Photography by Farrow Photography red wicker heart on black and white checkered floor
plate of jam tarts with heart tops
Queen of Heart's throne with red paper flowers, ivy and her red heart wand, red heart box and ace of hearts and ace of clubs playing cards
We hope you’ve had a wonderful time celebrating Christmas. At this between and betwixt time, we take the time to reflect on the past year and look forward to the brand new year ahead. It’s a popular time to book holidays, make resolutions, kick start a new healthy regime and start thinking about personal special occasions that we have coming up.
Next year is going to give us plenty of reasons to celebrate as a nation with the Queen’s 90th birthday and we hope there’s street parties aplenty to mark such an amazing milestone in June.
In the music world, 2016 would have also seen the 80th and 90th birthdays of musical legends Buddy Holly and Marilyn Monroe respectively. Plus it also marks 150 years since Beatrix Potter was born
It’s also a leap year in 2016 so ladies this is your chance to pop the question. Let’s not take the lead from the Greeks and Romans though who thought that starting any new life event (from getting married to christening a child) in a leap year would bring bad luck.
Mad Hatter at tea party wearing top hat and looking in a tea pot
Maybe you’ve got your own personal celebration in 2016. Perhaps you’re expecting a baby (much like Bridget Jones in the third installment of the film series set for release next year) and will mark this new arrival with a baby shower or a christening. Other babies due to famous faces in 2016 include:
Coleen & Wayne Rooney
Andy Murray & Kim Sears
Tom Fletcher & Giovanna Falcone
Cat Deeley & Patrick Keilty
Anne Hathaway & Adam Shulman
Emma & Matt Willis
Perhaps your children are a little older and you’ll be celebrating their graduation from university or marking their coming of age with a special party (like Kendall Jenner, who will reach her 21st birthday in 2016).
Congratulations if you got engaged over the festive season (or if you’re already engaged) and are planning an engagement party and/or wedding in the new year. Here are some famous engaged couples we think could make it up the aisle and we’re sure their special days would influence wedding trends in 2016:
Kimberley Walsh & Justin Scott
Tom Daley & Dustin Lance Black
Lady Gaga & Taylor Kinney
Emma Bunton & Jade Jones
Liv Tyler & Dave Gardner
Or maybe 2016 will give you the opportunity to renew your vows, celebrate an anniversary, mark your retirement or enjoy a special milestone birthday with the important people in your life.
Some famous faces turning 30 next year are:
Lady Gaga
Ellie Goulding and
Usain Bolt
Whilst celebrating their 40th birthdays will be:
Ronaldo
Benedict Cumberbatch and
Isla Fisher
Other big birthdays include Janet Jackson, Gordon Ramsay and David Cameron’s 50th; Tom Hanks’s 60th; Dolly Parton’s 70th; and Robert Redford’s 80th.
Whatever you’re celebrating in 2016, we wish you a very Happy New Year.
There was a time when I thought I’d always be the bridesmaid and never the bride. I thought the film 27 Dresses was written about me! But despite being a bridesmaid more than three times, I’ve luckily now been a bride too. Before being married, I was a flower girl as a toddler, a bridesmaid twice as a child and a chief bridesmaid two times as an adult. My roles at the weddings were to look cute, to play a part in a family wedding and to provide support and guidance to close friends (in that order). It was certainly an honour to be part of the wedding party and enjoy the celebrations and their special day.
Plus one lasting part of being a bridesmaid is being able to enjoy wearing the beautiful dress again at other occasions after the wedding (although the orange puff sleeve dress from when I was a bridesmaid in the 1980s sadly doesn’t still feature in my wardrobe!)
Traditionally bridesmaids would’ve worn exactly the same as the bride to confuse evil spirits and protect the bride from bad luck. Nowadays bridesmaids are chosen to support the bride and to honour the part that friends and family have played in the bride’s life.
According to Cool Daily Infographics, there are around 11 million bridesmaids a year, brides have an average of 5 bridesmaids each, with 64% of brides dressing their bridesmaids in identical outfits.
Here is some wonderful insight from the lovely and highly talented Mrs W Tutus on the growing trends in bridesmaids’ dresses and why you should choose a tutu for your bridesmaids.
I’ve seen a lot of bridesmaids dresses over the years – as the eldest daughter of a Vicar, when you are very small an exciting Saturday afternoon excursion is to go and watch the arrival at Church of the Bride and her Bridesmaids/Flower Girls and swoon over the pretty dresses in front of you!
The wide ranging choices for dressing the littlest members of your Bridal party (and the big members for that matter) can seem hugely overwhelming – do you opt for something traditional from a Bridal boutique, scour the High Street for the right choice or opt for handmade?
Unsurprisingly, I am a big advocate for all things handmade – the benefit of choosing to have something made specifically for your little ladies is you get to have EXACTLY what you have been picturing in your mind during the dreaming/planning process and can be sure that no-one else will have dresses like yours!
