Life's little changes...

Life has been rather hectic over the past few months hence the lack of posts. There have been many changes including breaking up with my long term boyfriend which means sharing the hound Harley this breaks my heart every time I hand her over. I know she is only a dog but for all dog lovers out there I am sure you will understand, my house just isn't home without her.

It has also been a very sad August too as my Nan was taken ill and unfortunately she lost her fight after 6 weeks ill in hospital so I have had to say goodbye to an amazing, loving Nan. She is missed everyday, but I have amazing memories of her so will laugh at these whenever I am feeling sad. Particularly memories of playing Wii Dance with her last Christmas she was always up for a laugh and never one to not say what was on her mind. xxx

I have certainly missed writing and am now determined to get my blog back on track posting at least twice a month on events which I organise and also giving others ideas for events which you are arranging. Thank you for being patient with me and I hope you will continue to read and use my event ideas as and when you are arranging an event for that special person.

Style Your Crafting Event 

Late last year I was introduced to the amazing ladies 'Material Girls'. They are two ladies Mel & Donna who love crafting so much that they decided to set up an evening for local ladies who love to craft. Mel is a teacher and Donna is a home maker and they used to meet up on a Thursday or Friday to craft together and decided because they loved it so much they were certain they would be able to run an evening once every few months for fellow crafters who liked to be inspired to make new and exciting crafts and also eat the amazing cakes they made! 

My introduction to them was last November when I attended their Christmas themed evening. I made an robin tree decoration and a christmas tree decoration which was made by using old maps of the Lake District. I loved the evening so much, I was certainly in my element as a keen crafter. 

When I heard about the next catch up and realised I wasn't working I was straight in there to put my name down with my friend Marie. This time the evening was in Comberton, Cambridge. 

Material Girls always set the room out perfectly with areas of fabric, buttons, beads and any other crafting materials you may need. Each time they supply the crafters with a selection of around 10 or more items which they can produce, they provide laminated instructions along with all the items which are needed to produce each of the ideas. You can pick from bunting to a candle holder, decorating a notebook to making a corsage. It is entirely up to you how many different craft items you make in the evening and also how you decorate them, you pick the colour theme and can put your own stamp on the item. 

This time I choose to make a candle holder by using buttons and wire. The colour theme works perfectly in my lounge, you can find an image of my creation at the end of this post. 

As well as their amazing selection of crafting items they treat us all to an array of amazing cakes, all freshly baked especially for us. This selection of cakes is served with tea, coffee and hot chocolate. 

We are all well and truly spoilt by these lovely two ladies 

'Mel & Donna' and I would recommend anyone who loves crafting from the local area to like their facebook page. 

https://www.facebook.com/MaterialGirlsCrafts 

I always look forward to hearing when their next crafting evening is going to be and am sure I will post about what goodies I make next time. 

Style Your Anniversary 

Finally the finale of my parents Wedding Anniversary and the wait to hear how the moustaches went down is over. I can honestly say I was slightly worried that people wouldn't get my sense of fun but I have to say everyone was a great sport and they loved them. 

The idea was to take pictures of everyone with a tash wearing Mums hat then to create a photo album with congratulation comments from everyone. It worked perfectly so my parents know have the perfect album of memories from the day.  

Please find below a selection of images from the day to show how everyone embraced the hat and moustaches. 

My amazing parents trying to recreate the original Wedding picture...

 My hilarious Nan..xx

My brothers our better half's and myself. 

My amazing nephew, although he is way to cool to wear the hat..
I must admit I remember being 12 and would probably have been the same. 

As I have mentioned previously everyone was such good sports when it came to posing in the hat and the moustaches. It relaxed the atmosphere of the party straight away and was a great party starter.

The day ran so smoothy, the food was served over an hour and a half and was absolutely amazing, we couldn't fault any of it. Once the food had been devoured we then went into speeches. Yes a very traditional event for a Wedding but I felt it would be perfect to ask Dad's original Best Man to make a speech. So John kicked the speeches off and had us all in hysterics. Next my parents each did a speech both very moving and funny.  

To carry on the amusement I then got out the game board Mr & Mrs so I started asking my parents a round of questions to see how well they do know each other after 40 years. They did ok however I think the amount of drink which had been consumed by this point added to the wrong answers and made this hilarious. My Dad preceded to ask every couple questions so this game entertained us for an hour or so. 

The laughter continued with a few other games and the day came to a perfect end with the cutting of the amazing cake followed by Tea & Coffee. 

All in all the day was a huge success and my parents had the best time which means it was worth all the hard work and organising. The pressure is on for the next party I arrange to be just as perfect. 

Style Your Anniversary

Style Your Anniversary 

Thank you for visiting my blog again to read Part 2 about my parents Ruby wedding Anniversary.

As I have mentioned we hired a room at the Felix Hotel Cambridge. It was ideal for us as we could all sit around the one large table, the perfect sociable layout. As you can see from the picture below we hung the bunting between the paintings on the walls on both sides. We placed the favours, heart shaped bird seed and heart shaped florentines on everyone's napkin and added silver '40' sprinkles to the table, next I placed the moustaches on the table in my homemade stands.  

The final decoration for the table was some extra goodies for my parents. I bought them these little books which I said would help them with the next 40 years! Dont's for Husbands & Wife's! Suppose they must have done ok though to have reached 40 years! I found these in Oliver Bonas a right bargain at £3.50 each. 
http://www.oliverbonas.com/homeware/books_1/dont_for_husbands.htm
I also placed some heart shaped chocolate champagne hearts on my Mum's place. 

