The Gift of Paper: An Anniversary Gift

We celebrated our first wedding anniversary in a little cottage in Dent and had a great few days away (you can read all about it here!). The first wedding anniversary is represented by paper in the UK and I thought I'd share my paper DIY. 

Full disclosure: This anniversary DIY isn't really complicated enough to showcase your crafty skills but you and the recipient both get get twelve fun days/nights out of it, so that earned it a gold star from me!

 

I picked up some sheets of recycled paper and 12 Kraft envelopes. Scrabble usually features in our weekend lineup and this Scrabble font was one of the fonts we used for our wedding day stationary. Each envelope contained a square of recycled paper with a printed 'voucher' which introduced the date for that month and said what was included. For some dates, I made little tickets and paper bits, too. I bundled the envelopes together, in date order, using a length of 'Admit One' ribbon bought on Etsy and put them inside a paper box filled with wedding day pictures and shredded recycled paper. Ta-da. Job done! 

The hardest, but also the most fun part was coming up with date ideas. I wanted the dates to be something we'd either talked about doing 'at some point' but never actually made a plan for, or something we do more regularly where the voucher would give us a good excuse to spend quality time together doing something which we love.

Here's what we got up to:

September - 'A Cozy Night In' (Clockwise from top left) Knowing we'd have a busy month, this one was a night where we'd switch of our phones, lock the door, put on PJs and just relax with each other. It's not that we'd not have done this at some point in the month anyway, but putting a date in the calendar for such a night made it feel more special. The voucher included a film of M's choice, popcorn, sweets, and a large American Pizza Slice pizza (best pizza ever). 

October - 'A Trip to Blackpool'  One of our first dates was a trip to Blackpool. We had taken a Kodak disposable camera. I sent it off to TruPrint and they lost it. Devastated! We've gone to see the illuminations, or what's left of them, almost every October since. I made little tickets for tram rides, made up a £2 bag of penny coins, and promised a fish and chip dinner.

November - 'Nando's and Cinema'  Both of us love Twilight fans (please don't judge!) so this one gave us an excuse to enjoy a Nando's meal, buy cinema tickets to see Breaking Dawn Part 2 and munch pick'n'mix.

January - A Night of Fine Dining, At Home  A three course dinner with wine - his choice of menu. I made homemade pasta, without a pasta machine. It was a disaster but we had a great night laughing at my attempt to make pasta. The thick slimy tagliatelle wasn't quite what I'd imagined - not so fine dining, as it turned out.

February - Spa Pampering for Two  A day of pampering at a local spa. We went to Rookery Hall and Spa and had a relaxed day around their pool area with sauna and steam room, and a heavenly massage.

March - Beer A tour around Cains Brewery and a few bottles of beer to take away. This one was thwarted, sadly, by our cat, Jacques', accident and then the brewery closed and tours were no longer available. Instead, I bought a supply of beers from different countries, made a beer quiz and created little tasting note cards. No complaints - he had a well stocked fridge for a good while after!

April - A Little Mini Break Again, this one was put on hold because it was very difficult to go away overnight after Jacques' accident. Not quite what I'd planned, but we splashed out on a lovely hotel in Buxton after my friends wedding.

May - An Indoor Picnic Not trusting the British weather, this included a new board game and a picnic blanket covered with tasty food from Delifonseca, our favourite Liverpool based deli. We have most of the more traditional board games at home already so M decided on Family Fortunes, which kept us amused for long enough (but hasn't been out of it's box since!

June - Museum Time  The original plan was to head to Eden Camp in Yorkshire. We'd worked out  that we'd both been there on a primary school visit within a month of each other. We agreed to go together but have never got round to it. Well, we still haven't! We couldn't get away overnight without paying for a vet nurse to sit, so we took advantage of living in such an amazing city and went to the Chagall exhibition at Liverpool Tate instead. We followed it up with a meal and drinks at Miller and Carter. 