Whether your wedding is going to be an incredibly traditional religious ceremony or something a little more outlandish and out of the ordinary, chances are there is a Tutu or Tutu Dress out there (or somewhere within the depths of your imagination) that will fit perfectly with your chosen theme.
If Traditional or Classic is your style, then choosing to put your little maids in either of my Taffeta Princess or British Belle styles offers a wonderful balance of pretty fluffy tulle coupled with the elegance of a taffeta overdress, all the finer details of which can be chosen and customised by you, whilst the Crochet Princess has a lovely Vintage feel to it, thanks to the hand crocheted bodice and wonderful oversized bow at the back.
If quirky or over the top is more your cup of tea however, opting for the Pomander Fairy or a full length tutu teamed with a Princess Streamers Bustle may be the way to go – both of these styles offer incredible amounts of wondrously fluffy tulle and most definitely appeal to the inner Princess of any Bridesmaid or Flower Girl!
Tutus are a great choice if you are choosing a Rustic theme for your wedding – a knee length tutu skirt teamed with a simple leotard are an excellent alternative to a potentially more traditional dress…….add a matching Tulle Crown and Wand and you have a great way of expressing the individuality of both the Bride and the young lady wearing it!
Another option to consider is a custom Tulle Petticoat to go under a more traditional dress – a flash of rainbow colours adds both fun and volume to an outfit……and is guaranteed to make everyone smile, courtesy of all the twirling that will be going on!
Once the Wedding Day is over, all these things make lovely additions to any little Princess’s dressing up box and can continue to be worn for many years to come!
Absolutely everything from Mrs W Tutus is handmade by herself and as well as existing designs, she is always excited to create something totally unique based on your own ideas – she has 42 colours of tulle that you can choose from, be it a single or mix of colours and some of which come in both sparkle and glitter tulle, so you can be confident that it will be a perfect match for your chosen theme.
vintage tea set trio with pink flowers inside tea cup
We hope you’ve had a wonderful time celebrating Christmas. For us, December is such a special month as not only are there Christmas festivities but lots of family birthdays to mark and share including our son’s, our nephew’s and my grandad’s 91st this year.
At this between and betwixt part of the month, many people take the time to reflect on the past year and look forward to the brand new year ahead. It’s a popular time to book holidays, make resolutions, kick start a new health regime and think about personal special occasions that are coming up.
Next year is going to give us plenty of reasons to celebrate as a nation with the 800th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta, a solar eclipse in March, a new royal baby and the Rugby World Cup taking place in England in the autumn. Plus anniversaries in relation to Sir Winston Churchill will include the 50th anniversary of his death, the 75th anniversary of his first becoming Prime Minister, and the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. In the world of popular music, 2015 will also see the 25th anniversary of Take That, 15 years of Atomic Kitten and it would have seen the 70th and 80th birthdays of musical legends Bob Marley and Elvis Presley respectively.
Maybe you’ve got your own personal celebration in 2015. Perhaps you’re expecting a baby like Kate & William and will mark this new arrival with a baby shower or a christening. Other babies due to famous faces in 2015 include:
Sacha Baron Cohen and Isla Fisher
Liv Tyler and Dave Gardner
Shakira and Gerard Pique
Rebecca Adlington and Harry Needs
Dawn O’Porter and Chris O’Dowd
Jessica Biel and Justin Timberlake
Keira Knightley and James Righton
Abbey Clancy and Peter Crouch
Perhaps your children are a little older and you’ll be celebrating their graduation from university or marking their coming of age with a special party (like Harry Styles, Justin Bieber and Tom Daley who will all reach their 21st birthdays in 2015).
Congratulations if you got engaged over the festive season (or if you’re already engaged) and are planning an engagement party and/or wedding in the new year. Here are some famous engaged couples we think could make it up the aisle in 2015 and we’re sure their special days would influence wedding trends:
Declan Donnelly and Ali Astall
Geri Halliwell and Christian Horner
Benedict Cumberbatch and Sophie Hunter
Peter Andre and Emily Macdonagh
Kimberley Walsh and Justin Scott
Christine Bleakley and Frank Lampard
Andy Murray and Kim Sears
Cameron Diaz and Benji Madden
Or maybe 2015 will give you the opportunity to renew your vows, celebrate an anniversary, mark your retirement or enjoy a special milestone birthday with the important people in your life. Some famous faces turning 30 next year are Lewis Hamilton and Keira Knightley. Whilst David Beckham, Angelina Jolie, Declan Donnelly and Anthony McPartlin will be celebrating their 40th birthdays. Other big birthdays include JK Rowling and Craig Revel-Horwood’s 50th; Rowan Atkinson and Bruno Tonioli’s 60th; Henry Winkler (The Fonz) and Tom Selleck’s 70th; and Sean Connery’s 85th.
Whatever you’re celebrating in 2015, we wish you a very Happy New Year.
