storm in a tipi

As I sit here typing it is slashing down with rain out side and I'm glad I'm in my cosy, secure, watertight home. Unlike the night of my brother-in-law's wedding. We were due to sleep in a fabulous looking tipi, but when the heavens opened and an immense thunderstorm erupted at 11.00 at night we were kicked out of bed by water, pouring in through the top. Thankfully there were pop up tents to hand and we ended up sleeping in tents inside our tipi! The children found this thoroughly hilarious!

Despite this mishap the wedding (for which I was making all that bunting) was beautiful. The setting was a rural country idyll, with chickens, geese and ducks running a muck amidst the wedding guests.

Right from the outset it was inevitable that this was going to be a beautiful wedding. Their shop Holly Anna is a treasure trove full of useful props and with their eye for detail I knew it would be a visual feast.



Talking of feasts, the food was impressive too. There was a constant, rolling supply of food and drink throughout the day, including this fantastic creperie. Obviously the children loved the chocolate and strawberry ones and quickly ended up smothered in the stuff.

And in keeping with the bride's colour theme (she loves pink, which is why she gets on well with our little girl!) we had even managed to source some pink Prosecco. Perfect for drinking in the dappled shade of an apple tree.


Guests danced the night away to an Irish band, and while we slipped off early(ish) to put the children to bed and for our storm in a tipi drama, the revelling continued, enhanced by the thunder.

bunting bonanza

Phew, while Sarah has been busy blogging about bunting I've been busy making bunting. A couple of months ago my mother-in-law turned up with a huge bag of fabric because I had volunteered to make bunting for my brother-in-law's wedding. I had plenty of time and it is fairly simple to make so I wasn't too fazed by the prospect of producing enough bunting to adorn an entire yurt village. I set to cutting out triangles straight away.

However, I've had a right old saga with my sewing machine: it broke so I got it fixed and it promptly broke again, so I bought a new one which arrived broken, so I asked to borrow my mum's but she lent it to me without the foot pedal.... so with one thing and another I have been machineless for about 6 months and my creativity has been completely hindered. And now the wedding is next weekend so I had to borrow a machine for the evening and sew like mad. Hubby ironed the tape in half as I fed it through the machine and attached my triangles until, 50 metres later, we had run out of triangles and tape.

Hopefully next week I will be able to show you pictures of the bunting in situ, but I am afraid that, although it sounds a lot, 50 metres of bunting doesn't go very far.

Any one for Tea?

On our workshops one of Sarah's mantras is "Less is more" and last weekend we went to a wedding that epitomised this. A selection of huge galvanised and earthenware jugs were filled with masses of cow parsley and other wild flowers. Trestle tables were laid out on the street (which later became the dance floor) and bunting was in abundance. For the ceremony itself we sat on the long grass in their slopping garden (surrounded by bottles of prosecco) as the happy couple sat on a couple of old chairs under an apple tree and said their bit. Then we were told to help our selves to tea and scones.

Many of us along the road had been up baking dozens of scones that morning (they have to be served fresh of course) to supply the 170 odd guests. I decided that with my batch of 50 scones some jam was needed, so I took a jar of Bonne Maman and created a personalised label. It was so easy to do and would be easy to produce en masse for a huge wedding tea.

pretty in pink

Sarah and I are both suckers for packaging and yesterday Hubby returned from a weekend away with a prize example. I'm not generally a fan of carnations. To me the mere word conjours up images of single, folorn stems on cafe tables and last ditch attempts at flower buying in a petrol station. However, packaged up nicely and it's a completely different story.

These pinks, wrapped simply in brown paper with an acid green bow of raffia are beautiful. In fact I can't bring myself to unwrap them. I even decided that they would make a very charming, rustic bouquet for young bridesmaids to carry. How fickle I am!

