Pirates of the Caribbean Hen Party

Last weekend I had the absolute pleasure of celebrating my long awaited hen party!! Unfortunately my hen party had to be delayed due to Covid-19 and it meant that I ended up getting married before I was able to have a proper shin dig with my friends and family. However with restrictions lifting earlier this month, we were finally able to celebrate and have some fun. Even though I knew the hen party was happening, I didn't have a clue about what the theme of the party was as this was being decided by my sister and mum who were planning the whole thing.

Late morning on the day of my hen party I was visited by my mum and sister who were dressed up as pirates and came to deliver me a message that my hen party was going to be a Pirates of the Caribbean theme and they had a costume with them for me to dress up in! I was so excited to find out this was going to be the theme of my hen party and couldn't wait for it to begin!

When I arrived at the party, the decorations had already started before entering the house, with some boat sails coming out of a wooden bucket, a lantern and also a sign on the door greeting my guests to the hen party.

The sign was ordered from an Etsy shop and then my mum attached wooden poles to the top and bottom and some black yarn to hang it.

As I entered the hallway there was a skeleton in a crate that had been dressed up in pirate attire, holding a bottle, with some treasure on his lap!

The hallway had also been decorated with black sails!

To make the party Covid-19 friendly, the whole set up was done in the garden (thank goodness the weather held up!) and this is where all the little details came together.

As you can see from the picture above my mum got hold of some old wooden barrels from a seller on eBay and these were used as bar tables which were decorated with a pirate map, a light up bottle, some snacks, hand sanitiser and a pencil and paper for the party games that were coming up in the evening! 

There was also a wrist band for my friends to take home with them as a thank you for coming to my hen party. These were bought from a seller on Etsy called Wishgem

All the bottles at the party were recycled bottles which my mum and sister had printed some pirate "Rhum" labels for and then got some LED bottle lights to put inside of them. These were also a gift for my friends to take home as a memento from the party!

Other decorations around the gazebo were some iron wall candle sconces which were sourced form an antique shop in Hove called The Interior house. These were hang on old pieces of fencing trellis that my mum had kept hold of, which was definitely worthwhile, as they came in handy for added decoration around the party!

There was a hanging centrepiece in the middle of the gazebo which my mum had made using two metal hanging baskets. She then added a semi melted candle inside.

There were also some hanging lanterns and bird cage lanterns which had candles inside. 

All of this added to the aesthetic of being on board a pirate ship and when the sun set in the evening, the lights looked magical around the garden!

The other decorations that looked so effective at the party were the boat sails that my mum created around the garden. The main sail looked amazing and had been stencilled on with a pirate design and put together using some old bits of wood and calico material. She also put a black washing basket on top.

There was another set of sails towards the back of the garden which were similar in design to the sails outside the front of the house. These sails had the addition of a pirate flag at the top.

At the back of the gazebo was another umbrella which had another sail attached to the back.

To finish off the back of the garden, mum also displayed a large pirate flag on top of one of the garden sheds.

Since it was my hen party, I was the Captain of the ship and was assigned my own special Captain's table, which was decorated with all the usual gubbins including a pirate map, compass, telescope, tankard, feather pen and more! Also can't forget the chocolate coins!!

I also had the treasure chest on my table as well, as all the rewards need to come back to the Captain of course!

Well I think that is a round up of most of the decorations, like I said earlier, there were a lot! In addition to the decorations creating a perfect atmosphere, I just want to quickly comment on the music that was played throughout the evening. A mixture of music from Pirates of the Caribbean film was played and also a backing track from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride from the Disney Parks was also used. If you have ridden this ride at Disney, you will know the music and I have to say that listening to it at the party made me feel like I could have been in the queue waiting to go on the ride!

Now let's move on to the Hen Party games - this was all my sister's hard work and she came up with some great ones that were right up my alley!

The first game of the night was "How Well Does the Wife know the Husband?" Previous to the party, my sister had sent Conor some questions. I needed to match Conor's answers to get the question right and for any I got wrong, I had to add a pirate costume accessory, such as a hook hand, eye patch etc to myself!

My friends had to guess at the beginning how many questions they thought I would answer correctly and then the winner would win a prize! As you can see from the picture above, I don't get them all right and some of them were a little bit tricky!

However I managed to walk away with a score of 7 out of 10 which I seemed pretty chuffed about above!

The next game was inspired by my love of Disney and was a simple quiz sheet called Disney Love Quotes. This game was sourced off Etsy

We simply had to match the love quote with which film it was from. Luckily the films were all listed at the bottom so we could only pick from those films as some of the quotes were a little bit tricky.

On introduction to the game I was also given some Minnie Ears that were nautical themed and had a veil coming out the back of them. The tulle veil was added to the ears by my mum and the ears themselves were sourced from an Etsy seller called Mouse Hatter.

Of course being a huge Disney fan, I managed to win the quiz and got to pick a prize from the treasure chest!