Children deserve a good party just like the rest of us. We know the importance of giving children memorable occasions to look back on in years to come.
Popularity of children’s party themes often follow the latest trends based on current films and children’s television programmes. Then there are some timeless themes that never seem to go out of favour. Take a look at some themes that have been popular recently and our predictions for some themes we think will be on trend next year.
Current trends
Frozen – Disney princess themes are classics and always prove popular. Frozen is no exception and whilst the film came out at the end of 2013, Frozen fever still continues especially with the DVD release this year and impending cold weather. Even Elsa inspired wedding dresses are appearing giving brides the option to have this theme at their wedding too.
Lego Movie – ‘everything is awesome’ with this theme. The building bricks might have been around since 1949 but there’s nothing old fashioned about these interlocking toys and they lend themselves very well for primary coloured, simple yet innovative decorations, favours, activities and food at any child’s party. The 2014 film certainly has increased construction based children’s parties. ‘Everything is cool when you work as a team!’
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – another classic theme that is currently having a revival with another new film. Cowabunga! Get your masks on, join these heroes in a half shell and make your own pizzas.
Postman Pat – ‘everybody knows his bright red van’ and his black and white cat. This children’s television programme always gives lots of ideas for great themed parties – there’s always room for classic games like pass the parcel but the recent film has also seen integration of singing or talent contests in to the theme.
How to Train a Dragon 2 – loosely based on a British book series, these films have seen a trend for viking parties. Decorating shields, donning a Viking helmet and competing in training exercises to qualify as Toothless dragon trainers with (or without) any ‘Hiccups’.
Minecraft – initially a game about breaking and placing blocks but has now grown to include really imaginative things. The simple graphics in this game certainly make decorating a Minecraft party easy – pixelate, cut things into cubes or make them green! Plus the basic player activities of exploring, digging, cooking, crafting, brewing and farming make it easy to incorporate lots of activities to this theme.
Rainbow Loom bands – jewellery parties to weave rubber bands into bracelets or charms give loads of opportunities to have rainbow coloured décor and food (like an amazing rainbow layer cake).
Junior Bake Off – the spin off to the Great British Bake Off has not only seen a ‘rise’ in home baking but also in baking and cooking themed parties. Compete to impress the judges and then enjoy eating the end product.
Bob the Builder – can he still fix it? ‘Yes, he can!’ Popularity for construction parties is growing and with a refreshed version of this children’s programme they will continue to gain favour further.
Timeless trends
The Very Hungry Caterpillar – it might have been published in 1969 but Eric Carle’s book still provides inspiration for children’s parties 45 years on. The catering is easy – just use the book as inspiration and think bright colours and butterflies for the décor.
Mr Men and Little Miss – there are nearly 100 colourful characters in this amazing set of children’s books (originally written by Roger Hargreaves commencing in 1971). What a great theme to incorporate into a fancy dress party with maybe a Mr Bounce-y castle, Little Miss Somersault circus skills, driving Mr Bump-er cars or learning Little Miss Magic tricks.
Thomas the Tank Engine – this theme was good enough for Kim Kardashian’s nephew, Mason, recently and The Railway Series characters (originally written by Rev Wilbert Awdry) still provide inspiration nearly 70 years after they were first published. All aboard for some fun train races!
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – next year will be 150 years since Lewis Carroll’s book was first published. Follow the White Rabbit with hearts, red roses, tea cups and clocks. See how we organised our own Alice in Wonderland tea party.
Wizard of Oz – this year marked the 75th anniversary of the film release of the Wizard of Oz. Follow the yellow brick road with sunflowers, rainbow colours and balloons when dressed for the emerald city. See how we went over the rainbow with our Wizard of Oz party.
Wild West – cowboy parties are always popular with activities like panning for gold, lassoing, buckaroo, pony rides, sack races, horse shoe tossing and boot scootin.
Our predictions for future trends
Paddington – there’s a new film coming out at the end of this year featuring Paddington Bear, the fictional character in children’s literature created by Michael Bond. This could influence trends next year such as travel themes, teddy bear picnics complete with duffle coats, marmalade sandwiches and love of all things British.
Into the Woods – this is another film coming out in 2014. It stars James Corden and depicts a number of characters from popular children’s stories including Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk and Rapunzel. Plenty of autumnal adventures, toffee apples, gingerbread houses and other woodland fairy tale inspiration will spin off from this theme.
Gotham – there’s a new American crime television series just started on Channel 5 based on characters appearing in the Batman stories. It focuses on the early days of Detective James Gordon but also includes Bruce Wayne and several of the Batman villains. The show is a bit too gritty for children but will certainly influence interest in more Batman themed parties along with Penguin, Riddler, Joker and Mr Freeze.
Minions – these yellow henchmen will be enjoying a spin off film after the success of the Despicable Me films. Perhaps this will see an increase in villain based parties or perhaps more Antarctica inspired décor.
