dalek pirate party invitations

I really wanted to do a pirate party for Oliver’s 7th birthday this year.. he was fairly keen on the idea but his main obsession is Doctor Who, and Daleks in particular.. so I thought, why not combine the two – so we are having a Dalek pirate party!

I designed some pirate daleks, with (of course!) hooks instead of the usual sucker arm! I also designed a dalek ‘skull and crossbones’. I designed them to be made into stencils, these are going to end up getting stencilled onto all kinds of stuff for the party!

First task – invitations.. I based the layout of these on the dinosaur invitations I designed for Oli’s 5th birthday. I printed the stencil designs onto card, and cut them out with my trusty craft knife..



I had this idea that I could paint the stencils with a couple layers of mod podge, which I thought would strengthen and seal the card stencils. It kind of worked.. the only thing was, I was doing this in a rush – we had to get them made up and given out before the end of the school term. So the mod podge was not really 100% dry when the kids and I started on the stencilling! This actually helped I think, because the stencils were a little tacky so they stuck to the paper while we stencilled!
(I imagine this is a bit like using freezer paper to stencil onto fabric – I just bought some freezer paper to try this out on some stuff for the party!)

Cyan did the paint for the dalek ‘skull and crossbones’ on the fronts, and Oli painted the dalek stencils.



I designed the other parts of the invitations with a parchment paper background which I mocked up in photoshop, I printed these onto standard white printer paper, and roughly tore the edges. Karl and I then had a rather late night (I should say early morning!) singeing all the edges and sticking the invitations together.. I love Karl so much for humouring and helping me in my crafty madness!



I did have fun coming up with the dalek/piratey wording.. which Oli loved!







I have so many ideas for this party, I have researched some fantastic games to play, and have some fun ideas for food.. we are going to transform our backyard into a pirate ship (hopefully – weather permitting), with sails, dalek pirate flags, a deck made from pallets..



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mini bag, notebooks and other yummy gifts

I made more mini notebooks last week, as a little thank you gift for Oliver’s teacher and teaching assistants. They are the same as the crafty ribbons mini notebooks I made, in that they have perforated pages and are stitch-bound; the covers are a little different in style – I wanted them to be personal, and I thought rather than Oliver drawing cards for his teachers I could use his drawings as the cover of the notebooks, they will be reminded of him every time they write a note! He wrote a little thank you to each teacher on the first page of their notebook.



Oliver drew some lovely little birds (he loves birds). He drew a blue-tit, a cockatiel and a robin. I added polka-dot fabric behind his drawings, which was fixed onto the card cover with bondaweb, then the drawings were trimmed to fit and stuck in place with double-sided tape, then I machine-stitched around the edges. We also bought some yummy dark chocolate mint truffles (we can testify to the yumminess as we shared a box at home too!) and used a green (school colour) gingham ribbon to tie each notebook with the choc box.



I also made another little bag like the crafty ribbons mini beach bag I made, this one was a birthday gift for one of Cyan’s friends. We gave her a play dough ice cream set (a bargain buy – I bought a few to use for gifts over the summer) so I used the ice-cream Fun in the Sun ribbon I had from the Crafty Ribbons challenge. Cyan made another of her cute little bracelets – it has become a habit making bracelets for her friends birthdays.



I was going to make another mini ribbon notebook to match.. but time was short.. and I remembered we had some mini princess colouring books left over which I made to go in party bags for Cyan’s birthday last year. They were covered with cute scrapbook prints and the cupcake one went nicely with the ice-cream bag!

craftshare 2010 at sew can do ~ felt pocket party bags

Today I am a guest poster over at Sew Can Do as part of CraftShare 2010. My post is about using felt to make pockets on party bags, please hop over and read it here..

we set the date

Yesterday we booked our wedding reception for October next year at the
Royal Plymouth Corinthian Yacht Club.



I took these two pictures a few weeks back on a beautiful sunny day. The Yacht Club is situated right on the sea-front on the Plymouth Hoe. The Hoe is one of my favourite things about living here in Plymouth. I really wanted a venue on or around the Hoe for our reception, we will be getting married in the Plymouth Registry Office which is towards the top of the Hoe. I always loved the Grand Hotel right at the top of the Hoe, looking out to sea, but there was a fire there some years back and it was converted to apartments after the fire. There are other hotels around the Hoe but just not ‘right’.