The prize treasure chest was an inflatable chest which can be sourced from places such as Amazon or eBay. The prizes were wrapped in small Hessian bags.

The third game of the evening was a very funny game indeed, which was good old Pop Up Pirate! We each had to take turns in heat matches against another player to see which two players could finally make it to the final! It may seem like a straight forward game, but once you've had a few rum cocktails it suddenly became quite interesting!!

The final game of the night was a creative game and was mainly for my crew mates to take part in as my role as Captain was to judge their creations. They were each given a pot of play dough and a few carving tools and they had to make a pirate ship. There were definitely a few interesting creations made by some of my friends but Bobbie managed to walk away with a prize for her very creative ship, including a wheel, flag, pirates on board and also a wave along the side of the ship!

Alongside these organised games there was also a game that my guests could play throughout the party which was to find the Pirate medallions that had been hidden around the house. There were 6 medallions to find and my guests just had to simply write down where they had found them on a post it note that they were given. Those that found them all, won a prize! The post it notes were sourced from a website called Zazzle and were personalised for my party.

Additionally my friends were also able to create their own pirate name for the party using the Pirate name code sheet. Next to this was a Bucket List that my friends could fill out as ideas for an adventure that me and Conor could have during our lifetime together.

A party wouldn't be complete without a cake and I couldn't have a pirate party without a pirate ship cake!

This fantastic cake was made by my sister who used a Pirate ship cake tin from a company called Nordic Ware. The decoration on the cake, including the sales, pirate and Kraken (Pirate of the Caribbean 2 reference) cut out looked amazing and it was finished off round the bottom with some sea blue icing!

And of course it tasted delicious!

For the final stage of this blog post I just want to touch on the theme of costumes! I thought everyone looked fantastic at the party, using a mixture of bought costumes and whatever people had lying around at home, e.g. striped t-shirts and shirts. A tie around the head for a pirate scarf, you get the jist! Here is a little look at everyone's outfits!

All in all it was a fantastic night and I enjoyed every second of it. The theming was amazing and I can't thank my mum and sister enough for everything they managed to put together for this. Also a huge thank you to my friends who came along to the party and celebrated with me! 

If you have read this post for some inspiration for your own pirate themed party then I hope you have managed to pick up some ideas and inspiration to help you throw a fantastic party!

Christmas in July

As a crafter, the word "Christmas" often pops into my head as early as June and I start to think ahead to my favourite holiday season of the year. New craft products for the festive season always get released each year in July and August and I start looking early to try and get some inspiration for crafty makes I want to do leading up to Christmas. You may be thinking that surely there will be plenty of time to craft for Christmas later in the year. However I have always found that once September rolls around the next few months whizz by in a flash and before you know it, it's December and you are still finishing off the last of your Christmas cards and handmade gifts!

Over the past month we have started to have a play with some Christmas crafting and I wanted to share a little sneak peek of some makes we have been working on and perhaps whet your appetite for some Christmas crafting!

First up is a sneak peek of my Christmas card designs this year. I started researching some ideas on Pinterest and also had a look at some craft websites to look at the previous years Christmas designs and see if I could get inspired. I visited one of my favourite brand websites which is Hero Arts - who do some of the best Christmas stamp sets! After looking through quite a few different designs I found this one - Winter Woods Heroscapes (CM491) and once I saw some of the samples I knew this was what I wanted to  use to create my cards this year. Luckily I managed to find this stamp set on a UK craft website called Bumbleberry PaperCrafts - who I highly recommend if you are trying to find some American brand stamp sets in the UK. 

Once I received my stamp set (extremely quickly BTW) I started experimenting with some colours. In the example above I used a selection of Tim Holtz Distress ink pads but I am also considering purchasing some Hero Arts ink pad sets that have a gradient effect which will create the perfect colouring for these cards.

The next sneak peek is a a piece of home decor which mum created. We think this may potentially be a workshop project in the near future so watch this space for more details. This project was inspired by Tattered Nest Designs and you can visit the blog post here that we were inspired by. We think this is going to be a fantastic workshop project, which incorporates lots of arty techniques and is a fun decoration to hang up in your house at Christmas. 

Our last sneak peek is of another potential workshop project which is a small home decor Christmas decoration. These decorations are from a kit that was designed by Papertrey Ink a few years ago called the Make It Market: Wonderland Kit. I can't believe we haven't even played around with the items in this kit as they can make the prettiest of decorations and stationery for Christmas. I have been gaining some inspiration from Pinterest over the past few weeks and have finally started to have a play. There are many different combinations of designs you can create using this kit and I can't wait to share more of them with you once I have had a creative session.

So that concludes our sneak peek of Christmas makes and an insight into how early we start crafting for Christmas! Make sure you check out some of your favourite craft websites for New Christmas products for this year. If you are a fan of Hobbycraft, they have started to list some of their Christmas products online and will be launching Christmas officially in August! It's never too early to get in the festive spirit!

Let's Catch Up...

