Divine Hens With A Craftyclassy Parisian twist!

It's BEEN sOOoo long since I blogged!! And blogger has changed!

Well here I am again. I feel like I haven't blogged for such a long time and there's a reason for that...

My very beautiful and talented friend Emma Divine has just gotten married... and I was asked to be her best woman, and of course I was honoured! (see what I did there?) Not only that, but I was lucky enough to help out with the styling and decor of the wedding...but all that will appear in another post.

As you're all aware, before any good wedding there must be a celebration of true decadence where a bride-to-be waves goodbye to her singledom days and drinks lots of champagne and gets dressed up to & in all sorts of frivolities....well as I said before I was the best woman, so in honour I got to work creating some crafty classy clean fun...CLEAN?? But it's a HEN DO!!! - Well my friends, let the tale unfold as it is told...

Now as my friend Emma is not too much of a traditionalist I decided she needed something really special and out of the ordinary,  so I had a gander on a few websites and blogs and the one that I really stuck out has been The Rock n Roll Bride  - if you haven't already checked it out and you're thinking of tying the knot OR have a friend who is, send them this!! It's beautiful in every single way Kat Williams is a pioneer and I applaud her!

Emma wanted something really special and decided that a trip to Paris was in order...AMAZING!! My organisational skills are not up to scratch, so the gorgeous Sarah Findon & Helen Bower were the ones to organise the trip, and they did a bloomin' marvelous job of it, they even created programmes and guides of where we could go...traditionally Emma, Sarah & Helen go together as a joint celebration, so they knew the lay of the land, therefore I took it upon myself to create something hen-doey-alternative-parisesque and fun...unfortunately I didn't take photographs of everything, but you'll get the idea. The goody bags were handmade and filled with handmade things. Being an eco-warrior it felt hypocritical and "against my religion" to spend money on plastic mass produced tat...I included a bit of tat it was a hen do!!

Things on sticks obv.

So I actually have an illustration degree, which I hardly ever make use of and also my boyfriend (sorry Jim PARTNER) is also a pretty darn good illustrator, so together we created these (well actually he drew the cockrel and the frog I coloured them in and drew the rest)...I wrote a list of things that I thought would be fun, so I did the usual "photo booth" type things, like moustaches and glasses...but then made it a little more personal too...because we were going to Paris I did a Rene Magritte style pipe "Ceci n'est pa une pipe" (- this is not a pipe) a croissant, some tattoo style love hearts with "love" and "divine" (For Emma Divine) and the frog was for Emma because she's always loved frogs for some reason...plus she will no longer have to kiss anymore frogs (or toads) because she has found her Prince Charming (puke! sorry!) If you need me to explain the clever punn of the cockrel then you don't deserve to have it explained to you!!!!!

These are little dark chocolate love hearts from Oxfam, they actually do a range of Divine Chocolates, it's no coincidence!! And I popped some Uncle Joe's mint balls in there...if you don't know what Uncle Joe's mintballs are then you're really missing out!! They're made in Wigan. Emma and I met in Wigan and went to college there, so it was a personal touch, plus as you'll see later I was trying to go for a red white and blue theme, as she got married on the Jubilee weekend and of course the French flag is also red white and blue...I also popped in some union jack chocolate lollies from M&S for all the girls, but Emma got her very own giant love heart and a big bar of Divine chocolate...

 

These gorgeous things are little temporary tatoo's from an amazingly cool graphic design website called Tattly, get on there honestly tis brilliant! I ended up buying a mixed pack of fun colourful designs, because I just couldn't decide what to get!! - I ordered them from America, they were the first things I ordered and the last things to arrive, just on the morning I had to leave!! But they were a great addition to the goody bags. 

I also made little necklaces for everyone with Eiffel towers threaded onto very thin red, white & blue ribbon. Emma got a bigger version on a real chain with a love heart gemstone thingmebob too...

                                 

I made & stuffed love hearts with Paris themed buttons, and bought some little bath bombs which I wrapped and packed into some recycled magazine sweetie-style bags (that I make quite often) with tiny little envelopes of confetti....also a button bracelet for everyone...