I am so happy a friend suggested the Yacht Club to me a couple of months back, I can’t believe I wasn’t even aware it existed! I must have walked past it hundreds of times over the years, but it is tucked away down by the water. I looked at their website and it looked perfect, it then took me a couple of months to get around to calling them. I had the 1st of October in mind for the date, but they already had a booking on that date by the time I called this week, so I made an appointment to go and meet the wedding coordinator the next day after work. Karl and I both really loved the venue, their hire rates are very reasonable and the wedding coordinator is a lovely friendly enthusiastic crafty lady! We both warmed to her instantly. We booked the following Saturday – 8th October 2011.

It had to be October, our anniversary of being together is the 5th of October – I wanted our wedding day to be close to this. Next year is quite special too – we will have been together for 15 years next October! We actually talked about marriage when we were first together, then we bought a house.. had two kids.. and then for a long while neither of us had any interest in getting married. A couple of years back I started to think that maybe I would like to tie the knot (before I get too old!), I knew I would have to be the one to propose – Karl was quite happy as we were. It took me a while to pluck up the courage (silly – I know!) and then last year I had some rings made and decided I would ask Karl on his birthday. I did, and he accepted!

The Yacht club has the most amazing views out to sea, the main function room is quite traditional and neutral, perfect for decorating however we choose; with french windows opening out onto a balcony overlooking the sea, and it adjoins onto a dining area where our sushi buffet will be laid out. We have also hired an extra little room right on the corner with windows and sea views all around, this will be a children’s area, we will set up colouring and crafty stuff and the kids can escape up there to play! We plan on having a very relaxed informal reception, basically a big party with all our friends and family!

Our engagement rings were made by LivelyHood on Etsy to my specification, they have silver bands and a panel of copper-silver mokume-gane. The two panels on the rings are made to fit together. Mokume-gane is a Japanese technique of forging thin layers of different metals together to create a wood grain pattern. I love it!




Also from Etsy was the fabric I bought to make my wedding dress from. My dress will not be a traditional white wedding dress, it will be a Japanese inspired kimono-esque style. I found this beautiful pink maple chirimen vintage (unused) kimono silk from KimonoMomo, who had enough length of this amazing silk to make the style of dress I want. Are you detecting a theme here? Karl and I both love Japanese style and culture, and Japanese food. This is definitely the inspiration for our wedding ‘theme’. The dress fabric gives me a lovely colour palette to work with..



I won’t start planning ‘proper’ for a while yet.. got both kids’ birthday parties still to do this year.. but I am now officially excited! I am so happy we found the perfect venue to celebrate our special day!

mini notebooks ~ fun in the sun crafty ribbons

I made these little notebooks for my second part of the Crafty Ribbons Fun in the Sun challenge, using various Fun in the Sun ribbons along with some other ribbons from my stash to cover the fronts of these little notebooks. I was going to make a couple of different ones.. I got a bit carried away working out cute ribbon combos and ended up making five!









The first was made to match the mini beach bag I made..





I made these books from mixed pastel coloured printer paper, with covers from offcuts of cardstock. I stitched them on my sewing machine to bind them. I also ran the inner pages through the machine with no thread first – to perforate the sheets – this means pages can be torn out if required. My inspiration for these notebooks came from Camille over at the Mother*Lode who made some cute little books for her kids to doodle in.



As an afterthought I added some really cute little 3D sticker embellishments and little puffy gingham hearts from my stash, which coordinated perfectly with all the ribbons. I used Mod Podge to stick the ribbons and embellishments, on reflection it was maybe not the best thing to stick the ribbons, but I just bought it recently and have been dying to try it out on something!

Oliver has been drooling over these today as I was finishing them off – so I have promised to make up some more for him and Cyan in a larger size which they can use for doodle pads.. Oliver’s favourite is (predictably) the goldfish version, I can't decide which is my favourite – they all turned out so cute!

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mini beach bag ~ fun in the sun crafty ribbons

I made this mini beach bag for the Crafty Ribbons Fun in the Sun challenge. I used turquoise and white gingham for the main part of the bag and a multi-colour pastel plaid cotton for the front pocket – it is trimmed with one of the Fun in the Sun ribbons which has beachy things on it. I used blue deckchair stripe grosgrain ribbon for handles, which I bought from their fabulous site craftyribbons.com – my new favourite source for ribbons.



This bag is gusseted (I have been wanting to try out a gusseted bag) and lined with the gingham. It is interfaced for strength and stability. I used the same method of double-folding and double-stitching the top hem and handles as for the party bags I make – this makes them really strong and durable.







Here is the selection of Fun in the Sun ribbons I received for the challenge:



I used some shells from my beach treasures for props!

Now I'm off to finish my other projects for the challenge..

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