Cinderella – without a doubt, princess parties will always be popular. We are sure that the live-action film set for release next year with Helena Bonham-Carter as the Fairy Godmother will continue to keep the magic and romantic fairy tale alive.
The SpongeBob Movie and new 3D Popeye film – these new films will inspire under the sea, pirate, beach and sailor themes aplenty next summer.
Star Wars VII – the long awaited sequel will surely mean that space travel, aliens and robots are popular choices for parties as the end of 2015 approaches.
Rugby World Cup – England will be hosting the 2015 Rugby World Cup so we envisage this will ignite and inspire more people to play and support the game.
Art parties – crafting is big business at the moment and this will spill over even more into children’s parties with painting, creating a magazine, pottery, sewing and movie making activities.
These are a few of our predictions for popular children’s party themes in 2015. We’d love to hear what you think are going to be big trends next year. Email us at info@www.hanamidream.co.uk with your predictions.
Children having fun at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party with hanging tea cups, giant clocks, red lanterns and vintage tea set
Mad Hatter at tea party wearing top hat and looking in a tea pot
White rabbit at tea party holding tea cup and stuffed toy rabbit at table with vintage tea set
We decided to follow the yellow brick road as the next theme in our series of joint ventures to bring to life some inspirational themes for special occasions. These are to showcase how you can use a theme to enhance your milestone events, whatever the age of the guest.
1. red – follow your heart
Our inspiration was sparked this time with the build up to the 75th anniversary of the film release of the Wizard of Oz. We also learnt that apparently L. Frank Braum (who wrote the Wonderful Wizard of Oz book in 1900) was inspired by Lewis Caroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland so it seemed like a natural progression in our journey.
We loved the idea of lots of fun, friendship and camaraderie in our event and as we were using children as our models again we wanted to ensure we had lots of things to entertain them and keep their attention. Plus we wanted to capture a sunny summer vibe with bright on trend rainbow colours and we wanted to include sunflowers, balloons and emerald city inspired décor.
Other things that inspired this shoot included:
• Tin cans – it seems that my obsession with all the things you can do with tin cans has led my husband to worry that I’ll soon appear on the Hoarder Next Door programme on television. Yes, I saved A LOT of used tin cans in the build up to this event. But they are so versatile and really add to any rustic décor scheme – as lanterns, flower pots, adorned with tassels, with holes punched in or painted to suit any colour palette.
• Posters – we’ve recently been decorating our son’s bedroom and spotted a poster of a lion that we loved in a home decorating magazine. We searched high and low and eventually found the exact one from The Kid Who. So our son is now the proud owner of the lion poster by Ingela P Arrhenius, a great Swedish graphic designer and illustrator, and we are trying to decide what our next lovely purchase will be by Ingela.
• Strawberries – you might wonder how strawberries inspired this shoot. Well, it was actually in the act of trying to protect our strawberries from naughty birds scrumping our lovely fruit in the early summer. We were searching for netting to buy to put over the strawberries and came across various sizes of smiling scarecrows to buy. Hope we have more success protecting the blueberries from the predators this month!
• Paint – I’m currently in love with the chalk coloured paints by Annie Sloane (who incidentally resides in our part of the country). Some beautifully painted stools in the Old Pill Factory, in Witney, ignited my fascination with rainbow colours.
• Vogue – another fabulous shoot by Annie Leibovitz in Vogue in 2005 featured Keira Knightley as Dorothy and shows how subtle theming of the characters can still give a great affect.
• Scottie Dogs – okay so the dog in the film version of the Wizard of Oz was a Cairn Terrier, but how could we not love the dogs used in the recent Commonwealth Games opening ceremony in Glasgow and wish there was a way to use them in this shoot?
• Old fashioned sweet shops – the Shake Shop in Witney is an awesome place to visit and, as well as shakes and smoothies, has loads of great sweets to chose from like giant rainbow lolly pops.
• Cakes – these are never far from my thoughts at the best of times but recently I’ve loved all the cake pops that are so popular and amazing rainbow layer cakes. We had a slice at a recent christening and were fascinated by the time and effort gone in to making a wonderfully impressive cake.
• Emerald green – this was Pantone colour of the year in 2013 and still seems to be everywhere (or is it just because we’re thinking about the Emerald City that we’re seeing it more?!) and we really liked the emerald furniture in the Relics of Witney recently.
We also read the Wonderful Wizard of Oz book by L. Frank Braum and realised how many differences there were between the book and the 1939 film adaption. This made us realise that whatever the theme, we could adjust it to suit our occasion anyway.
2. orange – good communication
For this event we also involved a great team of local suppliers to showcase their products and enhance our theme further. So as well as partnering with the wonderful Farrow Photography, we also shared our vision to go somewhere over the rainbow with 8 other suppliers each offering different products.
New stationery companylaunching soon – who produced the name place cards
Contact Hanami Dream for more details.
