It’s a good 10 mile round trip and, thankfully, the weather was perfect walking weather. Nice and sunny but not too hot! I took a few photos along our walk:[/vc_column_text][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”8141,8142,8143,8144,8145,8146,8148,8149,8150,8153″ img_size=”large” column_number=”2″ grayscale=”no”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1439406452629{padding-top: 30px !important;padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”]I also took a few more of the gardens. it was SO lovely to just wander around, look at the plants in the shop and have tea and cake![/vc_column_text][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”8094,8095,8096,8097,8101,8102,8103,8105,8106,8107,8108,8109,8110,8111,8152,8156″ img_size=”large” column_number=”2″ grayscale=”no”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1439406536062{padding-top: 30px !important;padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”]I think this photo of a bee on white lavender is my favourite from the day!

The café and restaurant is currently being renovated, but when you’re there you wouldn’t know at all. Lovely food and great service, so we’ll definitely be going back! The Bradley Gardens website is currently under construction too – so we didn’t realise that we’d need to book in advance before visiting, so make sure that you do if you want to do this. We’re hoping to go during our holiday in a couple of weeks, so I’m sure I’ll be posting a few more photos then![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

The post Bradley Gardens appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

It was really difficult to decide which of my photos to include here, and this explains why it’s quite a large gallery! The colours were just amazing, and people bought so many things. I managed to snap a few customers and their purchases – I hope they enjoyed their flowers![/vc_column_text][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”7769,7770,7771,7772,7773,7774,7776,7775,7777,7778,7779,7780,7781,7782,7783,7784,7785,7786,7787,7788,7789,7790,7791,7792,7793,7794,7795,7796,7797,7798,7799,7800,7801,7802,7803,7804,7805,7806,7807,7808,7809,7810,7811,7812,7813,7814,7815,7816,7817,7818,7819,7820″ img_size=”large” column_number=”2″ grayscale=”no”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1435830709681{padding-top: 30px !important;padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”]What I can’t convey through my blog post was the amazing smell of the flowers – it was just incredible! It really is something that you have to go and experience for yourself. If you’re in London and are looking for something to do on a Sunday morning then I’d highly recommend visiting this wonderful market. You can find more details by clicking the link at the top of this post. I hope you have enjoyed seeing lots of my photos from my trip there. Have a great weekend, what ever you’re doing![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

The post Columbia Road flower market appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

So the main event in June was obviously my trip to London for Blogtacular (click here and here to see my posts about it if you haven’t seen them already). You can now see Grace Bonney’s keynote speech here – well worth a watch if you weren’t there. I am still coming down from it to be honest! I was wondering if that was a bit weird, but it seems like so many other people feel the same way. So many ideas have come from it for us all – it was just frustrating to not be able to work on them last weekend! Although, having sat down this morning to write this and make some plans, I think the enforced time out has been a good thing for me. I am ALWAYS busy, and I do love that, but I am really bad at switching off and doing nothing! So today I am planning and making and feeling grateful of the time to do that. Happy days!

I took so many photos whilst I was in London and I do have a couple more posts planned, so look out for those! One of which is about Columbia Road flower market, which I think has to be one of my favourite places. Here’s a taster for now:

I really enjoyed the coverage of Glastonbury last weekend (if you didn’t see it, I think you can catch up on iPlayer). Lionel Richie was amazing! I’ve actually seen him live in Newcastle, and he’s such a talented musician. You can see why he’s been around for decades, and he was obviously overwhelmed at the response he got last weekend. Also loved hearing Leon Bridges sing an acoustic version of one of his new tracks. If you haven’t guessed, I’m a huge fan of soul music and I love his old-school style. Very Sam Cooke-esque, so if you like that sort of thing then you should have a listen.

