Monday inspiration: let's do this

Source: Tarafirma via Pinterest

I've had a few weeks away from blogging as my spare time in December was spent making lots of lovely orders for Christmas decorations from my Etsy shop. But now I am back and feeling inspired after a little break over Christmas. 

This simple image sums up my feelings this New Years Eve. 2013 - let's do this!

H x 

Monday inspiration: the harder you work

Image from TypeEverything via Pinterest

I can already tell that this week is going to be busy busy - it's budget writing week in the day job and I have orders to complete for my little crafty business. But being busy is good and - as this image reminds me - you make your own luck. So I better get on with it.

H x  

Handmade weddings: ten top tips

All photos are by Chamonix Thurston Rattue

Having spent a large part of the last couple of years planning our handmade wedding - I thought I'd share a little of what I learnt in the hope that it might help some of my readers. So here are my top ten tips for a handmade wedding...

1) Firstly (and probably most importantly) make sure you have a small army of friends and family who are willing and kind enough to help out and don't be afraid to ask for help - In his speech Mr E described our friends as the 'games makers' of our wedding and they really were- we couldn't have done it without them!

2) Make sure you have a willing fiancé – creating a handmade wedding isn’t a one person task, it will take up lots of your free time so make sure you work together. Mr E helped me out so much with all the handmade elements of our wedding - he put up with me spending hours reading wedding blogs and chugging away at my sewing machine, he also spent a whole weekend printing out and tying up invitations and made dozens of gorgeous paper flowers.

3)  Spend some time gathering inspiration before you start – there are so many ideas out there that it can feel a little overwhelming sometimes. Spend some time gathering inspiration so you know the kind of wedding you want and you have an idea of how it will all tie together. Pinterest is such a useful tool and it  is full of beautiful images and ideas. There are also a few blogs I would recommend; 'The Natural Wedding Company' for ideas and wonderful suppliers, 'Junkaholique' for gorgeous vintage styling (and their wedding is one of the loveliest I've ever seen!), and Green Wedding Shoes for a dose of eco-friendly wedding loveliness from the USA.

4) Once you gathered all your ideas, work out what is really important to you and know what you're willing to let go - however hard you work you won’t have time to do everything. I had all sorts of projects and plans for our wedding that I simply didn’t have time to do - at first not getting everything doen really stressed me out but I realised I couldn't do everything and just concentrated on the things that really mattered. Looking back on the day now I wouldn’t change a thing.

5) Invest time in budgeting and sourcing - Handmade doesn't always mean saving money but it will if you do your research and source materials and suppliers wisely. Get quotes from everyone, shop around and asks for discounts if you’re buying in bulk.

This bunting is for sale if anyone would like to buy it!

(please see the p.s. at the bottom of this post)

6)      Set goals for what you need to achieve each month -  this will help to keep you focussed and hopefully save lots of last minute panic. I kept a spreadsheet of goals with things like ‘make 20 metres’ in each month and it really helped to keep things on track.

7)      Scour ebay, charity shops and car boot sales - you can pick up lots of pretty things for a fraction of the price they are in shops  - especially in charities shops and at car boot sales outside of big cities.

8)      If you see something you like give it a go - I didn't really follow instructions with my craft projects- I just looked at photos of how things were made and tried out ideas. Sometimes projects didn't work out quite as I'd hoped but more often than not they did - so just have the confidence to give it a try.

9)Jam jars are your best friends - you can use them for everything from flowers to tea lights to containers for straws and they're free and eco-friendly! You'll be amazed how many you can collect in the months running up to your wedding.  

10)   My final piece of advice is to enjoy it all! You're creating a day that is uniquely yours, a day when all the people you love will be in one place and a day that you'll remember forever. Handmade weddings are definitely not an easy option but can make a limited budget go much further and creating something with the help of your friends and family is lots and lots of fun!

Good luck!

H x

p.s. I'm looking to sell the 100 metres of bunting that I made for our wedding so if anyone is interested please leave me a comment and I'll let you know more.

Monday inspiration: can we? shall we?

Mr E bought me this beautiful Rob Ryan laser cut as a wedding present - it hangs on the wall in our bedroom and I absolutley love it. Today is one of those days when I would like to do just as it says so I thought I'd share it.

H x

Handmade weddings: lavender bag favours

I made little lavender bags as favours for all the girls at our wedding. I thought it would be nice for the guests to have something pretty and useful that they could take home as a reminder of the day. Everyone seemed to love them and although making fifty of them took a while they were suprisingly simple to make so I thought I'd share a little tutorial with you.

To start you need two pieces of fabric cut into rectangles - mine were approx 10x12cm but you could make these any size you like. You'll also need some ribbon cut into strips about 15cm long. If you're going to make lots of these I'd suggest cutting all your fabric and ribbon at the same time as it will save time later.

Next you need to pin the fabrics together - good side in and fold the length of ribbon in half and pin the ribbon so that it sits inside the layers of fabric and the ends poke out of the top (and yes my pin cushion is shaped like a mushroom).