So I'm a little bit behind on the second quarter of the year life update and resolutions review. I can't believe we are over half way through the year now. After a very slow start to the year, with the UK being in it's third lockdown, things have definitely sped up since we started coming out of lockdown at the beginning of April.

Married Life

So the first major life update is that me and Conor got married at the end of April! As you may have previously read in our last life update post, we both decided that we still wanted to go ahead with the wedding, even if it was on a much smaller scale than planned. If you haven't seen our Wedding Series blog posts from May then make sure you check them out here to see all of the handmade creations we made for our wedding. There will be a second part to this series once we have had our Wedding party in October!

Back to Working Life

Life has started to get a bit more back to normal with my return to work and the shops have definitely been busy! The good weather at the beginning of June, made lots of people come out to get a new summer wardrobe and the pace at work has definitely increased. More time at work, means less time to work on home projects or crafting!!! However I am trying to get my crafting mojo back this month....with a focus on Christmas do I dare say! More will be shared on that in our next blog post....

10 Years of Vintage Follie!

Back in June we celebrated 10 years of our Vintage Follie blog. If you haven't had a chance to read our blog posts from June then definitely check them out to see our top 10 blog posts from the past 10 years and also read about our 10 Year Anniversary road trip, where we visited Arundel and also a Crafts shop in Herstmonceux.

Days Out and Enjoying the Sunshine!

Over the past month, me and Conor have enjoyed some nice outings, including a birthday trip to Arundel, where we had a nice wander around the shops and also enjoyed a lovely walk around the gardens at Arundel Castle. We also enjoyed a lovely breakfast at The Wiremill Pub & Inn, which is located in Felbridge in Surrey. We rarely go out for breakfast and fancied ourselves a little treat last week and we didn't regret it. The pub is set on the edge of a beautiful lake and the view from our seat was beautiful, we will definitely be making another stop there sometime in the near future!

Hen Party Fun!

Last weekend I got to finally enjoy my Hen Party that had been long overdue (I'm now already married!) thanks to Covid! However with restrictions easing further and the want to not postpone it any longer, we decided to go ahead with it. The whole evening and theme of the party was a complete surprise to me and I was thrilled to find out a few hours before the party that it would be a Pirates of the Caribbean theme! This was hugely exciting as it was in keeping with the whole beach/nautical theme of the wedding and my mum and sister went to huge lengths to get the theming perfect. I will be sharing a whole blog post about the party at the end of the month so stay tuned for that! Here's a little sneak peek below of me in my pirate costume...

Resolutions Review

This section of the blog post is probably one of the reasons I've been putting off writing this post for so long. Since April, my resolutions for the year have all started to go by the whey side. Even in my last update I was starting to see the cracks showing as I wasn't quite sticking to them as I had hoped. However now that we have crossed the half way point of the year, I have decided to revisit some of these resolutions and bring them back to my attention to have another go!

Apart from last month, I had been successful in posting 4 blog posts a month and I hope to continue to do this for the rest of the year (I might even add an extra post in over the new few months to make up for June's lost post!).

Trying a new recipe each month may have not always been the case for the past quarter, however we did trial a HelloFresh box back in April and gained 5 new recipes which we have kept the recipe cards for and still pull them out today to make these recipes. You could say that those 5 recipes have covered me for 5 months of trying new recipes!! We also bought an Air Fryer recently which has inspired us to cook a few different dishes!

Since my day job involves being on my feet all day, the motivation to go for a walk 3 times a week has definitely petered out. Although the past week me and Conor have been looking after his family dog and we have had to adopt a new routine to take Eddie out for a walk twice a day. This has helped to re-motivate me and hopefully I will continue with some of these walks over the next few months!

In terms of donating to a different charity each month, I have been a bit forgetful. Instead of donating online I have recently given donations in person. Back in May, we visited the Seal Sanctuary whilst we were away in Cornwall and made a donation while we were there. I have also had a bit of a fascination with shopping in charity shops recently and have found a few nice pieces, donating to St. Catherine's Hospice and British Heart Foundation. 

The one resolution I had completely achieved throughout the first quarter of the year was writing my daily diary. However June and July became such busy months that I pushed the diary to one side and didn't bother writing in it. Since doing that I have become less organised and felt a bit more anxious and stressed as I found the diary a good way to review the day and write my feelings down etc. So since the beginning of last week I have picked up my diary again and have started writing....feels good! I have also recently purchased a couple of self help books I found in The Works about Anxiety and Worry. I have struggled with worry and anxiety on and off for the past few years and often find these books can be helpful in breaking down the problem and finding effective ways to cope with these issues.

Links to the books are below...

Stop Worrying: How to calm the Inner Anxious You

How to Feel Less Anxious

Finally, as you may have noticed, we still haven't launched our Etsy shop yet...initially I said June...I'm now going to say September. Fingers crossed!

So that's our little life update for the second quarter of the year, we hope we can share a few more creative makes with you soon, especially now that the holiday seasons will soon be upon us. We hope you are all finding some time to be creative and are enjoying the sunshine when you can!