It was my Mum’s birthday in April, and I made her this top. It’s my favourite top to make and wear – cool and comfy for summer and the only really tricky-ish bit is the neck binding. I got the fabric in the sale ages ago and it was nice to finally make it!

I also made her a caramel cake for her birthday cake, and I haven’t got around to sharing the recipe yet – but I will! It’s from the Clandestine Cake Club book, which is brilliant. I want to make everything out of that book!

Our dear friend Hannah got married earlier this month, and I stitched this sampler from Hoopla! magazine. It has been ages since I did any hand embroidery like this, and I had forgotten just how much I love it! I painted the hoop a lovely turquoise colour and it worked really well with the design. Hannah and her husband went off on honeymoon straight away, so I hope the last bits of disappearing pen had actually gone by the time they opened it! If you want to download the template, you can get it here from Bakercourt (designed by Stacey Siddons).

I also have to share the wonderful cake that Hannah made – if you’ve been following my blog a while then you might know that a Hannah made our wedding cake. Well, this is the same Hannah! She’s so incredibly talented. Just look at those flowers!

This month I have found some lovely things in the blog world.

How gorgeous is this outfit by Lucky Lucille? I love everything about it, and the styling of the photos is just gorgeous. I know I used the word ‘gorgeous’ a lot there, but it really is!

So is this floral DIY for your bike – makes me really want a bike! A pink vintage style one, obviously…

My lovely crafty friend Dizzy Miss James was featured on Beak Up Crafts this month – yay! Her story is really inspiring, so well worth a read.

I have also found some cool new things via Instagram this month. Stylusboy (aka Steve Jones) commented on one of my photos and so I checked out his music on his website. It’s great! It’s billed as ‘handmade indie folk music’, and that’s a good summing up I reckon. It turns out that he’s supported lots of great people on tour, and I’ll definitely be adding some of his music to our ever-growing collection. Have a listen here!

Have you heard about Caboodle Magazine? I also found this through Instagram, and the first edition was released this month. It’s a super mix of craft, fashion, food, vintage…lovely, lovely stuff. It’s also produced in my home town of York! Really hope that the team can keep going after such a great start – looking forward to seeing how the project develops. I’ll be reviewing it properly on my blog for you soon!

The Blogtacular speakers were announced this month – even more excited now! Check them out here. You can also listen to Kat Molesworth’s podcast for A Playful Day here – it’s all about creativity in blogging. Fab!

What new discoveries have you made this month? Share them by leaving a comment below! Hope you’ve had a great April

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

To make a floral bouquet you will need:

Some flowers (I used roses and spray carnations for this bouquet)
Some floristry tape (not the waterproof one)
Sharp scissors
Floristry pins
Ribbon

Step 1:

Step 2:

Step 3:

Step 4:

Step 5:

You’ll need to do a few practice runs before the real thing – experiment with different colours and flowers and pick your favourites too This is my actual wedding bouquet – I bought flowers from various stalls on York market to put it together:

Here are a few final tips!

I’ll be doing one more post about wedding planning – look out for that this weekend! :-)[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

The post Tutorial: how to make a floral bouquet appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

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The post Our amazing wedding cake appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

Here are a few photos to give you a taste of Grays Court. Check out their website for more information – the restaurant comes highly recommended and they also do a fantastic afternoon tea!

The post Grays Court York appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

We have now completed the ‘outside’ of the invitations – hooray! And we’re so pleased that they look like what we had imagined! In my previous post – Making our wedding invitations (part 1) – we stamped the flower design onto squares of white paper and I finished making the envelopes. Now, we have stamped our names onto smaller pieces of white paper which are then stuck on the front. We stamped a mixture of ‘Clare and Tom’ and ‘Tom and Clare’ so that they’re all a bit different.

The stamps that I used for this are all really small and so it was quite difficult to get them all perfectly neat and tidy. At first I was quite frustrated by this, but then I realised that it was quite good to show the hand stamped quality so we just discarded the ones that looked really rubbish! If you’re interested in buying these stamps, I bought them from Pretty M on Etsy

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Now, the final step is to cut out and attach the inserts – hopefully we’ll get them done this weekend so we can get them in the post soon. So exciting!

The post Making our wedding invitations (part 2) 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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