Cocktail Time!

Some of the cocktails I see popping up on Pinterest lately look almost too pretty to drink! My friend is the absolute queen of cocktails so the birthday card I made sure her birthday card was a reminder of that!

Unfortunately I applied a filter to the photo of the card that I now can't remove and I don't have the original photo so the colours aren't very nice. Lesson learnt : instagram doesn't always transform your photos for the better...

And here are some links to some yummy looking cocktails:

Lavender Collins Cocktail




Prickly pear Margarita

Lillet Rose Spring Cocktail

Blood Orange and Thyme Paloma

The Life of a Bowerbird

A little while ago whilst having a browse in Waterstones, I stumbled across this book and have since dithered many times on Amazon nearly buying it. I've decided to ask for it for my birthday now so roll on April! 

A bower-bird may be a fairly ordinary looking bird but their mating rituals and behaviour are so interesting! The males  will build a nest or structure and then collect and decorate it with sticks and colourful objects to attract his mate.

Sibella Court's book encourages readers to take a similar approach when creating a home - collecting miscellaneous trinkets and treasures and organising so they become a precious and vital part of your home. 

Sibella Court is am interior stylist, creative director and author who has also worked for Anthropologie as a stylist. I actually visited an Anthropologie shop in Sloane Sq last week and had a hard job leaving without buying anything as all the products were so lovely!

Anyway I am looking forward to owning this book as I am a bit of a Bowerbird myself so I can pick up a few tips on how to arrange and transform my collections so they don't just end up stashed away in boxes and drawers of my bedroom.

 

Whilst looking for photographs of Court's book I also found a good review on it over at Decor8 blog so be sure to check that out for more photos and information about the author.

I also remember that David Attenborough did a feature on the Bower bird in one of his documentaries for anyone wanting a bit more information on the curious and unique creatures.

http://decor8blog.com/2012/10/05/book-review-life-of-a-bowerbird-by-sibella-court/

The Greedy Rabbit

A birthday card design for a special friend

Birthday cards, party ideas and creative frustration....

I think I mentioned in a previous post that my Grandma would soon be celebrating her 90th Birthday... Well time has passed very quickly and it is now less than a week before her birthday and I feel quite annoyed with myself for not having started making a card and present a bit earlier. Ideally I would love to visit her on Tuesday when she will be having an afternoon tea party to celebrate both her birthday and her 60th wedding anniversary; I have so many ideas of how I would decorate the room: diamond bunting, place cards, sweet pea garlands, party hats, helium balloons, ahh the list goes on. However time and distance means that all these big ideas will have to wait for another occasion - next time I vow to be more organised rather than wasting my time moping around the house and lazing in the sun!

This evening I did start work on the birthday card; I chose the theme of poppies as this is the birth flower of August. My mood this evening wasn't the greatest, and so the card I started got ripped up and thrown away as I wasn't happy with it. However the envelope escaped my anger outburst so here is a picture of that:


 

The card itself will be similar in design, I would like to find a short poem either about August or poppies but have had no luck so far (except from the famous Flander's Fields one which isn't exactly appropriate!) so if anyone knows of one please let me know! I will post a picture of the card when it is finished - that is if it doesn't get ripped up again!

Tea Party Invitations

This August my Grandparents it will be both my Grandma's 90th birthday and their 60th wedding anniversary  which is certainly worth a celebration! They have decided to invite friends and neighbours to an afternoon tea , and I offered to make the invitations for them. Here is the final design I came up with:

I chose sweetpeas as these were the flowers at their wedding and in my Grandma's bouquet. The little teacup is detachable so that invited guests can simply fill it out and return it to my Grandparents - and can then keep the invitation as a reminder of the date and time. Overall I feel pleased with the finished product, I would have liked the writing so be a little more elaborate and decorative, but as the majority of the invited guests will be elderly, I felt it needed to be clear and easy to read.

Happy Birthday Grandma and congratulations on your 60th Wedding anniversary!  

Isobel's birthday card

A birthday card I created using  a mix of watercolours and collage for my Sister's partner's daughter. They have a lovely border collie mix called Poppy who I have drawn in a birthday hat! As I was taking the photographs, my cat Betty got jealous that she wasn't the centre of attention as usual so she decided to get in on the act...