let's make: party decorations

My good pal and housemate Mark recently hosted a little daytime folk gig at our house - it was great!

For the occasion Ben and I offered to make some decorations, so we spent a couple of hours one afternoon knocking up a few metres of colourful paper streamers. I've made something like this once before, but not in such large quantities - it's really quick and easy to make though (especially when you have a mini production line system).

I've written out the instructions below if you want to make some yourself...



You will need:

A selection of coloured paper in any colour combination of your choice (this time we went for ALL the colours!)
A giant hole punch (pictured above) - my one cuts out circles to a diameter of about 4cm but I think they come in different sizes.
A sewing machine & whatever coloured thread you fancy.

Instructions

Hole punch out as many circles as you need, in a combination of colours. We went a bit crazy and kept on punching until we ran out of most of our paper.

We kept the circles in individual piles so we could work out the colour pattern as we went, but you might just want to mix them all in together and see what sequence comes to hand as you sew.

When you have all the circles you need (or enough to start sewing if you have an assistant who can keep punching) set up your sewing machine to work in straight stitch and then simply sew away. We tried to keep an even mix of each colour in a random sequence so it wouldn't look too regular.

And then we just kept going, taking turns on each task, until we had metres of the stuff!



The only tricky bit is trying to stop the garland from getting tangled in itself. We ended up draping them in strips over furniture as we went.

Once you have used up all your circles, then all that's left to do is: DECORATE!



Oh, and have a fun party!

a summer birthday

Here's a card I made for my mum's birthday earlier this month. She threw a garden party with a hog roast, and luckily it landed on the first warm day of summer.

 It was a very good time!

many many dishes

At the weekend we warmed our flat with a winter food party. There were loads of amazing dishes made by some very talented friends. The highlights included:

• The biggest sushi platter you've ever seen.
• Cookie monster cakes (amazing!)
• The sweetest cake I've ever tasted (decorated in suitable Manicolo style).
• Cupcakes, pasties, quiche, salad and vol-au-vents.
• A LOT of cheese.

There were also some unexpected housewarming presents (thank you!), some impressive dance moves, and the creation of a (now rather busy) height wall. So pop round if you want to have yourself measured...or if you want some leftover cheese or cake.

We still have a lot of eating to do...

cook-alikes

At the weekend Rosie and I (but mainly Rosie) made these face cakes for our friends joint birthday celebration. Derek's was especially easy as we based it on his Wii character.

Our dream is to one day get paid to prepare for parties. So if anyone out there is in need of a party planner we have the following skills:
• Cake-baking
• Decorating
• Costume-making
...and many more.

Party themes are our dream!

hat party / party hats

We had a hat party at our flat this weekend.
A lot of people came. And everyone wore a hat!!!

Some of the highlights were: a very glittery crown, the enormous crocodile, a customized safety helmet, a clip-on pigeon, a ninja hat, 2 birds nests, 2 mice and a very impressive cloud.

I made a giraffe hat:


I kept it on nearly all night (which was quite a challenge as it was rather tall). I also made some rosettes to award to the best hats, and we had a ballot box so people could vote for the overall winner:


Other treats included jam tarts & hat shaped cheese straws, an amazing hat cake by Rosie, many hat jokes, and plenty of austin's pimm's and lemonade.

Now I think a long sleep is in order.

eggcellent

We had an easter party on saturday - it was pretty special indeed!

We made baked goods and hid treats around our flat inside little origami boxes. Some had chocolate eggs inside, some had jokes by me & Yumi, and some had the odd special prize (like a penny).

Here are some of the decorations we made for our house:


The bunting is mainly down to Rosie who did all of the sewing and provided most of the delightful fabric. Though I did use my newly acquired screen printing skills to add the odd chicken into the mix:


I also painted some eggs for the wall:


And found a selection of these paper lanterns in a charity shop in Kemp town which added a nice finishing touch to our lounge:


I think we are going to keep the decorations up for a while now as our house feels a lot more summery and pleasant with them! After all, how can you have a bad day when there's bunting hanging overhead.
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