We love the opportunity to be able to support local independent companies and have some amazing ones right on our doorstep in and around the Cotswolds. #indieretail
For more information on the suppliers that supported this shoot and showcased their products, take a look at our No Place Like Home blog post too.
3. yellow – have courage
We had to make some tough decisions whilst planning the shoot and had to be realistic with what we could deliver in the time and budget. In addition, whilst not an ideal time of year, we had chosen to do it during the peak summer months when everyone is busy with lots of events. So this meant that some suppliers were not available or couldn’t sadly commit to this project. Plus, with any event that you want to hold outside, we were once again at the mercy of the elements. Despite a glorious few weeks of amazing sunny and hot weather, the week of our shoot was when things looked like breaking. We knew that we could postpone the shoot by a few days but some of the suppliers’ products would start to fade if we couldn’t use them when we planned. We were brave and continued with our plan of shooting one Friday morning and the weather was brilliant until lunchtime. Thankfully by this time we had luckily finished and packed everything away.
4. green – be resourceful
As well as having some amazing products supplied by our partners for this shoot, we also produced a number of the props and decorations ourselves. Funds, availability and suitability often mean that making things yourself (or having them commissioned) will ensure that they match and are completely tailored to your occasion.
The things we made included:
• Green teepees for the Emerald City – triangles of different material sewn together with a heavier duty material hexagon base, held up by inserting and tying dowels, then finished off with doors with material tie backs.
• Gingham bunting – my mum has an amazing stash of material including the blue gingham that I used to sew the bunting. This was from the remnants from my primary school summer uniform that she’d made for me!
• Pin wheels – made from card in the seven different colours of the rainbow. Relatively easy to construct with squares of card, scissors and split pins. Then hung in rainbow order for lots of impact.
• Tin man – lots of sweet corn, chickpeas and tinned tomatoes were consumed to leave some different sized empty tins held together with wire and split pins to make the tin man. Finished off with a silver hat made from a circle of card and a red card heart.
• Painted tins – whilst I had a grasp on how to mix colours to achieve 6 of the 7 colours of the rainbow, I had to do research to discover the proportions for making indigo! I used a one coat, all surface paint suitable to go on a number of materials without a base coat.
• Crows – these were made with some simple origami skills of twirling birds from black card for the scarecrow to chase away.
• Net for hot air balloon – we plaited some wool together and tied it around the big 16″ balloon (supplied by Fairford Balloons) at the top, middle and bottom. Then tied long strands from the top band, through the middle band and to the bottom band and then attached them to a painted tin can full of flowers (provided by Distinctive Petals).
5. blue – use support
Most of our band of party goers were dressed in clothing to give a subtle hint of the theme, apart from Dorothy who had an amazing outfit.
The costumes consisted of:
• Dorothy Gale – white full length tutu with blue gingham apron and red ribbons (made by Mrs W Tutus), red ruby sequin shoes (provided by Cotswold Kids), blue gingham ribbons for plaited hair, wicker basket and Toto Steiff teddy bear (borrowed from Teddy Bears of Witney).
• Tin Woodman – grey cords (from H&M), light grey t-shirt (from Next) with red felt heart sewn to pocket and silver card pointy hat with red card heart.
• Cowardly Lion – brown cords, yellow t-shirt and ribbon ‘medal’ badge.
• Scarecrow – denim dungarees, check shirt (from Baby Bird at Mothercare), straw hat (from Fat Face) and prefect’s badge.
6. indigo – trust your head
So with our party visualised it was then just a case of bringing everything together and coordinating all the products coming from different suppliers and sources:
• Collected shoes, teddy bears, name place cards, balloons and flowers from suppliers
• Received deliveries of the tutu, cakes and vintage pedal tractor from suppliers
• Borrowed straw bails, prefect badges and table from friends
• Made tin man, sign for Emerald City, table runners, gingham bunting, costume accessories, pin wheel decorations, black crows and hot air balloon netting
• Collated all other props and costumes
• Ironed linen (why is it I find myself doing more ironing for work than I ever do in real life?!)
• Prepared and pruned garden
• Dressed the scenes by stringing up pin wheels, flowers in tins and crows, setting the table, tying rainbow ribbons round cutlery and the most important job of creating the yellow brick road with yellow chalk on a garden path.
