

Next up was a game inspired by our love for Disney. Since we are lovers of everything Disney I only felt it was suitable to play a 'Disney Couples' game. For this I printed the names of 23 Disney couples onto magnetic paper and used a magnet board I already had and a baking tray (very handy magnetic object to have) and split us into two teams. Whoever matched all the Disney couples in the fastest time won! Before we could start the game though we had to present my sister with a little something special......her own Disney wedding ears with veil...

 

 

In between the games I encouraged the guests to write some words of marriage advice for the bride to take home with her. For this I attached some tags to some metal keys and displayed them in a jam jar....

The next little game we played involved some pictures of the bride and groom throughout their childhood. For this I hung pictures of each of them across some twine with some glittery pegs and we all had to guess what age they were in each picture.....

 

The final game we played was a very similar set up to the Disney Couples game, but this time the teams had to match the traditions at weddings with the superstitions behind why we do them - this game proved to be much more difficult then we all first thought but still quite entertaining! I have to say each team gave 100% to become the winners in each task.....

 

 So that was it for the games and after a bit more cake and a few toasts of champagne I revealed to my sister that the night was not over yet and was only just beginning as we were all going on a little trip. I presented everyone with a 1920's flapper headband for the occasion and kept the location and method of transport a secret until the very last possible moment.....

 

 To finish off the evening I had booked a limousine to take us all to Brighton to a wonderful 1930's tea bar called Metro Deco......

 

 

 

We all had some cocktails that were infused with tea (of course) with some nibbles on the side. The cocktails were served in teapots with Babycham glasses to accompany them. It was the perfect finish to a wonderful vintage inspired bridal shower and at such a reasonable price, I would recommend Metro Deco to anyone!

As for the older generation becoming the party animals, I leave you with this wonderful photo below of the groom's mum and my nan!

 Stay tuned for more posts in the Wedding Series on the blog.