Alternative Women's Institute Charity Tea Party

A few weeks ago I went to Nelson in Lancashire for the Alternative Women's Institute annual tea party, which was raising funds for Derian House children's hospice. I had a stall there alongside some other lovely traders, including sparkly jewellery made by my friend's mum, and Bits from Ditz cute jewellery and pretty vintage teacup candles made by my friend Marianne in aid of B-eat eating disorder charity.


Here I am with my sister Ginny, take a look at her sewing blog Buttons and Bobbins! Her outfit is entirely self-sewn and features the 1950s draped top I've been working on, she lent me the pattern after making it for herself. She also crocheted her own snood! My hat and outfit are also self-made, apart from the sweater which was knitted by our mum.


Some of the spread! The AWI ladies worked very hard to create a massive selection of glorious cakes, sandwiches and finger foods, including some special vegan ones for me! Everyone got their own trio of vintage china to use on the day, and a little goodie bag with recipes. Over £1000 was raised for the hospice!


These photographs were taken by the incredibly talented Donna from ClickClickBang Photography, her work is beautiful and her wedding and model shots are something very special indeed.


Here I am with my friend Alison, we've known each other since we were eleven and I love being able to see her, even though it's only a couple of times a year. I can't wait for next year's tea party!

The decorations are up!

Growing up, our decorations went up on Christmas eve, and came down on twelfth night, despite us all being atheists. They were also restricted to a tree in traditional colours, and strictly no tacky plastic things hanging off the ceiling. So nowadays, as far as I'm concerned, December is all about feeling festive in the traditional British, rather pagan sense - feasting, drinking, keeping warm, cuddling up together and decorating your hovel in the twinkliest, gaudiest decorations known to man in order to ring in the changing of the seasons.


These are the same decorations I blogged about last year, I just wish I could get a better picture of the tree - without the flash it's way too dark, and with it it looks matte pink with no baubles visible. In fact it looks lovely and has a warm glow from my vintage bubble lights and muliticoloured fairy lights, it's adorned with loads of tiny metallic baubles in a rainbow of colours, plus some lovely pink deer, shiny glass robots and a huge flamingo wearing a Santa hat.


Last weekend we went to the Christmas markets in town before going to see 'My week with Marilyn', here we are being cold and drinking mulled wine. You can also see Paul's glorious Moustache grown for Movember - you can still sponsor it here should you wish to!


One day, my Christmas house will look as beautiful as this!


Found on The Girl's Girl, originally from BoopsieDaisy's amazing Flickr stream.


Next year I'm also planning to scour ebay for out-of-season vintage Christmas decorations at bargain prices and make a beautiful bauble wreath like this, I think it's a lovely way to preserve them and show them off.