And whilst on the subject of pink and packaging look at these amazing fairy cakes a friend made me for my birthday. My eyes practically popped out of their sockets when I was presented with a box of 16 of these. Handmade, these truly were a work of art and tasted delicious too.

nasturtiums and dahlias

Sunday saw us spending our last day of the Summer holidays driving around the M25 to celebrate my Godmother and her husband's 40th wedding anniversary. Despite the journey it was a fabulous day, the food was delicious, guests ate lunch on trestle tables in the garden and everyone's children played together idyllically (the majority of the time). Amazingly we arrived at our destination 1/2 hour before we were due so we decided to find the nearest play ground and let the children use up some of their pent up energy before unleashing them at a grown up lunch party. And thus it was that we found ourselves in a car park by a village hall that happened to be setting up for the Annual Kent Dahlia Society show. And there in a 70's flower power array of madness were all the 'rejects' and they were being sold off at the fantastically tantalising price of £1 for 5. I couldn't resist. Though in all honesty I think they looked better in a huge display of vibrant colours and statement shapes but we didn't have space in the car to bring them all home. Even some of what we had got bashed by and tired, flailing arms and legs and Tin Tin books as we drove slowly back around the M25 that evening. But not even those went to waste!


But back to the Ruby Wedding Anniversary celebrations. Whilst on the World Wide Web I discovered that a less well known gift for 40 years of marriage is the Nasturtium. This thrilled me. I have a metal trug full of neon flowers sprawling in front of my kitchen window, making me smile when the rain comes and clouds hide the view over the valley. I've been wanting to do something inspired by said trug for a while.

I've also been wanting to work on my (very) freestyle machine embroidery as well as use this new stuff I found called 'dissolvable'.* So after a little bit of rushed experimenting - of course I had left this to the last minute - the result was this card, which I presented with a packet of ruby red nasturtium seeds.


*Not sure that that's it's real name but they knew what I meant in the shop. It's like a sheet of plastic that you can put in your embroidery hoop and machine on as if it were fabric. Once finished you dissolve the plastic in water and you are left with just the stitches. Fantastic - you can see better examples of the result in this post.

paper anniversary

I can't believe it is now over a year since our family travelled en masse to the hills of Aracena, Spain, to celebrate my sister's wedding. As newly weds they have put a lot of effort into gifts for their first anniversary, sticking to the traditional theme of paper.


Firstly my sister bought her hubby this lovely picture made by Terror Dome (who my sister said was very charming and helpful). Each butterfly is cut out of map, and each piece of map is a location relevant to the happy couple: where they live, where they got engaged, where they got married etc.


Secondly she made an A-Z concertina book for him. Each letter of the alphabet is a clue to a place or thing for them to do together.

But since she and her Spainish hubby have just moved to England my sister wants him to get to know the country England as she knows it, so each page is a place or thing relevant to her childhood or something typically English. B is for Bowood and I is for iceskating, both things we did as children.
Obviously some letters are harder to use than others, I love Q for quaffing champagne. I'm sure they'll enjoy doing that


As in most families we all have our roles to play; I'm supposed to be the creative one and my sister the sporty one. Whilst there isn't a chance in hell of her losing her title to me I am slightly concerned about my reputation being stolen.


It's a lovely and romantic way to mark their first year of marriage, I hardly dare tell her that our first wedding anniversary is the only one we've ever celebrated (though we've plans for our 10th!).

wedding book

I may have been quiet recently, but I've certainly been busy. Last weekend saw us trying to whizz up the M5 for a wedding in Whitley Bay. A while ago the Bride and Groom asked me if I could make them a wedding book for all the guests to sign as a memento of their day. I jumped at the opportunity to get my creative hat on, not realising till too late that I haven't a clue how to make a book. Thankfully I had a very useful chat with, and was kindly lent some books by Katherine O'Connell of The Quality Bureau, a resident maker at the Brewery Arts Centre. I used the a picture of the St Mary's Lighthouse as this was where the wedding ceremony took place and then looked at old books, typed up some bits of love poetry (using THE typewriter) and dug out some old scraps with an Italian theme (they're honeymooning in Italy) and lo and behold I had a book.



I'm definitely not an expert, but I'm off on a contemporary bookmaking workshop run by Katherine in a couple of months and I'm really looking forward to learning more.

lavender's blue

Polly and Jesus decided to complement their seville orange theme with a more English country cottage lavender, pulling the two colours together with green to create an informal setting for their wedding. Trestle tables were arranged in a continuous snake around a courtyard that glimmered in candlelight as guests ate a fantastic salad of figs and serrano ham, followed by Iberian pork stew and then a huge selection of naughty puddings (Jeannie is a cordon bleu trained cook and the food was amazing)


Bridesmaids wore blue and white flowers in their hair with simple white cotton dresses and plimsolls. Page Boys wore sage green shorts, white polo shirts and the same white plimsolls as the girls. Seven of them aged between 18 mths and 6 trundled along behind the bride carrying a rope covered in more flowers.