This completed the table settings so next it was using the items which the hotel supplied for our decorations.First we placed the easel at the far end of the room with a large canvas of one of Mum & Dad's wedding pictures and balanced Mum's amazing wedding hat on the stand.

Whilst borrowing my parents Wedding album I stumbled across their Wedding cards, so it would have been wrong not to display these at the party. Luckily the Felix Hotel had the perfect stand beautiful twigs decorated with fairy lights. So I bought some heart shaped pegs from John Lewis, what a fantastic find. 
http://www.johnlewis.com/store/john-lewis-heart-pegs-pack-of-20/p231461867?navAction=jump&_requestid=1866490#default

I completed the tree with three heart shaped picture frames which included images of parents from over the years. I particularly love this picture of them which my Nan gave me years ago. 

The finishing touches to the event included an amazing cake made by Doreen at Incredible Cakes of Cambridge, it tasted and looked amazing, my parents loved it.www.incrediblecakesofcambridge.co.uk 

Last of all was displaying the Wedding Album so people could view the original pictures from my parents special day. 

I hope I have managed to set up the look of the room for you all and you are now all intrigued to hear how the event went and how the moustaches went down.I will follow with Part 3 later this week which will be an exciting gallery of images from the event. 

Really sorry for the delay in updating you all with Part 2 of my parents 40th Wedding Anniversary, working two jobs is keeping me super busy so unfortunately my blog has been a little neglected. I hope to post it asap. 

So in the absence of a post I thought I would share this adorable picture of Harley with you. As her owner I am sure I am biased but she really is the cutest dog ever...! 

Style Your Anniversary

As I have previously mentioned it was my parents 40th Wedding Anniversary on Sunday 28th April. I am extremely proud to have had the pleasure of celebrating this special day with my parents and also for having the opportunity to arrange the day and make sure everything was just perfect for them. 

We had a few discussions about what they would like to do for their special day and they decided upon a dinner for 20 of the family and closest friends. This ended up being the perfect number of people for such an event, it was a social fun day for everyone. So the plans began by finding somewhere ideal for my parents taste and also someone easily accessible for my Nan. So I decided upon Hotel Felix in Cambridge http://www.hotelfelix.co.uk We hired a room which fit us in perfectly and having heard the food was exceptional & reasonable I felt it would be perfect. I must say that the staff and service on the day was fantastic so thank you to @FelixCambridge for making it a day for my parents to remember. 

Next step was the theme for the party. I spoke with all the guests who had been at my parents actual wedding and they all commented that they remembered my Dad's moustache and my Mum's hat from their big day. This got me thinking about what I could do to recreate memories from the special day without it being too tacky. After lots of thinking I decided to go for a fun idea of creating moustaches on sticks. A friend used these at her wedding a few years ago, they were great fun. 

These were so easy to make. All you need are some wooden 

skewers, black card & some super glue. I found some amazing black moustaches on the great blog of 'Staceywporter' which I could print out and use as templates for my card moustaches. 

http://staceywporter.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/free-printable-moustache-brigade-in.html

I made enough of these for around two per person, so the next step was to create a way of presenting these on the table. I got my super glue out again and printed off a length of paper which included images of Mum & Dad and glued these around a tin can. This was something so easy and simple and worked perfectly. 

The next challenge was to get my hands on Mum's wedding hat, I managed this by just popping round and taking everything I needed. This included her dress, her shoes, her wedding album and a large canvas we printed for their 35th wedding anniversary. I definitely got Mum extremely worried I think she thought I would display her dress on a mannequin! I am glad I had her worried however I hope she knows I wouldn't arrange a tacky event...! 

So I had all I needed from Mum to help with the decorations. 

Next step was to create the bunting, I scanned in my parents wedding album and used the images to create triangular bunting which I attached together by folding over the top and stringing them all together using cotton. I made two small rows which worked perfectly for the event, they hung between the paintings which were already up in the room. These were easy to make and a great way of personalising bunting for that special occasion. 

My next challenge was to decide what favours to make for the event. As my Dad has always had birds I decided upon a bird seed heart to represent my Dad and for my Mum I went for a florentine as I know she loves them. So the baking and making began. I am extremely lucky to have a man who likes baking so he helped me massively with making both of these favours for me whilst I was working. 

We found the recipe for the Bird seed hearts on the below link.  http://www.polkadotbride.com/2010/02/diy-project-birdseed-favors/   I tied twine through the hearts and printed off an image of Mum & Dad from their special day. 

The florentines were wrapped in clear cellophane and tied with twine to link to the bird seed hearts. You can create your own buy using the below recipe, however there are many varied florentine recipes so you can pick one to suit your pallet. 

http://www.mylittleitaliankitchen.com/love-at-first-sight-chocolate-florentines-for-your-lover/

I presented the two hearts on everyones place settings like the below. I felt these looked fantastic and they added an extra special feeling to the event, everyone loved both ideas. 

This concludes everything which I made before the event so I will conclude this as part 1 of my parents 'Ruby Wedding Anniversary'. Part 2 will follow in the next week; this will show how I set up the room, how the moustaches and hat were received by the guests and concluding with how the event went overall. 

I hope you are inspired by the ideas I have shown you already and will visit my blog to find out how the event went on the day. Maybe you have already thought of events which you can use them for. I would love to hear your thoughts. 

The famous 'Rainbow Cake Recipe' 

For those of you who would like to take up the challenge of creating your own 'Rainbow Cake' please find the recipe below. If my blog has inspired you to bake this amazing cake then I would love to see your pictures so please tweet them to me or email me your pictures. I have just googled rainbow cakes and there are some amazing pictures of different shaped rainbow cakes, so you could go for something different to the one I created. 

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3028705/

I am now on the hunt for my next baking challenge, let the search begin.