golden ticket chocolate factory birthday party invitations

We threw a Wonka Chocolate Factory themed party for Oliver’s 8th and Cyan’s 6th birthdays. With our wedding in October to plan, I decided we would have one joint party and hold it a little early at the end of July (their birthdays are a couple of weeks apart in August/September).

They were both keen on the latest movie with Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka, and we had just finished reading the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory books by Roald Dahl; so we thought this could be a fun theme for their party.

Naturally the invitations had to be golden tickets.. I designed the tickets and laser printed them onto some gold vellum paper..



.. and of course the tickets also had to be found in Wonka Bars!
I found a lovely lady selling chocolate bars on ebay, she sold them with custom wrappers designed for wedding favours. As I wanted to print my own wrappers so I could insert the tickets she gave me a really good reduced price, I think they worked out about 50 pence each. They also conveniently had a base wrapper of gold foiled paper, and one of the flavour choices was milk chocolate with crunchy caramel pieces.. perfect!



And so became the Whipple Scrumptious Chococaramel Delight Wonka Bar..



On the back of the wrapper was the ingredients and dietary info, and I added a barcode with each child’s name so the kids would know which friend to give each bar to..



I was really pleased with how they turned out, they went down VERY well with the kids invited, and I got lots of compliments from the parents too!









More on the party soon....

cyan’s first sewing projects ... and hello! (it’s been a while!)

Firstly - hello! It has been a while, 9 months to be precise (exactly - to the day today!) since I last posted here. It’s been a crazy busy 9 months that’s for sure.. I had no time for blogging, sadly. We worked hard, partied, got married; and I’ve been dying to blog about it all! So hopefully I can set some time aside soon to do just that, and catch up with what everyone else has been up to in the world of blogs...

Back to today’s post.. Cyan (my crafty 6 year old daughter) has been wanting to learn to sew, so for Christmas my mum made her up a starter sewing basket kit; and my sister Tressa, who is the other seamstress of the family, put together a collection of fabrics for her.

Cyan’s first project idea was for a cuddly toy, we made a start on cutting out the pieces last weekend and I’ll be sure to post on that when it’s done...

Cut to today - Cyan was home from school recovering from a nasty cough, and my mum came over to watch her while I was at work.

Mum had promised Cyan when she gave her the sewing kit that she would help Cyan to make her own needle case and pincushion, so that is what they did today...



She embroidered her initial herself “in chain stitch” she told me proudly :)

Cyan’s sewing on the pincushion base..



Her needles nestled in their new case..



Not bad at all for her very first “proper” sewing project!

seam binding crafty ribbons challenge

I took part in another Crafty Ribbons challenge recently, after missing out lots of challenges since the Fun in the Sun challenge I did last year, for which I made a mini beach bag and some mini ribbon notebooks.

The challenge this time was to find new and different ways of using Seam Binding Ribbon..



My first thought was to try weaving it, so I made a woven panel using four different seam binding colours. I backed it with cotton with ironed-on interfacing, ironing the horizontal ends first to keep the ribbons in place while I wove the vertical ribbons through, then ironed the whole panel to fix them all.



This panel became the back of a little purse, with a handle plaited from three colours of seam binding..



And a seam binding ribbon which ties in a bow to keep the purse closed..



I had two ideas for beaded necklaces to make with the seam binding, the first did not work out, but I was very happy with this one, which is simply some wooden beads knotted onto a coordinated colour of seam binding, with a closure made using another smaller wooden bead, and a knotted loop..

mums for mother’s day

Today was Mothering Sunday or Mother’s Day here in the UK. I made a card for
my Mum with some chrysanthemums which I cut out from wallpaper samples..



I also cut the word ‘mum’ out of the front..



.. through this you can see another cut out flower on the inside..



The flowers continue round onto the back of the card..



The kids made a hand-print trees card inspired by this one..



I gave my Mum this necklace pendant set with two carved mother-of-pearl flowers.



The smaller one is a beautifully carved vintage example I bought from Beau Papier on Etsy, I made silver wire wrapped bails for this and the new larger flower and threaded them onto a fine organza ribbon – I know mum has lots of pretty chains and the flowers could be worn on the ribbon or on a chain, either together or separately. I love convertible jewellery!



And of course some real mums! I was so pleased with these large ornamental pale green chrysanthemums I found, and teamed them with some smaller darker green ones and some white carnations (Mum’s favourite).

This is the first crafting I have had time to do in weeks, it was so rewarding and Mum loved her cards, gift and flowers.

links..
Christy’s comment got me wondering about the origins of Mothering Sunday which we celebrate here in England, and the origins of Mother’s Day as celebrated elsewhere in the world..

Check out the Wikipedia links:
Mothering Sunday
Mother’s Day

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