My on the train reading for my journey to Blogtacular was Pip Lincolne’s Craft for the Soul, and it really was the perfect reading for my trip. I enjoyed it SO much that I read half of it on the way down, and the other half on the way back! I’m actually reading it again now, and will hopefully write a little review of it for you soon. I don’t think it’s actually out in the UK yet – I bought mine from Australia as I couldn’t wait! Pip’s lovely blog Meet Me At Mikes is one of my always read blogs, and I’d highly recommend it.

July has started well so far, and I’m hoping to be posting more regularly again Hope you all had a super month! If you have any recommendations of things to do/see/hear then just leave me a comment below!

The post Bits & Bobs: June 2015 appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

One thing that I have been working on my dress for the Simplicity blogger challenge this month, and managed to get it finished just in time before the deadline (which is actually today!). Once I had finished it took a while for the weather to calm down to be able to take photos of it, but we managed to get some in the end.

I have spent a lot of time reading this beautiful book called Snail Mail by Michelle Mackintosh. It’s such a gorgeous book, filled with ideas for sending letters to friends and family and it’s so inspiring. I’m definitely going to set aside some time for doing this next month!

We visited Craster this month (click here to see photos of that) and stopped in Alnwick on the way. The castle looked beautiful as ever, and we went down to the river to take a few photos. Tom took this with the snazzy camera:

And I took this through one of the crosses carved out of the bridge (I have this thing about taking photos through gaps!):

Even though we’ve been to Alnwick so many times, we still haven’t been to the castle! We could hear some sort of jousting tournament going on (well, there was a lot of cheering so something was happening!) and it sounded like a great atmosphere. Something to do when we’re next on holiday, I think…

It was lovely to be playing music again this month, as we were in the band for the production of ‘They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?’ at The People’s Theatre in Heaton. Tom was Musical Director and we played lots of traditional jazz tunes in the show, which is about the dance marathons held in America during the depression in the 30s. The cast were incredible, and they are genuinely the best amateur company I have ever seen. We had great reviews too, which is always nice! One of my favourite things about the show was that we got to wear a costume and sit on a platform at the back of the stage to play. I wore a fab dress and hat, which were both 30s originals. Even though the show ended last week, we are still singing the tunes! Here’s a photo of the band – a lot of fun was had by all!

We spent this weekend in Leeds catching up with lovely friends – the kind who you don’t see for ages, but when you do it’s like you only saw each other last week Fab! We talked non-stop, had an amazing Mexican meal and went to Roundhay Park, which was so lovely as I haven’t been there since I was young. We even found the Chelsea Garden section, where the Leeds Council gardens are brought back for people to enjoy. Here are a few photos I took:[/vc_column_text][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” onclick=”link_image” custom_links_target=”_self” grayscale=”no” choose_frame=”default” interval=”3″ images=”7677,7678,7679,7680,7681,7683,7684,7685,7686,7687,7688,7689″ img_size=”large” column_number=”2″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1433097635431{padding-top: 30px !important;padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”]In other news, I have decided to set up a personal account on Instagram as there are so many photos that I want to share but I don’t always want to share them on my blog account. So you can see even more photos there, and I’ll also be posting my 365 Grateful posts on my personal account too. If you’d like to follow me, you can find me @clarealbans – but there will still be plenty of stuff to see on my @hellohoorayblog feed too!

So June has more fun to come…the main thing that I’m looking forward to is Blogtacular, and I’m so excited that I got a place on the photowalk with Xanthe Berkeley! Excited doesn’t actually cover it I’ve been checking out new (to me) blogs written by attendees and profiles of the speakers, I’ve ordered my Oyster card and have been planning what else I can squeeze in to the weekend…look out for another post about that soon!

I hope that May was a good month for you What are you looking forward to in June?[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

The post Bits & Bobs: May 2015 appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

Here are a few photos that I took – I could have stayed all day, but we had to get back to the conference!