July - 'Lions and Tigers and Bears' After talking about it for years, we finally made a date for Chester Zoo! This one included a packed lunch with peanut butter and jam sandwiches and all the sorts of naughty goodies you were never allowed in your packed lunch as a kid. It was a gorgeous sunny day and we had an amazing time.

August - Next Stop, Cotton I knew this would be a busier month and probably when we'd go on holiday. I planned a 'show and tell' night, where we looked through all the photos from the past 12 months of anniversary gift related dates with a good bottle of red, too much cheese and charcuterie. This one also included a photobook for us to store our favourite snaps.

That's it - our twelve paper anniversary dates. I'm sure there are lots of things that you could include, depending on how much money you want to spend, what you enjoy doing together and how far you're able to travel. Circumstances meant that not all of the later dates went quite as I'd planned but having at least one pre-planned date in the diary each month really encouraged us (forced us, at times) to stop and set 'proper' time aside for each other. We've got some great memories, a photobook to create and a lot of ticket stumps to help us to remember our second year of marriage. 

Doing things with the people I love, rather than having things, is becoming increasingly important. With Christmas coming up fast, I think this could easily be adapted for a friend or relative. Can this help you to cross anyone off your Christmas shopping list? I hope so!

'Make Me Pretty': A Desk's Story

We're in the process of updating our second bedroom, which we use mainly as study (and more recently, as Jacques' rest and recuperation/ please-pee-soon room). I say 'in the process', this process has been ongoing for the last two years with little to no progression. 

The desk we currently use in the study is a sturdy Ikea beech effect desk which we bought when we first moved in together in 2006, picked up cheap in their 'Bargain Corner' because it had a dint in the side. This desk has been well used and had shining moments as a makeshift dining table when we were too penniless/tight to buy a proper one, as a place to rest my tired head while typing up my PhD thesis, and as a pasting table! It is well worn and I've wanted to get something new and a little smaller for ages. Thanks to the powerhouse that is ebay, we've managed to bag a second hand John Lewis solid beech desk in pretty great condition, for under £50. It will fit nicely into our chimney breast alcove. I want to spend some time updating the desk and have been using my Young House Love book, and Pinterest for inspiration. 

Here's a snapshot of what I've been looking at on Pinterest:

Images: Coins; Sheet music; Penguin postcards; Literature; Maps; Anthropologie drawer knobs; Cork boards; Chalk cabinets

For now, the desk is in pieces. Hopefully by the time we assemble it we'll have decided what to do! Any desk related inspiration you have stumbled upon that I'm missing out on? This will be fun. I'll keep you posted!

Crafting: Candles in Teacups #JanuaryJoy

Today's #JanuaryJoy is all about making time to craft. I love a good bit of crafting.

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My school friends used to get together for Craft Club every Thursday. It usually ended up with more wine drinking than cross stitching, but it was a weekly highlight. As our shift patterns and commitments changed, Craft Club sadly disbanded. I now craft alone (sob!) but find that it is a great way to de-stress. 

My current craft project is for my #HeartSwap partner (find out more about #HeartSwap at Skin & Blister's lovely blog here) so its all a bit hush hush, for now. Instead, I'll share one of my Christmas craft projects.

I decided to make my mum a teacup candle (Pinterest link) and discovered that:

• It makes for an inexpensive gift
• It is fairly easy to make
• It will be very well received!

There's lots of candle DIYs around online, but here's how I made my teacup candle:

My mum and dad had a full Eternal Beau crockery service and it was always the 'special' set that came out for special occasions or when we hosted people for dinner. Around a year ago, my mum made the decision to sell the crockery so that she could have a bit of an update, but it was my feeling that it was also a sad thing for her. I was having a charity shop browse in October and came across a cup and saucer in the very same Eternal Beau range. I decided to buy it and find out how to make it into a teacup candle that she could keep to remind her of me, and of my dad. My mum has assured me that the teacup is burning down in the very fashion a candle should. Good news!

I am definitely going to make some more teacup candles in the future, not least because I have the remainder of a 1kg bag of paraffin wax to use up! I think the next adventure in candle making will be to add fragrance.

