Bottle Lamps

I've been making Bottle Lamps for a while as little crafty projects for friends, but I think they could look really good dotted around a venue to create a bit of ambiance, (especially when the light fades into the evening reception.)

Heres a few of my lamps -

These fairy lights are mains powered but you can get some really lovely battery powered fairy lights, (easily found online any time of year). I usually use a string of 20 lights if I'm using mains powered lights but if you're using LED battery powered lights then a string of 40 should produce the same amount of light. 

The only other things you need is a drill and a 9mm drill bit that can drill safely through glass, (so either glass and tile drill bit or a diamond drill bit,) and an open rubber grommet to plug the hole. 

So I begin by drilling a hole near the bottom of the bottle. When drilling it's best to go slow and let the drill do the work - you don't want the bottle breaking on you! And please please wear goggles, gloves and long sleeves just incase! Make sure you wet the hole continually while drilling to get rid of glass shards and keep the bottle cool.  

Once I have drilled the hole I will leave the bottle to completely dry for a few hours (over night if you can) before inserting the string of lights into the hole you have drilled holding the bottle upside-down. 

To finnish the lamp I cut a rubber grommet to size to plug the hole, this makes it look a bit neater and keeps the lights in place. 

If my instructions are confusing (which is very likely) I will answer any any questions you have. 

Enjoy! 

The Wedding That Rocked

I was watching The Boat That Rocked the other day and I noticed that when Eleanor & Simon get married the boat is decorated with records stringed together, which look really good! So I gave it a go and its really easy.

Here's mine -
 

Long strings of records tend to become slightly weighty so you would need something strong to hang them from, but individual records look good and they could be hung from pretty much anything (well, you know, depending on the venue). I also thing they're a decoration that even the grooms could get excite about.

Cakes in Jars

I saw these floating around the internet for a while and thought they were a lovely idea, simple but really sweet and different. I decided it was about time I gave it a go, so after watching a few tutorials on youtube, (literally just typed in 'cake in a jar'), I decided I was brave enough to attempt  a rainbow cake in a jar. While making them I got in a huge mess and thought that they would probably end up looking ridiculous. But when I got them out the oven and piped on some icing I was pretty pleased with the result.

While scoffing one of my cakes it struck me that they would make great wedding favors; you could make them in your favorite flavors or in colours to match your theme (if you had one), decorate the jars themselves and I think all of your guests would be pretty pleased with one of them sitting in front of them. It also solves the issue of deciding whether or not you want to serve the cake to your guests during your wedding breakfast or evening reception or send them away with a piece, a la kid's birthday parties. It's up to the guests when they want to gobble them, and the fact that they're in a jar keeps them fresh for longer than normal cupcakes. You could have a wedding cake as well if you wanted because, well, cake is great.

They're something you could do yourself or there are companies around that will do them for you. (That seems like a pretty ideal jobs to me, baking cakes all day. A girl can dream eh?)

Lilac Wine

First tutorial. Hurrah!

So I thought for my first one I would do something simple and attempt to jazz up place cards.
At most weddings place cards are a necessity. But it's important to get them right; even though they are small, they speak volumes about the kind of wedding the guests are attending.

So! who needs just a bit of card folded in half? prop up your individual name cards with corks from wine bottles

Yes you have to make upwards of 50 and yes you would have to drink a fair amount of wine, but if you have a year until your big day, you have a year to collect corks. And you can get your friends involved! You could even get your local pub involved!

Each one is just two corks glued together at the bottom of the cork (below). You can do this with a hot glue gun. If you don't have one I would suggest that you either buy one because they're brilliant! Or use a strong, fast-drying glue, (I don't think PVA will cut it).

Stick them together and use the table to level your corks, no one wants a wonkey place card.

I then tied a piece of string around them to hold them together a bit better, plus I think it's slightly English Country. But you could use ribbon or coloured thread if you fancied.

Then simply slot your choice of place card in the top!

Done!
If you're a couple who like a tipple this is a must!

You could even push the boat out slightly and collect Champagne corks!.. OK Cava But it still looks great.

All I did here was cut a slit in the cork and glue the card in.

And so it Begins...

It's the horrible moment where I have to attempt to start my blog. I've wanted to do this for a while and I thought I'd bite the bullet!

This blog will probably just bore poor and innocent internet users with things that I think are quite pretty. But what I aim to do is to inspire people to make quirky, cheep and easy items that could be used to decorate their weddings. I'm also going to attempt to create some step-by-step tutorials of crafty ideas that you can do of an evening with a glass of wine.

So stick around! This might get exciting! (please bare in mind that my idea of excitement is watching Great British Bake off with a cup of tea.)




I'm also very aware that I'm not actually talking to anyone. So lonely.