As Polly arrived at her wedding the sun was setting a fiery orange behind these hills, then later on guests were able to gaze at the shooting stars! Auspicious perhaps?

the wedding season

I feel I have been a bit slow on catching up on the wedding theme this month, however having made 10 cravets over the weekend (for our good friends who are about to be married)I am now in full wedding mode. As you know I always head over to snippet and ink when I feel in need of a pick me up on the inspiration front, I was really impressed witht this lovely wedding, I just had to share it with you.

what I think is especially good is that the bride anad groom (Hayley and Joshua) haven't spent a fortune, and there are lots of DIY personal and child friendly touches included, with this tasteful carnival theme.

I don't normally go for bright colours - i think i have said before that i have a real problem with orange, however the combination of colours that Hayley has used here just really, really work.

photos by jessica peterson via snippet and ink.

wedding stationery

The first indication of what to expect from a wedding is when the invitation drops onto the door mat. Is it a stiff formal invitation indicating the need to dry clean and de-moth the morning suit, or a more relaxed invite suggesting linen trousers and flip-flops? My Aunt rang me in tears of excitement when she recieved the invitation to my sister's wedding a couple of months ago.

There was no doubt that this was going to be a Spanish wedding of some sort. Polly has been living in Seville 9 years so it wasn't surprising that she and her Spanish husband, Jesus, decided to use the Seville orange tree on their invitation and as the basis for their wedding stationery. Wanting an informal look they decided to create their own rubber stamps (based on a painting that my mother had done for them). These stamps were then used on invitations, order of service, table setting tags, gift tags (for bridesmaids and pageboys) and then mum spent many an hour embroidering orange trees onto linen to make table napkins to follow the theme through (note the personalised labels on the napkins).

we're back

We're back from an exhausting wedding and holiday in Spain and in true British style I'm looking out over the valley at the pouring rain while the smell of a Sunday roast pervades from the kitchen. It was raining as we stepped off the aeroplane at Bristol airport and, ever positive, Boy said 'it's raining mummy, not nice for us but good for the flowers'.

Hubby has just downloaded our photos and now I can think back to the week we have just had. I'll fill you in with wedding details later, but for now I must tell you about where we stayed. In the hills of Andulucia, about an hour from Seville you can find Finca Buen Vino. The wedding was held at the main house, which is run as an rustic/upmarket B&B by a very accommodating British family meanwhile a selection of wedding guests, including us, stayed in converted goat sheds on the same estate.
Our home was idyllic, set next to an orchard filled with goats (if only I could have recorded the sound of their bells). We had a pool, perfect size for the children and necessary in the intense heat of the day. We had home comforts, including duvets, a bath and proper armchairs and sofa but plenty of Spanish decor too. The hills and landscape were amazing, with lots of good walks to the local villages and beyond. A perfect place to relax in and explore from - if you are not there for my sister's wedding...

wedding fever

Anyone who reads our blog regularly will be aware my sister's wedding is in 10 days time and excitement is deffinatley mounting in the Pope household . I'm not sure what the children are more excited about, the prospect of being bridesmaids and pageboy or going on an aeroplane.

Anyway apron and pinny month is over and July is going to be wedding month. I've been mentioning confetti in my posts recently and if you have lavender or roses in the garden try drying the flowers. I've added a few sprigs of dried rosemary and pudding rice to lavender and rose petals to make the confetti for my sister. You'll have to wait till I return from Spain to see what I've done next, but you can just put the confetti in nice little baskets, either for the bridesmaids to carry or to place at the exit so people can grab handfuls as they leave the venue. It smells absolutely amazing and you don't have to wait for a wedding to use it, either bowls of pot pourri or lavender bags work just as well. I have to confess to just putting the left overs in a large kilner jar on a shelf just because it looks nice.

The other thing you can do with the lavender is sprinkle it down the aisle before guests/bride arrive. As people walk on it the heady smell is released (I don't know if this also works with the rose petals, but it would look nice). And of course it is all wonderfully biodegradeable!