Using a sewing machine, sew the pieces of fabric and ribbon together leaving a gap of about an inch so you have a gap to fill the bags with lavender. Once you've finished you can turn the bag right side out and they will look something like this.

I made lots of these little bags in differnt fabrics as I wanted a bit of a mix and match look to our favours. I used lavender grain bought from Shropshire Petals  - it was nice to know that the lavender was grown near by. 

Using a funnel made from paper you can simply fill the bags through the gap you left and once they are full enough tuck in the open edges of the bag. To seal the gap I ran a zig-zag stitch round the edges of the whole bag as I quite like the rustic look it created but you could handstitch the opening if you wanted to.

I still have a few of these left over and they still smell lovely two months after the wedding - I love getting a waft of lavender as I open my sewing box and it's a smell that will always remind me of our wedding.

What do youy think? I've just added these to my Etsy shop so if you'd like some made for your wedding then please do let me know - I can make them in any colour and fabric you would like.

H x









Simple and scrumptious - chorizo and bean stew

 

 

This is one of those recipes that I tore out of a magazine (Olive I think) about a year ago and I return to again and again when I need a quick, cheap, tasty week night dinner. It is so simple and so scrumptious and I thought I'd share it.

 



 

 

You only need 6 ingredients and one pan to cook it in (recipe feeds 2 people):

 

- 1 onion, halved and sliced (I had shallots in the fridge so I used two of those instead)

- A glug of olive oil

- Chorizo, about 50g chopped into chunks

- Chicken stock,  250ml

- A tin of butter beans (drained and rinsed)

- Spinach, 100g (roughly chopped if the leaves are big, there's no need to chop it if you're using baby spinach)

 

Start by cooking the onion on a medium heat in 1 tsp of olive until it is soft and transparent, then add the sliced chorizo and fry for a few minutes until it starts to give out its oil and the pan turns a lovely orange colour like this.

 

 

 

Next add the chicken stock and simmer for a minute then add the beans and cook for 5 minutes until they have softened a little. Finally, stir in the spinach and cook for another 2-3 minutes until the spinach has wilted.

 

 

Serve in bowls with some nice crusty bread to mop up the delicious broth.

 

This is what me and Mr E enjoyed for our dinner tonight. What are your week night go-to recipes?

 

H x

 



Monday inspiration: wild and precious

Image from this lovely shop on Etsy

I stumbled across this image on Pinterest a couple of weeks ago and loved it so much that I thought I would share it in case anyone else is in need of a little Monday morning inspiration.

London life: columbia road

Today was a beautiful sunny autumnal day so we made our way to one of my favourite places in London - the oasis of flowers and foliage that is Columbia Road  market. For those that have never been Columbia Road is a beautiful street in East London filled with independent shops and on a Sunday the street is transformed into a flower market - if you get there early afternoon just as everything is closing down you can here the barrow boys shouting 'three bunches for a fiver' and fill your home with some brilliant bargain flowers. Here are just a few of the autumnal blooms we saw today.

              

There are some great shops on Columbia Road as well. Today I visited one of my favourite fabric shops - beyondfabrics. It sells patchwork and quilting fabrics as well as running workshops. Going in is a little bit like finding treasure for me.

Columbia Road is open late on Wednesday evenings throughout December for late night shopping so I dare say we'll head there for a glass of mulled wine or two. Where are your favourite London markets? Does anyone have any recommendations for craft or fabric shops?

Handmade weddings: our invitations

This is our wedding invitation - handmade by me and Mr E with the help of a little inspiration from some brilliant bloggers.

Clockwise from the top left:The Natural Wedding Company

Style Me Pretty Etsy, Romance and Revolution via Pinterest 

Junkaholique

Making the invitations was a trial and error process and my advice for any brides would be just to give it a go. We created our invitation without the use of any expensive design programmes - we just used microsoft and a scanner.

The basic design was hand-drawn. I drew all the elements (the bunting, the leaves and bow, the border and the date banner) separately and then scanned them in and pieced them together using word. Taking inspiration from Charlie at The Natural Wedding Company - the font we used was UglyQua which we downloaded for free at MyFonts and I wrote our names and the titles for our details booklet by hand.

Once we were happy with the design we saved it as a pdf, shrunk it to size and printed it on to tracing paper.

Once we'd printed it out (and used up all our tracing paper!) we foolishly decided that they would look better with a bit of colour, which meant a week of evening spent colouring them in. So if you would like colour in yours I would strongly recommend adding the colour before you print!

I then overlaid the tracing paper on to some lovely ivory card and stitched along the top of each one using the zig-zag stitch on my sewing machine.

A corner rounder from hobbycraft worked wonders to give the invitations a more finished look.

 We created our details booklet, maps and RSVP postcard in the same way (I'll tell you about those another day) and tied the whole thing together with some lovely lilac bakers twine. We even made a miniature version for our evening invitations.



 I must admit I was rather chuffed with the finished product - they turned out better than I expected. What do you think? How many of you have made your own invitations? How did it go?

H x x