Macmillan Wonderland 'Apres Ski' Party!

This year I decided for my Birthday I was going to throw a party, and after I saw this advert, I knew exactly what the theme would be!...

          

I thought it would be fantastic to raise money whilst also having a jolly good time, and on sunday the day had finally arrived!

I printed off lots of vintage skiing travel posters, as well as the bunting Macmillan had provided. I also created the 'Frosty Ski Slope' cocktail which was basically an amalgamation of what we had left in the cupboard ;) But actually tasted rather nice!

Of course we had to have some gingerbread men too! Which I let the guests decorate themselves.

To raise some extra cash I decided we should have a raffle and sell tickets to all of the guests.  As well as some of my friends and family making donations, I also had some amazing support from some wonderful makers and companies!

We had some lovely Christmas cards donated by claireabellemakes, Jenny Jackson and OhhDeer who also donated 2 cute notebooks.

Claire makes these cute scrabble themed Christmas cards which you can buy in her etsy shop.

You can buy these cards from OhhDeer.com.

These super sweet 'Pigs in blankets' cards can be bought here.

This awesome hat was donated by The Purly Queen. Isn't it wonderful? And perfect for the Apres Ski theme!  You should stop by Cheryl's etsy shop and check out her other lovely hand knitted products!

I decided to group the prizes to make as much money as possible on each ticket, so we had 3 winners and I let them pick a prize from every shelf, meaning that they won 5 prizes each! And here are our winners...

Macmillan also created a downloadable printout to guess how many marshmallows in the hot chocolate, but I changed it to 'snowballs in the jar'. Each person paid 2 pounds to take a guess.

As per usual with our parties, I had to customise the chalkboard in our hallway for the occasion!

We also had a nice backdrop for photos which my Aunt and Cousin originally painted for our wedding, but it came in very handy for this party too!

I had also bought some fake snow. You just add water and it grows, its amazing! We decided to do some slow-mo films with the new iPhone 6 camera, which hopefully I'll put up on the blog at some point too.

We played 'the peg game' where we secretly attached 4 pegs to 4 peoples clothing, then announced that if you found a peg on yourself you had to peg it to someone else without them noticing.  The people with pegs on them at 10:30 had to drink a 'dirty drink'.  I had a brilliant idea to avoid loosing which was to lock myself in the toilet a few minutes before the end. It worked fantastically, except I had made a mistake earlier, which was to peg a 'non drinker'. I had said that anyone not drinking could nominate someone else, and of course I got nominated! Duh!  Anyway, here I am with my fellow peg-ees drinking a rather disgusting drink.

In the end we raised a whopping £350.60! Which I was really pleased with, and I think everyone had a great time too, which was a bonus!

Have you done any fund raising this year? Would you hold an Apres Ski party for charity?

Laura xXx

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Wedding Photos - Alpaca's, Ice Cream and Dancing the Night Away!

It's finally time for my last wedding photographs post! :(

This time we are leaving off from the meal and speeches, after which we took our portrait photos with the photographer.  We decided this would be a good time to do it because people wouldn't have to wait around for us and could continue the party!

As I may have mentioned earlier, the field our marquee was in was next to an Alpaca farm! My Mum had spoken to the owners and they kindly brought one of the Alpacas over to see us, which was rather a surprise for me! And the other guests who were mostly still in the marquee!

The Alpaca's were very interested in us when we approached their field, I think they were wondering what on earth was going on!

Just as we finished our photos,  'Fat Sam's' ice cream van arrived! And I managed to spill some on my dress, whoops!

We had decided in advance that we wanted to have an 'open mic' session before the band in the evening started playing.  We have so many talented friends and family, and it was amazing to watch them all perform!

Then it was time to cut the cake! I'd bought and made up the cake boxes, which were 'Mendl's' from the film 'The Grand Budapest Hotel'.

Next it was time for the first dance.  We had the boys play 'You Make My Dreams' by Hall and Oats. They played the first verse slowly and then sped it up so that everyone could join in! We didn't want to do a slow dance for a full 3 minutes! And it turned out to be a great choice.

Our wedding day was also my Mum and Dad's wedding anniversary! So I had asked the band to play 'their song' which is 'When Will I See You Again' by the Three Degrees. They did a fantastic job!

After that we pretty much just partied the night away!

Once most of the guests had left, those that were camping over the night had a bit of an acoustic sing along in one of the tea tents, sat on bales of hay.  By this point I had traded my wedding dress for a ski jacket (it was cold!), and this was actually one of my favourite parts of the night. All of us picking songs to play, and trying to drunkenly work out the words!

The next day the sun came out for us!  The boys played football, we ate food from the BBQ and had lots of tea and juice! This was another of my favourite parts, as we actually got to chat to everyone properly, and it was so relaxing compared to the day before, which was wonderful, but slightly hectic!

Now we are preparing for the next family wedding on the 27th of December, which is for Chris's sister. Not long to go now!

Laura xXx

All photos were taken by our wonderful photographers Peach and Jo Photography!

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Pop-Tatts Competition! Win Temporary Tattoos for Parties and Hen Parties!

Hey Chaps! Guess what?! I've finally opened my Etsy shop! I am super excited to introduce 'Pop Tatts' temporary tattoos to the world!

Inspired by their success at my Sister-in-law's hen-party (which you can read all about here), I decided to release my 'Hunky Men For Funky Hens' temporary tattoo's  to the masses!  Who doesn't love a bit of Ryan and Co!?  I'm also taking commissions for brides, which will be up in the shop soon! Plus I've got loads more ideas in the pipeline!

To celebrate, I've decided to hold a giveaway!  If you enter below you are in for a chance of winning the following;

-1 pack of 10 'Hunky Men For Funky Hen's Temporary Tattoos'. Each is separately packaged so they are perfect for putting in goodie bags at a party/hen party, or for filling a piñata (like I did)!

- 1 pack of customised 'Groom's Face Tattoos'.  These are perfect for giving as a gift to a bride-to-be at her hen party. If you don't know anyone thats getting married I'm happy to design you a pack based on a favourite actor or singer, we can get creative! 

So, if you'd like to enter, please use the Rafflecopter widget below;

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good Luck!

Laura xXx

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My Favourite Nail Varnish Brands

Following on from my favourite make-up products post, I thought I would share my favourite nail varnish brands, and what it is that I like about them!

ESSIE

Essie is possibly a little bit overrated in my opinion, I'd read that you only needed one or two coats and it definitely didn't live up to that for me, it also takes a while to dry. BUT on the up side, they do come in some awesome colours, and if you have the time to sit and wait for the layers to dry, it does have a great finish.

BARRY M

Again, Barry M takes a few coats, but I do love the colours that they sell. Their gold is actually really quick to dry though, and my new favourite is a gold foil effect varnish called 'Treasure Chest' which is perfect for the Christmas season!

MAXFACTOR INFINITY

This is my go-to varnish when I don't have a lot of time. It dries SUPER quick, and you can get away with just one coat if you are really in a hurry. The only downside is that it does start to chip quite quickly, but I'm sure you could prevent this with a decent base coat and top coat.

RIMMEL LONDON

Rimmel is by far my favourite brand of nail varnish, there are loads of cute colours, it dries pretty fast, the brushes are a good shape and the finish is always great!

What's your favourite brand of nail varnish?

Laura xXx

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