[/vc_column_text][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” interval=”3″ images=”7478,7456,7475,7474,7455,7457,7458,7461,7462,7460,7463,7464,7467,7466,7468,7469,7470,7473,7472,7471″ onclick=”link_image” custom_links_target=”_self” column_number=”2″ grayscale=”no” choose_frame=”default” img_size=”large”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1429562379077{padding-top: 30px !important;padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”]The alpine house was definitely one of my favourite parts of the garden! I’d love to go back and explore more if I’m ever in Leicester again. If you’d like to plan a visit, you can find out more information on their website. Hopefully it will be on a beautiful sunny day like this![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

The post Leicester University Botanic Garden appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

I also painted underneath the pebble dash and the door and window frames, so it’s looking super smart for the first time in a long time! You can just about see that the front has been dug over, and Tom worked really hard doing that. He’s planted some wildflower seed so hopefully we’ll have a mini meadow in our front garden this summer!

I thought I’d share a few photos I took in the garden – I know I do this every year but I just love the flowers so much![/vc_column_text][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” interval=”3″ images=”7313,7314,7326,7315,7325,7324,7321,7322,7320,7316,7323,7317,7318,7319″ onclick=”link_image” custom_links_target=”_self” column_number=”2″ grayscale=”no” choose_frame=”default” img_size=”large”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1428958028357{padding-top: 30px !important;padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”]We didn’t get out in the garden much at all this year, so really hoping that this year will be different…fingers crossed! Hope you had a super weekend too! :-)[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

The post Spring in our garden appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

We took our snazzy camera along, so Tom had that (I had my glasses on and I can’t use it when I do – how ridiculous is that?!) and I had my phone camera. The spring flowers are just coming up so the snowdrops and crocuses are out (although the crocuses were closed up to protect themselves from the wind). There are so many kinds of snowdrops there, and Christine (who owns the gardens with her husband, Mike) was busy doing an inventory of all the different kinds. Such a windy day to be doing it, so cups of tea were frequently required to help! We had some lunch first to gear up to face the winds. Here are a selection of photos that Tom took:[/vc_column_text][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” interval=”3″ images=”7154,7155,7152,7153,7151,7156,7157,7158,7159,7161,7162,7164,7165,7166,7149,7167″ onclick=”link_image” custom_links_target=”_self” column_number=”2″ grayscale=”no” choose_frame=”default” img_size=”large”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1426091973134{padding-top: 30px !important;padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”]I really love being able to see the bare bones of a garden at the beginning of spring, with the pops of colour here and there. Here are some of my photos:[/vc_column_text][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” interval=”3″ images=”7169,7170,7171,7172,7173,7174,7175,7176,7177,7168,7178,7179,7180,7181,7182,7183″ onclick=”link_image” custom_links_target=”_self” column_number=”2″ grayscale=”no” choose_frame=”default” img_size=”large”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1426092376214{padding-top: 30px !important;padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”]The hellebores were just beautiful – the wind made it difficult to take photos of them at times! One of my favourites from the day was that unusual iris with its pale blue and yellow petals. Just gorgeous! We bought a couple of plants to take away with us too, so hoping to get them planted out soon. And we’re really looking forward to going back in a few weeks to see some more of the spring flowers and how the garden has grown![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

The post Birkheads Secret Gardens in spring appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

A couple of weekends ago we went to Doncaster to stay with some very dear friends who we hadn’t seen for ages! On the Sunday afternoon we went up to Clumber Park – it was a glorious sunny spring day, which was perfect for wandering about and having the first picnic of 2014 Clumber Park is maintained by the National Trust (find out more on their website) and so there are lots of lovely things to do with great facilities. You can stay in the busier bits, or wander around on your own and hardly see anyone, so it’s perfect for spending a lazy afternoon!

We had a look around the lovely walled kitchen garden (which you need to pay extra to get in to if you’re not a member) and pottered around the lake and in the fab bookshop, where all books are £1! Tom got me some amazing vintage craft books – they’re so lovely that I’ll be doing a post about them, so look out for that…in the meantime, you can enjoy my photo gallery from Clumber Park!

