March Crafternoon

Last Saturday was my Easter crafternoon. I decided to make things even more fun by doing a mix of Easter and Alice in Wonderland as the theme, and it was a lot of fun to put together the decorations and all the bits and pieces for the party.

My original plan for the table was to have a table runner made out of real moss...however Pete wasn't too keen on the idea (probably a good thing I'm married to a sensible fella!) so I stuck with a simple purple tablecloth, a scattering of playing cards and some succulents in teacups to adorn the table. The favors this month are one of my favorites out of all the ones I've made so far! I made edible terrariums inspired by a post on My Paper Crane. I filled cute jam jars with crumbled chocolate cake mixed with chocolate frosting to make the 'dirt'. I topped that with some desiccated coconut I mixed with some green food coloring to make 'grass'. I made little fondant icing toadstools on toothpicks and for the finishing touch added a few candy pebbles! (Thanks to my family for getting some for me on their recent holiday to Norfolk) Everyone loved them, and I was so happy with how they turned out. 

I asked Emma Jane's Bakery to make an Eat Me cookie stamp, and it worked so well for the little cookies I gave everyone. And of course I filled some tiny bottles with lavender syrup and tied on a 'Drink Me' tag! 

There were plenty of tasty vegan treats to enjoy, including these little aquafaba meringue toadstools I made! 

We enjoyed a good natter while munching on yummy food and drinking lots of cups of tea. 

Our craft this month was making our own tea blends! There were loose leaf black tea, earl grey, green and mint to choose from as a base and then different freeze dried fruits and sprinkles to add in for flavor! It was really fun and everyone made different blends. We put the tea in some little tea bags I found on eBay for about £1, and then made little washi tape tags!

Everyone got to keep one of each person's tea to try! So fun, like a tea lucky dip!

And of course, as it was the Easter crafternoon we made Easter Baskets for the gift swap. Everyone really went all out and it was so fun to see everyone unwrapping their little basket of gifts.

I loved the Easter Basket I put together, and it was definitely a little bit painful to part with it!

I filled my basket with Easter Confetti, Cute Easter Stamps, a sweet handmade Pencil Case, a bunny Tsum Tsum, Egg Candles, a dairy free Chocolate Bunny, a Chick filled with Toffee Apple Tea, a Glittery Carrot Brooch I made and lots of little colorful chicks! I admit, I loved the carrot brooch so much I made one for myself too!

It was such a great afternoon of fun and friendship! Next month I've got Hal's 2nd Birthday party (what!?) so we aren't having a 'proper' crafternoon, but in May we will be back to usual.

Valentines Crafternoon

I totally forgot to post about my Valentines Crafternoon! Better late than never! It was quite a small party this time, just four of us in total. I went all out with the over the top valentines themed tableware (all from Sainsbury's) I love combining red and pink, and think the table looked super cute!

I made valentines sprinkle mixes as favors for the ladies, mixing little sugar hearts and sprinkles with some dried rose petals and freeze dried raspberry & strawberry pieces. I can't even describe how incredible the sprinkle mix smelled!

I kept the decorations fairly simple, I especially loved the XOXO garland my sweet gal pal Brittany sent me all the way from the USA! 

I made a little buffet for my ladies with some rose flavored heart macarons, pain au chocolat, glittery raspberry jelly, mini sprinkle cookie sandwiches & bacon flavoured crisps. It was all super yummy!

I made each lady a personal heart shaped pizza, keeping it simple with tomato & herb topping and vegan cheese.

We did our usual gift swap and I stuck with the theme and got all pink, red & love themed bits and bobs! I actually got all of the little pressies at Wilkos, and I think I spent *just* over £5.

Our craft this month was crafting with Hama Beads (who else remembers these from their childhood?) It was really nice and relaxing as we were able to chat a lot as we were crafting, and as usual everyone made something different.

I made a cute little cactus which I've put in a little pot, it looks really cute! I also made Isabelle from Animal Crossing, and I think I'm now hooked on Hama beading! I want to make all the other characters now too!

As always, it was a lovely time with my fantastic friends. There's only a couple of weeks until my Easter Crafternoon! Can't wait!

To see more crafternoon posts just click the Crafternoon tab in the sidebar.

Mini-Scrapbook DIY

 For my January Crafternoon I made my girly guests Mini Scrapbooks as favors. I had seen a few different styles of little scrapbooks browsing Pinterest, and decided to use paint swatches as the base pages to work with.

The nice people at B&Q didn't seem to mind that I was taking oh so many swatches home with me! (Thank goodness!) I picked lots of lovely bright colors but also picked up some greys and blacks so that I had a nice variety of pages to choose from.

I got lots of stickers, stamps, sparkly bits and scrapbooking supplies from my local craft store, and I found binder rings on eBay for pennies! I used lots of paper scraps and craft bits that I had already, so it was actually a very cheap gift to make. However it did take me two weeks of evenings to get them all done.

