Candybelle's Christmas Cracker

2 weeks ago the annual Candybelle Vintiques christmas fair, which i help to organise rolled round again... Yet again it was muchos stress and sleepless nights running up to the big day with many a late night crafting the vintage santa's grotto out of vintage materials. Thankfully it looked amazing on the day and i even surpassed my own expectations since i was still pom pom making until the 9th hour!

           

Vintage santas grotto was covered with hessian and lace for a rustic christmas touch and glammed up with these red metallic foil pinwheels. These were an absolute nightmare to make given that the metallic foil is not very forgiving and shows up every little blemish. I won't be making those in a hurry again. Then garlands of poms poms were draped in an artful manner, topped up with fairy lights and piles of vintage inspired wrapped gifts. I made my own holly leaves from vintage fabrics and sewed pages of old books together. I even typed up a wee letter to santa - i sure hope he gets it!

Not only was i stressing majorly about the grotto i had my own stall to sort and organise. This time i vowed i would be super organised and get everything sorted into bags beforehand as i did worry a little about getting all to the hotel on time! i did create extra work much to mitchells annoyance but it was worth it! I bought a million massive re-usuable bags from nickle and dime and put all bags together, all sewing boxes together etc etc. it did make transporting everything so much easier this time round. So halloween night was spent ironing and labelling  from dawn till dusk in between running down to open the door for trick or treaters!

On the day my extra organisation paid off, my stall was set up after an hour and half with time to spare to get changed and even put on make-up and style my hair!! that almost never happens. After 3 christmas fairs maybe im learning?

      

 

My stall was a treasure trove of vintage tins, am sad the 70s bold orange and yellow floral print was gone but gone to a good home nevertheless. Singers and baby sewing machines... I usually am sold out of these but was left with both of them at the end of the day, despite me offering a very good deal on a 20s singer with Tutankhamen pattern. And my usual collection of handbags, as you can see i do have a weakness for a good tan leather bag!

more bags!! ladylike kelly bags and retro sporty styled shoulder bags and manly briefcases! 

As you can probably see, i have loads and loads of bags! one day i hope i can get them all listed in my vintage etsy shop. Perhaps a job for next year!!

a potty potter birthday bash - harry potter party

This is the year that i turned 30 :( big hooomassive sad face :( :*( and while i really wouldve loved to crawl into a deep dark hole and mourn the passing of my 20s i had a big birthday bash to organise! and organise i did to take my mind of turning into an old hag..

For the past 2 years ive desperately wanted to host a harry potter themed halloween party and this year was the year. Every year i say "oh no got too much on, next year.... " And this year with turning 30 Mitchell kindly started the ball rolling for a birthday bash at the new house... well one thing led to another and i thought YOLO (oh dont forget the hash tag #YOLO!!!!) and the potter birthday bash planning was in full swing.

I carved about a million pumpkins, i carved 7 of them to spell out WELCOME to greet the guests as they came through the door and then carved 2 fancy ones. This year i was a bit short on time so they werent my best handiwork, so i recycled last years cat pumpkin and then did an owl design on the other.

welcoming pumpkins

The weather was horrendous that day and the tealights were just not lighting up so i filled the pumpkins with glo-sticks instead which was pretty effective, especially for the skull as it was glowing red. (the skulls were ceramic skulls taken from my shop)

hedwig i think

For Snapes potions cupboard, i dug out my antique bottles which i found in the woods, reckon it mustve been a rubbish pit at some point coz i found loads! never again will i stumble upon such gems again! and the great thing is one of them already has poisonous imprinted on the glass. Perfect! and then i printed out some labels using these free printables and stuck them on with blu-tack as i didnt want them on there permanently. then filled them with glo sticks as well. Then covered the whole thing with spiders web you can pick up from the pound shop.

Snape's potion cupboard

Next it was onto the spooky hallway which was plastered with spiders and moving holographic piccies as the pictures in hogwarts move you know.

Then i stretched my old VM muscles again and created a wee display on the stairs with one of my vintage trunks, I printed out the hogwarts crest and motto and blu-tacked it onto the trunk, strewn some of my handmade fabric pumpkins (this blog has a brilliant tutorial on how to make them! fabric pumpkin tutorial)

Not forgetting the quidditch broomsticks, a skull or two and of course Hedwig!!

And then there was a few little touches here and there for the die hard fans like myself, the fat lady was of course guarding the door and guests had to know the password to get in, there were signs to the ministry of magic next to the toilet and poor Mrs Norris had been petrified and hanging from the kitchen cupboard.

Poor old Mrs NorrisPetrife

I absolutely loved this party theme even if not alot of people were big potter geeks like me and this could most definately be an annual event now due to time and money spend on crafting those decorations!!