The post A trip to Clumber Park appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

I’ve got two more waistcoats cut out, and have started embroidering one of them, so progress is good! Better keep sewing…

The post Wedding waistcoats – an update! appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

The pattern is a Vogue pattern (number V8048) which I bought in John Lewis, and you can make lots of different styles of waistcoat from it. Because there are six to make I wanted to keep it as simple as possible, so we’re making style C without the pockets. The material that I chose was also from John Lewis – the front is Macao in cream (£15 per metre) and the backing is Duchesse satin in champagne (£10 per metre).

So the first thing to do was to get our heads around the pattern, which was easier said than done! Thank goodness for highlighter pens, that’s all I can say!

Once we had done that, we cut out the relevant parts from the pattern. Because only two of the waistcoats are the same size, we traced the pattern for each size onto some dressmakers tracing paper, cut them out and then pinned them on to the fabric. The patterns were left on the fabric so that tailor’s tacks could be sewn on to mark the buttonholes and other pattern markings.

Just to check that we’d cut out the pieces properly, we tacked one together and asked Tom to model it!

By this point, it was quite late in the day and the light was fading. We also made the decision that I should do the embroidery before continuing to put it all together. We fused the interfacing onto the back of the front pieces so that I could embroider through both layers – I thought this would be tricky but it was surprisingly easy! So I travelled back home with my waistcoat pieces in hand, ready to get started.

In order to keep things as simple as posisble, I decided to just do a bit of embroidery from the top of the shoulders to the top of the first button. I designed a stem with leaves, making some of the leaves look like small hearts, but then decided to pin the ‘safe zone’ on the fabric and stitch it freehand.

Once the embroidery was finished, I could start putting the waistcoat together – mum came up this weekend and we made a start! I started by putting darts in the back panel and then moving on to the belt.

Can you tell what was wrong with the first belt?!

I have to say that the belt was a nightmare! It involved that crazy thing where you sew something fairly small inside out and then have to struggle to get it the right way around again without breaking it! Good job I had some knitting needles handy! Mum was really good at doing them – I get too cross doing anything like that! This is Mum helping out (she didn’t want to be in the picture!):

So here are a few pictures from the rest of the making process – I took loads so that I can remember what I’m doing when Mum isn’t here…

I didn’t quite get it sewn up before Mum and Dad had to go home, but Dad did try it on inside-out before he left!

I spent the rest of the afternoon sewing and managed to put it all together – hooray! After a lot of hard work (and a few times today when I thought about giving up) it was really good to see one almost done, and I’m really pleased with it. Hope the men like them! I need to press it a lot more (they’re quite poofy when they are turned the right way around) and do finishing up inside and put the buttons on, but that is for another day and another blog post!

A huge thank you to Mum, Helen and Hilary for all of your help so far, and also to Dad and Tom for letting me put your photos on my blog

The post Making wedding waistcoats appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

Please note: you can find a more up-to-date version of this post here (with step-by-step instructions!).

I don’t really consider myself to be much of a flower arranger at all, but I found a wonderful step-by-step guide by A Practical Wedding which is so clear and easy to follow. To make a bouquet you will need some florist’s tape, ribbon and a couple of floristry pins in addition to your choice of flowers. I also bought a pair of florist’s scissors which made removing thorns and trimming the flowers much easier in comparison to using my orange-handled kitchen scissors. I didn’t have a huge choice of flowers (because it is almost the middle of November), so I settled with white roses and spray carnations.

Preparing the flowers took about 10 minutes, and it’s really important that you remove all of the foliage and any thorns. It only took about another 10-15 minutes to finish the rest of the bouquet, and it was so much fun! Even though the bouquet is simple I’m so pleased with the effect, and the natural beauty of the flowers really comes through. Next August there will be a much wider choice available, and I’ll go down to York Market the day before and buy a variety to make bouquets – so the flowers will be seasonal, beautiful and I can support local traders too. Now I’ve done a trial run I can’t wait to make the real thing!

Post updated 24th June 2016.

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