7. violet – enjoy your creation
With everything set up, it was time for our party to begin. Dorothy, the Tin Woodman, the Cowardly Lion and the Scarecrow enjoyed playing in the following scenes:
a. No place like home – the farm in Kansas consisted of:
• Straw bails
• Wooden toy farm
• Hanging black crows
• Vintage pedal tractor (provided by Pedal Car Parties)
• Bunches of balloons (supplied by Fairford Balloons)
b. The Witch is dead! – the Wicked Witch of the East got crushed ‘under the house’ and all that could be seen of her was her:
• Black and white tights and
• Shiny red shoes
c. Follow the yellow brick road – off to see the wizard and along the way the friends played with:
• Chalk on the yellow brick road
• Pinwheels in the ground (from Cargo)
• Basket
• Dorothy and Toto teddy bears (borrowed from Teddy Bears of Witney)
• Rainbow balloon arch (supplied by Fairford Balloons)
d. Emerald city
• Two green teepees complete with ‘bell not working’ sign at the end of the yellow brick road.
e. Somewhere over the rainbow
• The party table consisted of:
○ Rainbow cups, cutlery and crockery
○ Table runner of burlap material, ‘yellow brick road’ and rainbow painted tin cans filled with gypsophila (flowers provided by Distinctive Petals)
○ Name place cards
○ Rainbow layer cake (created by Caked In It)
○ Rainbow cake push pops (created by Caked In It)
○ Heart, medal and prefect’s badge
○ Toto teddy bear (borrowed from Teddy Bears of Witney)
• The other décor included:
○ Pin wheel bunting
○ Tin man out of cans in tree
○ Lion poster
○ Scarecrow in tree
○ Hot air balloon (balloon supplied by Fairford Balloons and flowers provided by Distinctive Petals)
○ Tin cans filled with sunflowers (flowers provided by Distinctive Petals).
Then it was time to enjoy and capture our party somewhere over the rainbow.
We love the opportunity to be able to support local independent companies and have some amazing ones right on our doorstep in and around the Cotswolds. #indieretail
We were really pleased to work with the following fabulous suppliers that supported our Wizard of Oz shoot and showcased their products.
Making the “Edible Incredible”. Whether you desire elegance, vintage chic, cupcakes or something more adventurous, Caked In It provide a friendly, customer focused bespoke service to achieve your deliciously dreamy cake. Shortlisted in the 2013 Wedding Industry Awards, they really do love what they do.
Cotswold Kids opened in Witney in 2003, and specialises in baby and younger children’s fashion and gifts, toys, and nursery items, with key brands Natures Purest and Jellycat. A new website and online shop is imminent, in the interim using Facebook as their main customer-contact tool, pending their re-launch in late summer 2014. A big clearance sale is now underway, with classic baby and children’s fashion at great prices, Spanish shoes, Hunter boots, dress-up and occasion wear. Brands include Mayoral, Kate Mack/Biscotti, Kanz, Boboli, D’arcy Brown, and more. Don’t miss out! Do visit them on Facebook and Like to be sure you’re among the first to hear about new arrivals and special offers, not least their re-launch event (date tba)! Or visit their pop-up shop in Mill Street, Wantage for a selection of new baby gifts, toys and accessories. New permanent Wantage shop coming soon!
Distinctive Petals is a fresh thinking innovative floral design company. Specialising in wedding and events. Based in Witney in the rural Cotswolds, Distinctive Petals use from flowers from the auctions in Holland to make your floral dreams come true. Contact them at info@distinctivepetals.co.uk or on 07725806756.
Fairford Balloons was established by Paula Marshall 3 years ago within Enntwine Gift Shop based in Fairford Gloucestershire, run as a partnership with her Mother Val Marshall. After a few changes and a move to a better location in the town, Fairford Balloons has gone from strength to strength, now providing balloons for the whole of the Cotswolds/Gloucestershire/Wiltshire/Oxfordshire and even London on a couple of occasions. Providing something different to the standard helium balloons, Fairford Balloons have been a hit for all types of parties, weddings and events. Also offering a delivery service to keep convenience and customer service to a high standard. If you are interested in knowing more then please feel free to take a look at their website or contact Paula with any questions 01285 711057.
Mrs W Tutus hand makes Tutus, Tutu Dresses, Tulle Crowns & Wands for Bridesmaids, Flower Girls & Fairy Princesses everywhere! With 30 colours of Tulle available, we are sure to be able to create something that fits perfectly with your chosen colour scheme or with the imagination & dreams of your Little Princess! Please do not hesitate to get in touch with your requirements.
Pedal Car Parties hires out a set of beautiful metal vintage-style pedal cars for children’s parties, and delivers them to village halls, sports halls, private homes and schools across the region for children’s parties. Included in the package are toy traffic cones, road signs, traffic lights and a pop-up garage, as well as coloured bunting and party game ideas to make the perfect party for the under 5’s. Pedal Car Parties was named Best Party Supplier in the South East by Netmums in 2013. Teddy Bears of Witney – who loaned us the Toto and Mini Dorothy Steiff bears http://www.teddybears.co.uk/ www.facebook.com/pages/Teddy-Bears-of-Witney/107426666094204
Teddy Bears of Witney has been fortunate to have handled teddy bears, new and old, for nearly thirty years. Every day they witness the joy they bring to people of all ages. They search the world for the bear-makers they most respect, love and admire, sot that they can share their bears with you. They are open seven days a week. New stationery companylaunching soon – who produced the name place cards
Contact Hanami Dream for more details.
