Something Old, Something New…

…Something Borrowed, Something Blue.

More Hen Party favours needed [this is to be the sort of hen party which is a memorable evening rather than the sort where the girls wake up next day with absolutely no memory of the night before] Liz emailed me a link and asked “Can you produce anything like this?” – at £5+ each, I can see why they didn’t want to buy them!

But I had vintage paper, and other bits in the stash, so…

Something old- a dictionary from a CS, bought by Steph in 2004 for another craft project for our Silver Wedding

Something new – two sheets of new card from my card-making friend Carol

Something borrowed – 2 craft punches, also from Carol

Something blue- some pretty voile ribbon my friend Elisabeth gave me

Here’s what I did

• for each rosette, cut 4 strips approx 5cm x 20cm, stick them in a row [overlap about 0.5cm] then fold a concertina
• using a needle and thread stitch through the end of the folds-[about 0.5 cm in] and knot a loop note- you must not make this tight. You should be able to slide the tip of your little finger through, or the fan won’t open!
• gently open each fan, and glue the end papers together to make a rosette. Hold in place with paperclip whilst it dries.

• using stiffish paper, punch a couple of flowers for each rosette. With tape [I used white gaffer, it’s strong!] stick a safety pin to one circle. With a hot glue gun, stick that to the base circle, and then stick the whole thing to the back of your rosettes.[tip – open all the pins first so you can see which part to tape to the card]
• Cut your ribbons. Here’s the quick way. Fold a piece of card till it is 6cm wide. Wrap your ribbon once for each rosette[so I did 16] Now cut diagonally across the middle. You ave all your ribbons, with neatly slanted ends. Repeat with your second ribbon [I used blue voile for all, but a selection of colours for the others. I put the voile on top each time]

• cut some 5cm squares of paper, fold in half. Tuck the two ‘V-shapes’ of ribbon inside, fold over the paper, and staple. Hot glue them to the back of a flower shaped punched in your ‘good’ card. Hot glue that to the centre front of your rosette

• Print labels saying bride, bridesmaid, hen onto a different coloured sheet of card, and punch out with smaller punch. Glue on the front. Embellish as desired!
• Make a small box [the rosettes are surprisingly strong, and I made these boxes each from 1 sheet of regular printer paper, just folded and glued. This site is helpful]
• Tuck the rosette inside, and seal with another name label.

My friend suggested that I should have chosen the dictionary pages to suit, so that Steph got the page with ‘bride’ and others had ‘love’ or ‘wedding’ or ‘party’. A nice idea, but I didn’t think of that, I just began at A and worked through.

My apologies to the girls who end up with aardvark, asp, baboon or behemoth on their badge! I will deliver these to Steph tomorrow when I get to London.[thanks to Carol and Elisabeth for your help!]

Btw, the cake is now cooked. Marzipan and icing to follow later…