 I made 20 pages for each book, and because I had six whole books to make I chose to make a lot of the pages for each book very similar, just using different colors or stickers. But I did make sure the pages had personal touches for each of my guests, and added photos and memories to make the scrapbooks really special.

My favorite pages are definitely the 'Emergency Sparkle' pages! I made little packets filled with sequins, stars and glitter by cutting up some of the cellophane packaging that my stickers came in! I just filled them with the sparkle-bits and then carefully secured the sides with gold, glittery tape! 

It was tiring work, but seeing the reactions of my friends when they opened them made it all worthwhile. 

Why not make a mini-scrapbook for someone you love?

January Crafternoon

Last Saturday I held my monthly craft party (or Crafternoon as we like to call it!) and as the first one of 2016 it was so brilliant! We didn't have a theme, but I chose to decorate with a theme of pink, green and gold - I'm in love with that combination at the moment!

I made the table fairly simple this time, but made sure there was lots and lots and lots of sparkle by using gold table confetti, sequins, little stars and glitter. I don't usually buy or use plastic cutlery but when I saw this seafoam cutlery in the pound shop I fell in love! (And I haven't thrown them away and will definitely use them again!) 

I made the Meaty Beany Chilli from Isa Does It for lunch, and it was delicious! We had our usual little sweet buffet table filled with tasty treats including PB & J Macarons, Party Rings and Pink Fizzy Laces! YUM! 

I set up a cute little station with the gift swap basket ready to be filled with everyone's beautifully wrapped prezzies, and I was super excited to display the incredible light box that my bestie Jess got me for Christmas! (I can't wait to use it for everything!)

I picked up a few cute bits and bobs for my gift swap gift. I thought the Caroline Gardner heart notebook was adorable and handy for shopping lists! Pretty cloud tissues and of course some vegan sweets. And when I saw these Tsum Tsum stickers I just couldn't resist! 

This month's craft was Paper Craft - so scrapbooking, Bible journaling, journaling and everything inbetween! I made sure we had plenty of crafting supplies to use, and everyone brought a book to work on. 

I don't know why I'd not thought of doing a scrapbooking crafternoon before because this was one of the best activities we've done. Not only was it really relaxing, but everyone brought different things to work on and each person's individual style came through. I know I really enjoyed watching the other girls work!

It was so calming and lovely, and I think I'll do another scrapbooking crafternoon this year, everyone enjoyed it so much!

I decided to make mini-scrapbook favors for the girls this month, and I must admit that it was quite a task making 6 of them! It took me every evening for two weeks, but when the girls opened them it was all worth it! I'll be sharing a little DIY on the blog soon so you can make your own!

I finally started to work on our Wedding Album! Only a few years late! I'm really enjoying looking back on that incredible day and creating a beautiful scrapbook full of memories.

I can't wait until next month's Valentines themed crafternoon!

See more of my crafternoon's by searching #ffcrafternoons on Instagram, you can also read about previous events by clicking the 'crafternoons' tab in the sidebar!

Nicola blogged about this month's crafternoon over on Hello Its Nicola!

Christmas 2015

Better late than never, that's what I say! I've been meaning to write about the Christmas Crafternoon and just general Christmas-y stuff for weeks and weeks, but the lead up to Christmas was mad, and since Boxing Day both boys have been ill, or teething, or ill...So here I am, mid-January, writing about Christmas stuff! Hey-ho!

The Christmas Crafternoon is always one of my favorites of the year. I love Christmas, and everything it entails, so of course I went all out for our December Crafternoon. 

Like last year we decorated Gingerbread Houses, although this year I made things a LOT less stressful for myself by buying them rather than making them from scratch! (I found accidentally vegan ones in my local Tiger store!) I put them together with burnt sugar and stuck them to place-mats I covered with brown parcel paper. I made some Aquafaba Royal Icing and popped it into piping bags ready for everyone to use. We all brought sweets and sprinkles to decorate the houses, and we had a lot of fun!

It was amazing how different everyone's Gingerbread Houses turned out! Everyone's individual styles came through, which was fantastic! We also had such a lovely, relaxed time just chatting, listening to Christmas music and drinking peppermint hot chocolates! 

I'm really looking forward to Januarys Crafternoon which takes place in a couple of weeks time! I can't wait to see my ladies again! 

This year I decided to order some Christmas Cards with a photo of Hal & Ezra on them, which I thought was a fantastic idea and shouldn't bee too difficult. Well let me tell you, getting a photo of a very active 18 month old and a 5 month old both smiling (or just not crying!!) was a nightmare! Eventually I settled for the above photo - I didn't want Hal to have his dummy in his mouth, but it was the only way we could get him to stay still (albeit momentarily!) Although I must say, if ever I feel down all I have to do is look through the hilariously awful 20-odd photo's we took and I can't stop laughing! Here's my favorite awful one!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year!