Hanami Dream and Farrow Photography are collaborating again. This time they will be following the yellow brick road with a Wizard of Oz themed children’s party. They will also be showcasing some amazing products from local suppliers – after all there’s no place like home.
Look out for the photos next month when they go over the rainbow and celebrate the 75th anniversary of the release of the Wizard of Oz film.
We’ve found inspiration in many different areas (isn’t Pinterest great for sparking the imagination and losing a few hours in the making?!) but lots of things kept leading us back to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. So this is the theme we picked for our first joint venture. (By the way, you can see more of our inspiration on our Pinterest board.)
We are from beautiful Oxfordshire and Alice’s story has lots of connection with Oxford. There’s an Alice’s Shop in Oxford and for one day every year, the Story Museum turns Oxford into Wonderland to celebrate the first telling of the story. Alice Pleasance Liddell and her sisters enjoyed listening to Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carroll), when she asked him to tell her a story on a boating trip in Oxford on 4th July 1862. So it’s not just the Americans who get to celebrate a special occasion on the 4th July! Other things that inspired this shoot were:
A fantastic installation at Burford Garden Company. One day their tea shop had lots of teacups hanging from a tree and it looked like a perfect backdrop to a mad hatter’s tea party. I just hope they had enough teacups left over for all their thirsty customers!
Tim Burton’s gothic inspired Alice story. We liked that this was a different take on the usual Disney cartoon images that usually spring to mind.
Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, a recent short lived US spin off show that featured modern day fairy tale characters based around the Alice story. Okay, we’re not necessarily all over the cheesier aspects of this but liked a modern day twist on the classic tale.
Annie Leibovitz did an Alice shoot for US Vogue in 2010 which absolutely rocks – not a stereotypical Disney character in sight!
Ruby & Stardust do amazing inspirational wedding photo shoots to help couples visualise the day of their dreams. We love their extravagant attention to detail.
Whittards currently have a lovely Alice collection that attracted our attention too – it’s all about Alice right now!
The Old Pill Factory in Witney always has brilliant visual merchandising and we love the eclectic mix of vintage products on display. Recently we were inspired by an old kid’s top hat that we saw with some tweed jackets. So we wanted to mention it as we love this place and are big supporters of local independent retailers (especially as this month is Independent Retailer Month).
However most of the imagery that inspired us featured adult models and we wanted to do something with young children.
2. Set the time, place and location
We decided we wanted to be able to share our inspirational shoot with the world to coincide with Alice in Wonderland Day on the 4th July. It’s when people are celebrating the day when the story was first told. If everyone is talking about Alice on that day then we want to be too! So our shoot was planned for the week before Alice’s Day and we held it outside in a residential garden so we could maximise the wonderful green lushness that’s around at this time of year. We let the lawn grow so all the pretty daisies came through, after all Alice did debate at the beginning of the story whether to make a daisy chain or not before she saw the white rabbit. We watched as the garden changed on a daily basis praying that the red peonies would bloom in time. Annoyingly the red ones came and went and then we were stuck with only pink ones but even these had gone over by the day of the shoot. And sadly no sign of any roses in time. Not even any white ones that we could paint! But luckily we found a post on Let’s Eat Grandpa about how to make really realistic looking tissue paper flowers so our production crew sprung in to action instead.
3. Make a guest list and send out invitations
As mums of little ones ourselves, we know how much fun children are but we also know how quickly they can flag and their attention dwindles. So we decided on a small ensemble to encapsulate some of the most well know characters from the Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland story. We had 5 brilliant models who thoroughly got in to their roles and all enjoyed pouring pretend tea (like most children seem to). So we invited:
Alice
Queen of Hearts
Mad Hatter
White Rabbit (at one point we even considered borrowing a real life white rabbit!)
Cheshire Cat
4. Source suppliers for decorations, party favours & music
For this shoot, we begged, borrowed and made a lot of our own props. However, the first of these I already had – an old vintage tea set that my Mad Nan gave to me (yes, this is the name that she has titled herself!) She bought it years ago when she first got a credit card and got a bit carried away at an auction. She hid it under her bed and never told my Grampy about it as she didn’t want to tell him how much she spent on it. So when he passed away a few years ago, I inherited the tea set. Not being a tea drinker myself, it sat unused in a box in the shed. So I was pleased that it could take pride of place in this Alice shoot.
Here some other behind the scenes snippets of how we made or sourced some of the props:
Miniature door – this was one of the first things that I made for the shoot. I saw these fairy doors on Roots Nursery and knew they would look great amongst the ivy at the base of one of the tree stumps in the garden for Alice to peer through.
What tea party would be complete without teacups? Along with my Mad Nan’s vintage cups, we also made some paper teacups to really enhance the whole décor. We found an ingenious and really stunning template and tutorial by Next to nicx and we hear that they’re also in the process of setting up a store so you’ll soon be able to buy these nifty tea cups in kit form too.