 

I made Emma a head-dress too as she was adamant she didn't want any form of fancy dress, well I couldn't let her get away with that could I??? Not a chance in hell...So I appliqued some little fabric L-plates and made her a very special patriotic recycled Zip fascinator...

The bags where just an A3 bit of fabric (an old curtain) folded over, french seamed and bagged through.  I used cotton tape or ribbon as handles Bryony from Stitched Up helped me make the bags! and my amazing Janome machine does a love heart stitch, gotta love the extra chinze! 

Emma got a few extra's in her bag (that I didn't take photogaphs of) I found the most beautiful vintage style glass bottle with a cork top in a little interior shop in Didsbury, which I then got Simon -her Fiancee to write her a love letter to roll up and put inside as an extra surprise...(he had to hide it in the bathroom at his and Emma's flat and I had to seek it out before we left for Paris)...that's what I didn't mention Emma lives in London, she's a northern lass like me...so the journey started in London with me and Laura...

 

Laura and Emma...

 

Very British...she's pointing, and we've not just drank 2 bottles of champagne it was Prosecco actually

We left very early on the friday morning and we travelled by chunnel...(Emma stole this dress off me, I made it...I said she could have it!)

 

This stainless steel Martini glass was also in Emma's goodybag I gave it to her early with a little note saying something along the lines of "why have a plastic shot glass round your neck when you can have something as stylish as this? perfect for you're strawberry dachary" -which is Em's fave. - I found the Martini glass in Oxfam when I went in for the Divine fairtrade chocolates...and I thought it was perfect...she did too evidently, but it was destroyed on her wedding weekend...but that's another story!!!

When we got to Paris we all ended up having a nap before meeting up again and drinking more bubbly and handing out the goody bags!!

 

Handing out the goodybags!

  

The marvelous Amy Rixon also brought along some of her home-made Earl Grey cupcakes!! and they were totally scrummy!!! - I've never had anything so gorgeous before!! - We bonded over our love for Blue Peter!! Amy has her own bakery, from home go give her a "like" on facebook here yummy stuff!!

 

Cake, bubbly, make up...then out on the town!!

So from beautiful bubbly and scrumptious cakes...some of the girls ate snails that night...well Emma Kate Wood, Laura, Daisy and Amy did!!!

  

I don't seem to have many photographs of that night...but I do recall there being cocktails, dancing and lots of fun....the next day the sun came out...

Some of the girls decided to do touristy things, me, Em, EmmaKateWood, Sarah and Helen went for a stroll and drank some more!!

 

I love this wall...and I wish I had a photograph of how amazing these ice-creams were!! They made them look like little flowers and mine was mascapone and amaretti it was amaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing!

We went to an amaaaazing restaurant that evening (although the waiter was better to look at than ther actual service...) and then to a brilliant cocktail bar...but loads of us were cream crackered from the night before...most of the girls ended up going back to the hotel super early and then suddenly....it turned into a hen do. We got our second wind!!! We met the entire rugby union team from Stratford-Apon Aven and they were all dressed as cops and robbers....

 

and then there were 3....

a little worse for wear...

We had an awesome time that night...we ended up going to the bakery just as it was opening up as we'd stayed up all night...I'd lost my voice and decided that now I had a belly full of alcohol I could speak fluent French...when in actual fact I was just speaking English with a (probably very bad) French accent, but it impressed Emma, she was too drunk to notice I was just talking gibberish and proudly said to me "Alice, you're really good at speaking French!!" hurrah!!! It was a brilliant weekend and I wish I could tell you more and show you some more awesome pictures...but actually it's probably better that I don't!

Daisy took loads of these photographs, so thank you for letting me put them in my bag and use them for my blog! heh. x

Amy made a friend on the way home and he really really really wanted his picture taking with the moustache, so here it is!!! But I believe by the time Amy got back to London all she was left with was a piece of felt on a stick...so I owe her a new 'tache...