Monday, July 21, 2008


We've just had one of those weekends where you need another weekend to recover. Luckily, we don't have them very often.

Friday night we were at a surprise stag do for a work colleague who apparently, has been told by his wife-to-be that he's not allowed one. The night was disguised as someone else's birhday celebration and then when the stag went to the bar we all donned t-shirts, and gave him a big cheer on return, then dressed him up with a pink wig and got him terribly drunk so that he had to be taken home (no doubt to his very angry fiance).

For some reason, I had roped myself in to making the t-shirts. The challenge being to make them as cheap as possible in case no-one gave me the money back. Most printing companies wanted at least £5 per t-shirt, but I managed to make these for less than £2 each.

How? I bought 22 t-shirts in the sale at Matalan for £1.50 each and two fabric aerosol spray paints for £5.50 a bottle. I traced a template made in word with a bit of free clip art onto a piece of acetate and cut out with a craft knife, then sprayed each t-shirt through the stencil, protecting the edges with pieces of newspaper.

They worked brilliantly if I do say so myself.

The t-shirts in productionThe stagSaturday we went with friends to Chai's Garden, a Thai restaurant in Brockley and stuffed ourselves silly with lovely food and lots of beer, then Sunday we went to the Dartford Festival in Central Park to watch a Queen tribute and Chas 'n' Dave. I'd no idea how big and nice the park was. More beers and a curry later, we were exhausted.

Chas 'n' DaveCentral Park flowers

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Thursday, July 3, 2008

make your own cheap wedding cake


There was no way I was going to spend £400 on a cake. So, I looked at different ideas to reduce the cost, while keeping it personal and special. Making a cake from scratch was going to be too impractical as I was planning the wedding long distance, so I came up with an ingenious cheat that I am very proud of. This is my secret top tip for having a lovely wedding cake at a real bargain price.

You will need:

  • a cupcake stand I bought a 7 tier Perspex one from Exhibitz, but only used 5 tiers (£49 inc delivery, or cheaper if you win an auction)
  • 8 packs of Asda Smart Price fairy cakes 12 per pack gives 96 cupcakes @ £0.48 per pack, this includes extras in case of mistakes (£3.84)
  • 2 packs icing sugar (approx £1.50)
  • sugar flowers in your wedding colours 90 small for the cupcakes, approx 4 large for the top (approx £35). Cake Craft Shop have a great selection for all budgets. Browse around for more colours and toppers as desired. Simple is more effective in my opinion.
  • medium iced celebration cake (Asda, M&S, Waitrose, Tesco) approx £10
  • water (free)
  • 2-3 metres of ribbon (approx £1.50)
total cost: approximately £100 ! ! !

How to make

1. Assemble the stand
2. Make firm icing according to instructions, adding water drop by drop
3. Rope in Husband to Be and Father of the Bride to ice cakes, gently pushing the icing neatly to the sides of each cake wrapping using the back of a wet teaspoon dipped in water. With three of us it took about 3 hours.

Dad and Dom icingMake them neat4. Stick a sugar flower on top of each cake

Icing the cakes5. Assemble larger sugar flowers on the top cake
6. Tie ribbon around top cake so that it drapes all the tiers
7. Take cakes to venue in tin
8. Get nice staff to arrange the cakes on the stand

Looks beautifulNobody knows my secret!
9. Cut
10. Eat!
PoseCutOnly the cupcakes need to be served on the day. The top cake can be saved if you buy fruit.

No-body clocked that I could have made this myself, it looked professional, did the job, those who knew my secret were very impressed and I was very proud of my efforts. If anyone tries this, I hope you have the same success. Good luck!

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Saturday, March 22, 2008

wedding crafts


The whole theme of our wedding has sort of evolved by accident, following the pink ribbon on the invitations.

Yesterday I finished the table identifiers, which are names instead of numbers, based on the places we have been together. We added some photos to personalise them. Here's a selection.

Table names

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Wednesday, October 10, 2007

nine bows tied


Nine out of sixty. Need to trim and treat frayed ends. Need more ribbon.

Bows tied

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Monday, October 8, 2007

weekend activities


Dom and I ate at a Loch Fyne seafood restaurant on Friday night which was nice. On Saturday I got to work making the first batch of wedding invitations. This is the part of the wedding preparations that I have most looked forward to. When other little girls were dreaming about their wedding dresses, I was thinking about the handmade stationery!

I made slow progress on Saturday when a quick trip to Bluewater for supplies took 3 hours, but I made up for it on Sunday. Even though I took lots of breaks (to watch poor Lewis Hamilton come off the tracks on the Chinese Grand Prix, to bake banana muffins and to go for my first run since the Great North) I got all the inserts printed, piled and ready for combining together. Tonight I will bind the outer cards with ribbons. I am so proud of them.

Wedding invitations in progress

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