Craft & Thrift does hen party!

Last weekend was my hen do and much crafting, thrifting fun was had by all!  I wanted it to be quite relaxed, with the kind of activities my friends with babies could partake in, between feeds and changes.  You may have already seen some of these pictures if you follow me on Instagram but I thought I'd bring them all together here, with links to some of the projects and recipes we used.



One of my favourite things in the world is afternoon tea with cocktails.  I love me some baking, and baking with friends with the radio on in the background and sunshine streaming through the kitchen window, was perfect.  We had quite the spread, you can see the recipes used (or approximations thereof!) in the links below, or just drool over the pictures, whatever floats your boat!

• Delia's fruit scones (with cream and jam, prompting the old Cornish vs. Devonian method for applying one's toppings)
• Mississippi mud pie (home recipe passed down from my Mum - I'll share in a future post if anyone is interested)
• Egg mayo and chives (instead of watercress) sandwiches
• Salmon and cream cheese oatcakes (no recipe needed, but how nice does this BBC recipe for smoked salmon pate sound?)- one of my all time favourites in case you ever ask me for afternoon tea
• Mini cupcakes from the Hummingbird Bakery 

Cocktails included Mojitos with homegrown mint and peach bellinis.  All served in my selection of thrifted china and glassware.  One of my new-to-me sets is the cups on the left there, you can see a close up of the plates below, how cute are they?  A total bargain from a charity shop, £3 for 3 cups, 3 saucers and 2 side plates.  Very Scandinavian inspired I think.



Next up - sugarcraft!  Taught by the lovely Heather of Heather's Cakes, we all learned how to make edible sugar icing roses, which will eventually end up decorating my wedding cake.  I was really pleased with the outcome of these, they look lovely all grouped together.  Everyone was worried their roses would be the bad one, but honestly I think they look amazing, we all did a great job!  If you're interested in making sugarcraft roses yourself, check out this Youtube video.  Or hire Heather, she's amazing.

From there more cocktails and food at mine and Andrew's favourite Bruntsfield Bar, Henricks.  We had our engagement party here and regularly visit with the dog, it's a lovely bar with a great selection of modern Scottish food and wine (amongst other beverages).  They make a lovely fuss of Badger, which always sells me on a venue.  And they're literally stumbling distance from my flat.







Frances made me this amazing 'Bride' sash, hand sewn!  Mary Jane added to it with a hand sewn 'Bride to be' rosette. My friends are so creative and thoughtful!

From there, those of us left wandered into town for some more cocktails and free cabaret at Voodoo Rooms.  All in, it was an amazing weekend, I woke up on Sunday hungover and husky-voiced, but having had a brilliant time.





Sunday was craft recuperation time, so I finished off the last of the brooch bouquets and browsed my lovely photo album, handmade by Victoria literally as we went!  She brought an Instax camera with her and mounted the photos in the bars as we drank, getting my lady friends to write touching and silly notes along side each one.  That is dedication to your craft, right there.   

The brooch bouquets are finally done, I can't wait to show them off in a future post but I'm going to save it until I've got professional photos of them all.  They've turned out really well though, I'm really pleased I used fake flowers because I'll have my bouquet to keep forever.  It's going to be lovely to walk up the aisle carrying brooches from friends and family, plus some thrifted pieces with Frances and Victoria.  It's like a little piece of all areas of my life, together in a bouquet.  Only 4 weeks to go now...!

Kirstie Allsopp enjoys sausage

Ohemgee, the last episode of Kirstie Allsopp's Homestyle was HILARIOUS!!  I was slightly on the fence about whether or not Kirstie and I would get on in the real world (I adore her, but am slightly intimidated by her jolly-hockeysticks-competitive-head-girl demeanour, as the nerdy kid of the class I think she would have ignored me at school), but no more I say!



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After this episode, which saw me almost crying with laughter while she made sausages, I'm sure we'd be firm friends in no time.  As soon as they introduced the 'making sausages' segment of the programme, my brain erupted in a flurry of inappropriate jokes for that time of night before the watershed.  I mean, come on, you can't use words like 'meat', 'length', 'girth' without attracting some raised eyebrows.  Or in my case, mischievous, school girl giggling.  Watching Kirstie attempt to squeeze sauasage meat (tee hee) into long, girthy tubes of pig intestine (hahaha) whilst simultaneously trying to keep her hair out of her face, her cheeks going pink with the effort of holding in the laughter....HAHAHAHA, I can't keep it in, even as I type this!

Ahem.  Rearranges self.



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There were some lovely recipes in this episode.  The Christmas Ham is definitely one I'm going to try as soon as possible, no way am I waiting for Christmas to cook that bad boy.  Sure, I'm going to try a smaller scale, less expensive version for 2 people instead of 12 but my mouth is watering even as we speak, thinking about it.



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I'd also love to try the mulled cider recipe from this episode.  Especially if I can make it outside over a camp stove "like a witch" in the lovely lady's own words.  This would be perfect for autumn, there's already a nip in the air after all.  I had my first port of the season this weekend...any excuse for a tipple to be honest.