Teacups and Tiaras

Long time, no blog. I'll try to do some recapping this week, as there have been all sorts of events to relate.
On Saturday, we went to the wedding of our very good friends Katy and Mark. It was a lovely day, and so wonderful to see the two of them so happy together. I came over all soppy, I have to admit.

Katy had added some beautiful touches to the tables, including small vintage glass vases for the flowers, and gorgeous candles she'd made in vintage teacups. I'd contributed a few teacups, and I had fun spotting the ones I recognised. Katy loves buttons, and I had made her tiara (to her specifications) from old mother-of-pearl buttons. I'd never made a tiara before, so I was quite pleased that I'd made something wearable, not to say extremely proud to make something for her to wear on such a special day.

I also made a fascinator for her bridesmaid, and it was only when her dad thanked me in his speech that I was reminded that I'd also designed the invitations too! (To be fair, it was a long time ago, and I'd only done a bit of design to copy some typography that Katy had seen and liked.) It was so great to be able to contribute to the wedding.

One of the things I never got around to blogging about was Katy's hen weekend. If a hen weekend conjures up tequila slammers and male strippers, then think again. We spent the weekend in a thatched cottage in the Cotswolds, and our activities included cake decorating and country walks. No outrageous costumes, either, although we did all get matching aprons, courtesy of the bride's mum! That's far more my sort of thing!

However, in case you think it was all civilised, I should confess that I was slightly undone by a lethal pre-dinner cocktail. At that point, I was supposed to be keeping everyone busy with a craft activity. I'd laid out an assortment of fabric, buttons, beads etc. for everyone to play with, and hopefully make something fun to wear at dinner. As everyone got stuck in with glue and thread, I downed my cocktail and started to relax. Suddenly I wasn't feeling all that creative.

As the other hens created jewelled bracelets, gorgeous ribbon brooches and pretty flower hair clips, I stabbed a needle tipsily at a misshapen bit of felt, plonked a 'jewel' on with a massive glue dot, and attached it to a hair clip along with a wonky feather. Classy. As the evening wore on and more wine was drunk, my feather drooped at all angles, and fell out completely at one point. In the face of that, it seems to defy all reason that Katy still asked me to make her tiara.
But hey, that's real friendship.