A Mad Hatter Birthday

I feel old - this weekend my niece turned 18! I remember when she was born, I was at an under 18 rave thing in Blackheath Concert Halls! It's difficult to get a present for an 18 year old as its that type of age where anything you get won't be trendy enough so i went for a gift box option and saw this idea on Pinterest. It's mad hatter themed wrapping! Each item has a label like in Alice in Wonderland.

This box had open me on the lid, then inside it had eat me, drink me, drink with me and wear me. It was a collect of things she likes so the eat me was a box of Oreos, the drink me was a big bottle of a cocktail, the drink with me was an 18 glass and the wear me was an engraved gold bar necklace like the Kardashians wear (who she loves). It was engraved with the co-ordinates of where she was born.

I hope she liked it!

The Eclipse!

Today is a very specially day in the world of space! We are due the total solar eclipse of the sun! Depending on where you are depends on how much you see, whether it will be a full or partial eclipse but either way it's very exciting. As it is happen today it was a school day and luckily I had year 12 so we were fully in eclipse mode. We had the live feed playing on the whiteboard, we made pinhole cameras and we were outside ready to watch.

Now I know you are not meant to look directly at it but that is easier said than done. We did use our cameras and they did work but we also took some pictures too. The big black thing in the bottom of each picture is a building, that is the problem with being on a school site with lots of blocks!

    

My Boyfriend Bouquet

It gets more and more difficult to figure out what to get each other for Valentine's Day especially when we set a very tight budget as there is no need to go all out for this day. Every day should be Valentine's Day really just without cards and gifts!

This year I made a boyfriend bouquet! I found this on Pinterest, a bouquet of all their favourite things! This had a t-shirt, socks, nuts, oatie biscuits, beers and a pack of letters to open at different times of the year. I had to tweak it to be a laying down bouquet as the beers were too heavy to hold up! He loved it - but what am I going to do for next year??!!

The Elliott's!!

First wedding of the year, The Elliott's!! Lovely day, especially as the visitors from across the pond were here to share the day too. The weather was good for the time of year but churches are cold! The meal was delicious and the pud was especially yummy!

As with all weddings the day flies by! Before we knew it they were cutting their half traditional, half Arsenal themed cake, the first dance happened and we were boogieing on the dance floor, with a cone of popcorn for the popcorn cart!

This was one of the few weddings we've been to where we were able to get a taxi home which was nice for a change.

Before the Americans left to explore other parts of Europe before flying back we had a last lunch which surprisingly not many people were suffering at, well one person was late and then proceeded to order the biggest thing on the menu! Needless to say it didn't get finished.

So all in all it was a great wedding weekend and The Elliott's I'm sure had a great time!

Christmas crafts

This years Christmas crafts for presents were quite difficult to decide what to do as I was struggling for ideas. There will get to a point where there won't be much left to make! 

I ended up finding a template for a remote control holder shaped like an owl which I thought was cool so attempted to make it. It turned out OK really, the shape of the head part could be a little better but I think it still resembles an owl!

On pinterest I also saw some Christmas decorations made out of scrabble tiles and gave those a go too, not sure how well they turned out or how well they travelled so hopefully they were still in one piece when they were unwrapped!

 The final thing I made this year wasn't a present but for our house. The prevent owners of our house had hooks on the mantle piece, I'm assuming for their stockings at Christmas which look a little untidy if they don't have anything hanging on them so I made a Christmas garland. It was a take on the one Kirsty made in her homemade Christmas programme but instead of hearts I went for bells. I think it turned out OK and looks good hanging from our mantle piece!

Save the date!!

We've booked the wedding!!! After searching many venues and visiting on open days and checking dates that were not too far away we have settled on Park Farmhouse Hotel which has a stunning barn for us to have the ceremony and evening reception in and pig sties for the wedding breakfast. We did see a lovely venue but if the weather is rubbish then there was very little inside space to use so we thought we'd go for the barn option as inside looks great and outside it is surrounded by fields that look great - and the racetrack!

So now it's time for people to save the date and us to get into gear and start looking for everything we need so signing off for now (mainly as we won't be doing much due to the lack of funds to now pay for said wedding) but be assured post wedding ala Arnie - I'll be back!

Holiday Baking

There is only a couple of days left of the summer break and time to think about everything we have done over the past 6 weeks. Obviously you want to do cool things all year and not just cram it into the 6 weeks but I think we have achieved a lot.

Over the summer we have stayed in 6 hotels and travelled to/through 4 countries - here in the UK then France, Belgium and Thailand.

We have finally taken the shed down!

We have been to only the one wedding this year - unlike the other year where we had 7!

Lots of Belgian beer has been drunk along with many a cocktail and an enormous amount of food has been eaten!

I have also made many baked goodies as the Bake Off is back in full swing. This includes cheddar and cheese scones, treacle and ginger tray bake, goats cheese and red pepper muffins, ciabatta rolls, pizza, Mediterranean tarts, double chocolate cheesecake and macaroons!!