My in-laws sourced the next prop when they were enjoying afternoon tea in the Mad Hatters Tea Shop in Longton, Lancastershire. (Actually this theme was perfect for them as I think they spend quite a bit of time researching this pastime!) They found a beautiful paper teapot decoration in rose by Miss Etoile.
Other things that we made included:
Chequered floor – we bought some checked flooring tiles and stuck them to a bit of ply wood
Hearts bunting – we stuck lots of red hearts on to fishing line (and got them tangled up too many times!)
Big clocks – just some cardboard and cut out printed numbers (the roman numerals really tested our GCSE maths skills!) which were perfect for the background to dress the scene
Various sizes of playing cards including two big ones made into a tunnel for the children to run through – again just painted cardboard and then we stuck hearts/spades on to them
Playing cards garland – hope that no one in our house wants to play cards any time soon as I stripped out all the hearts suits from a couple of packs to string these on fishing line
Queen of Hearts wand – bought a wicker looking heart from Sainsburys and painted the top red to finish off her outfit
Other paper decorations and lanterns were bought from Cargo out of their last year’s stock. I’m loving all the honeycomb paper décor around at the moment though.
The final significant prop that we used was the brass key the White Rabbit and Alice hold. This was a gift to my late father on his 21st birthday which he gave to me when I also hit that milestone age. It’s engraved with the dates when we both reached 21 so it was special to feature this in the shoot.
Friends and family also have to be thanked for lending us other props such as: the old clock, carriage clocks, pocket watches (we were stunned by how many of our friends owned one of these!), various cuddly animals (such as rabbits and mice), croquet set and a treasure chest.
5. Plan party games and entertainment
With small children you need to have lots of things to entertain them lined up as their concentration doesn’t last too long for each activity. We had lots of bubbles to hand, a croquet set to play (complete with flamingos), lots of dancing, endless fun pouring glitter into teacups, running through playing card tunnels, hiding the dormouse in the teapot and eating all the lovely sweets.
6. Make the food and a cake
We didn’t put on a full spread for this special occasion but no Alice party would be complete without some jam tarts. The hearts theme continued with Love Heart sweets and some real fruit juice heart sweets from The Fruit Factory. They’re made from concentrated fruit juice so we thought they’d be better for our sugar deprived kids!!!
7. Set the table & decorate your venue
The only thing we couldn’t organise for the day was the weather. We should’ve guessed that anything set around the time of Wimbledon would have a chance of rain closing play. With the power of 10 day weather forecasts we could see that the weather might not be on our side and finally made a last minute decision to postpone by a day. It was a good call, as the day we’d planned had really heavy downpours but we had glorious sunshine for the actually day of our shoot. Everyone needs a good back up plan and thanks to all cast and crew for being so accommodating to change the day.
It was actually good that it rained before the shoot as it watered the garden and made it much greener again after all the beautiful sunny days we’ve been having. So all that was left was to:
cover the chairs and the rose arch with ivy and our home made flowers
hang all the tea cups and other decorations
dress the table with cups, saucers, teapots, clocks, hearts, flowers, cake tins, pearls, sweets, tiny playing cards, stuffed animals and glitter
hang playing card bunting in rose arch and heart bunting in Cheshire Cat’s tree
pin up signs
hide fairy door
set up the Queen’s palace
get Alice’s rocking chair in place
arrange all props and toys for entertainment
8. Dress the part
As our models arrived, they each got dressed in their costumes for the day. We’d been inspired by some Handpicked Handmade girls dresses which are so sumptuous and voluminous that we had to make some similar for our Alice, Queen and Cat. We went for a no sewing route (like the Hair Bow Company ones) and simply tied strips of tulle netting around ribbons to create wonderful skirts.
The costumes consisted of:
Alice – daisy headband, white t-shirt, blue handmade tulle skirt, white apron
Queen of Hearts – gold crown (from H&M), black t-shirt, white handmade tulle skirt complete with felt hearts, red shoes, heart wand
Mad Hatter – top hat with 10/6 sign (actually it was really hard to source a top hat as we were getting costumes together around the time of Ascot but found a great one on Oxfam’s online store), grey waistcoat and trousers (from Florence and Fred at Tesco), check shirt, cravat
White Rabbit – rabbit ears (from Claire’s Accessories but these didn’t stay on for long!), cream waistcoat and trousers (from M&S), white shirt, pocket watch, white rabbit toy (from JellyCat)
Cheshire Cat – cat ears (also from H&M), purple t-shirt, pink and purple handmade tulle skirt, purple shoes
And no one is fully dressed without a smile, so we also made some Cheshire Cat smiles on sticks for everyone to hold although everyone seemed to be full of smiles anyway.
9. Make the tea when your guests arrive
Obviously we didn’t have real tea for the children to pour at our party but they still had loads of fun pouring ‘tea’ for each other.
10. Serve the food and enjoy spending time with your guests
