Feet first...

The final touches towards my daughters naming ceremony are coming together.

I want the guests to be able to take away something from the day as they are all close family. I think it is important to have something that can remind you of such a special day.

So I have made some 'favours' for each guest much as you would at a wedding.

And they are all unique!

My daughter and I love doing crafty things together (though I very much doubt she understands what it is all about!) so I thought we could make something together for the guests.

I cut out squares of card which would amply fit one of her feet. I then painted the bottom of her foot (with water based paint) and printed it on the card... Surprisingly enough she found this quite fun though did not enjoy the cleaning up afterwards...

After the square had been left to dry I dated them and stuck them to cards...

There is now a batch of 15 of them, written and put in envelopes, ready for a week tomorrow...

Who knew there was so much to do for a 20 minute service!?

In a flutter....

Avid readers of my blog will know that my daughters naming ceremony is looming (I promise there is only one more post with me harping on about it!) and I realised that it was the perfect excuse to get a fascinator...

This time of year is prime fascinator time and I spend a lot of time trying them on as I am one of the very few people who love hats and fascinators but also look okay in them... My husband despairs when he knows I have found a hat stand as he knows I will generally try on every one including the most elaborate ones... I love it!

Anyway, I have already decided what I am going to wear (I am still trying to loose my pregnancy weight so I have very few dresses to choose from anyway!) and have settled on one I bought in a sale which is dusky pink, knee length with hints of deep green and emerald green... So those are the colours I wanted to aim for.

Fascinators are expensive... So I thought - why not make one?!

I saw one of the local high street stores had a sale on and generally they have a lot of jewellery which is easy to take apart and upcycle into a head piece.

My hardest choice is usually what I want to use as the base to fix it to my head as my hair is very thick so hairpins are not a good choice. This time I went for a comb (different to the bases of my previous two fascinators!) with a butterfly on it. It was then just down to choosing some jewellery in my colour scheme and I settled with some feather earrings and a pair of correlated heart earrings as an embellishment.

When I got home I disassembled  my jewellery and started piecing together the head piece...

In previous projects of this kind I have used superglue to fuse the headpiece together but this time I thought I would use silicone glue to see if it didn't dry white which is the problem with superglue!

The silicone glue dried clear... And seemed the keep the rather heavy embellishment of the heart which needed to be glued twice as the feathers needed to be more sturdy!

The project (once I had tried out different ways to arrange the feathers) didn't take long to do although silicone glue takes 12 hours to dry fully...

So, I now have my fascinator and the elements of the afternoon tea are now coming together nicely... I now can't wait!

When's a jar not a jar?

When it is a vase!

Again, today I have been neck deep in trying to sort out the stuff for my daughters naming ceremony and I had my first panic when sitting discussing the arrangements for the day.

So? Have you decided on the table decoration?
Yes. Giraffe themed tags to go on the tea cups and brown and yellow table gems.
And centre pieces? What about the flowers?

Damn, I thought. I hadn't thought of those!

At this time of year the roads and gardens are filled with daffodils so at least that would make things easier... It was just finding something for them to stand in.

After raiding my garden cupboard I found three jam jars that were all the same and gave them a quick rinse (who knows what kind of insects and bugs had been living in them!)

I then measured a length of giraffe print felt which fitted around the circumference of the jar and cut it to size. I also took a length of giraffe print ribbon (the same as the ones on the name tags!) and stuck that to the felt.

I then stuck the felt to the jar and stuck a fimo giraffe to it.

I can't wait for the ceremony now... A giraffe themed afternoon tea - what more could a 7 month old wish for?!

Time for tea?

My daughters naming ceremony is in a couple of weeks time and I am slowly realising that there is a lot to do and not a lot of time in which to do it!

I also have very little money on which to spend it on as the ceremony has cost a lot more than I had hoped for so the ideas need to be quick, simple and cheap.

After the ceremony there will be an afternoon tea and I wanted to make it personal to my daughter.

A few weeks ago I made some name tags that I wanted to tie to the handles of the teacups. After making them I came back to them and I wasn't happy. So I would have to do them again.

This time I used some rubber stamp letters to spell out the names - taking time to make sure that they all fitted but instead of the names as I know them I did them from my daughters point of view. The black ink worked well against the tags I had bought.

On the other side I used letter outlines to have 'with love' in gold and stuck a giraffe that I had painstakingly made a couple of weeks ago (they were going to be used!!!)

The ribbon I bought was then threaded through the label.

I am much happier with the result ... So happy that the guests get to have a keepsake from, what I hope to be, a very special day!

You're having a giraffe...

My 5 month old daughter loves giraffes. She saw her first one at Blackpool zoo at 3 months and now every time she is shown a picture of one or sees one on tv she breaks out into a massive grin.

I have been trying to find a decor for her naming ceremony which is taking place in April and thought that a giraffe theme would be a nice way to incorporate something my daughter loves and something for the guests could take away with them to remind them of the day.

I also needed to come up with a way for the guests to know where they are sitting so came up with a combination of place card and guest memento!

The little giraffes were made from fimo which had been made in a silicone mould and then baked in the oven for only three minutes. These were then stuck to luggage labels and then the names of the guests were then stamped on the labels (although I did think about writing on them at one point like the one in the photo!)
On the back there was a small note saying that is was our daughters naming ceremony and the date.

I was pleased with these and then tied the labels with giraffe print ribbon.

I will let you know what the guests think!