Anyone else made their own candles? Any tips for adding a fragrance?

A Merry Little Christmas 2012

Christmas tree packed away and first 'proper' day back at work; I think it's finally time I acknowledged Christmas is over for another year! I've had a great Christmas, full of family and friends, good food, cocktails, and DIY festive treats. It's always sad when the last bauble is wrapped in its tissue, hidden until the following December, but we've got lots to look forward to in 2013 and I'm armed with a full January to beat any pre-Christmas blues!

Baby Shower Fun

A few Sunday's back I 'hosted' a baby shower for my friend (the proud owner of my craft project, Mr. Turtle). I always think baby showers are a very American concept but they seem to be increasingly popular here in the UK, too. I suppose it's a good excuse to have a girls afternoon and celebrate together. We were concerned that we didn't want to make it into an all singing all dancing affair. Mummy-to-be had difficulty bending down, let alone dancing!

We decided on an afternoon tea theme and all clubbed our fine china, cake stands and baking skills together to produce what turned out to be a major feast. It was brilliant! We had all sorts of sandwiches, cakes, scones and fruits, teas and some alcohol free fizz. The chocolate covered raspberries were one of my favourites!

We filled the walls with baby grow bunting and my talented friend made little paper shoes filled with sweets for us each to take home. You can just see the show peeking at the bottom of this photo. Check out our hidden surprise when we cut into this gluten free beauty made by same talented friend:

After presenting mummy-to-be with our hand crafted gifts and a hamper full of goodies, it was time to get down to some baby shower games: guess the baby picture (I was useless!), guess-the- baby-food-flavour, cut-a-piece-of-string-the-same-size-as-the-bump game, and timed nappy from a tea towel creation (we won, but we did have an experienced mummy on our team who knew where to put the pin to hold it all together!).

After more tea and cake, it was time for us to help mummy-to-be pack up, ready to rest until her baba makes her move! She's due in a couple of weeks and I can't wait for this little baby girl, who we've been calling by name for months, to come into this world! 

Crafting: The Completed Mr Turtle *beams with pride*

In an earlier post, I mentioned that my lovely friend is (very very) soon to become a mummy and, as part of the baby shower we had planned, each of us honorary aunties were to craft a gift for her baba. I decided to take my inspiration from Make It and Love It blog. I wanted to share my hand crafted turtle.

I was bought a sewing machine a couple of years ago and really enjoy the process of planning and making something by hand, but I don't often make time to sit and play. This was a good excuse to dust it off and spend a few hours buried in fabric baskets in Abakhan Fabrics! I wanted each bit of Mr Turtle to be different, so I went for a few brightly coloured cottons with polka dots, stripes and butterflies.

Using the pattern on Make It and Love It, I cut out all his bits. The tail was probably the most fiddly to cut (although I love the little pointy extension in the finished Mr.)! Next, it was time for my sewing machine to get some attention. It took a while and I had to constantly look back to the (very clear) instructions but I'm super pleased with how he turned out! More importantly, my friend seemed to be very happy to adopt him as her own, until her baba is born. So, here he is, my most recent crafting achievement, Mr. Turtle. 

Crafting: Mr. Turtle

One of my closest friends is a mummy-to-be and her little baby girl will be with us very soon! 

She is the first of my oldest school friends to start a family, and I am so excited for her! As it is the first baby to be welcomed into the world by our group, we're pulling out the stops! I'm hosting a baby shower for her next weekend. There'll be afternoon tea treats, there's a hamper in progress, and we've all decided to individually craft something for our newest and smallest group member! I love crafting, I really do, but it takes time and I don't seem to have very much of the stuff at the moment. I have found this gorgeous tutorial and free pattern at Make It And Love It, so I'm going to give it a whirl! I'm not convinced that my Mr. Turtle will be even half as pretty, or that his little shell will be shell-shaped, but keep your fingers crossed for me and I will let you know how he turns out.