DIY Rainbow Party Ideas (for grown ups!)

We recently hosted a rainbow-themed party to celebrate a flatmate's birthday. We created an array of rainbow decorations, foods and features - have a look at what we came up with!

1. RAINBOW OF CANAPÉS

This was really the idea around which we based the whole party, and it worked out better than any of us could have dreamt!

First we cut a rainbow shape out of card, then used a pencil on a string like a compass to mark out six (approximately even) bands. We stuck on coloured paper to make it look like a rainbow and covered the whole thing in cling film so that it wouldn't get soggy with all the food.

We then made canapés in the appropriate colours:

Red - mini tomato mozzarella salad - recipe here
Orange - smoked salmon bites - recipe here
           - carrot sticks (don't think you need the recipe for them!)
Yellow - yellow peppers on paté - recipe here
Green - pea and mint paté - recipe here
Blue - earl grey shortbread with lavender icing - recipe here
Violet - beetroot and goat's cheese crackers - recipe here

We also made hummus, which was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, whilst we had mini meringues for clouds!

Have a look at the recipes - I'm particularly proud of the earl grey shortbreads and the pea and mint paté!

2. BALLOON CHANDELIER

It isn't really a party without balloons, is it? Our balloon chandelier was inspired by the glass chandelier in the entrance of the Victoria and Albert museum.

We blew up a packet of pearlescent multi coloured balloons, dropping a small coin into each one - this weighs them down slightly and makes them hang in place, rather than floating around with the breeze. We then tied them together in threes and hung them over the central light fitting. Better keep the light off when you have these up, otherwise they might heat up too much and pop.

3. BUNTING

There was way more bunting than this, but the other pictures didn't turn out so well. You can make your own bunting, but to be honest it's so cheap you might as well buy it and then personalise it, like I did. To make the 'happy birthday' one, I just cut out letters from coloured paper and stuck them onto pre-bought paper bunting.

We used some to make a beautiful and colourful entrance to the party in the corridor - it's all in the details!

4. FAIRY LIGHTS

These colourful lanterns were attached with blue tack to a shelf in the hall - they're battery-powered so they could go anywhere. We also had some multi-coloured christmas tree lights spilling out of a large glass vase in an alcove, which created a beautiful effect.

If you're wondering about the bottles, my boyfriend brewed a special beer for the party and made his own labels - it's called 'Rainbrew'!

5. 6 LAYERED RAINBOW CAKE

This was a bit of a masterpiece, if I do say so myself. I made this with my sister and it took at least 2.5 hours! We also had a complete nightmare with food colouring (and actually these photos don't show up the colours as they really were). N.B. always use gel food colouring!

It involved making the biggest sponge mix I've ever seen, separating it out into 6 bowls and dying them different colours, before cooking the layers 2 at a time. We then made a butter and marscapone icing and embedded it with skittles and m&ms!

Recipe to come!

Craft - easy sew Dorian the Tortoise

I had it in my head that I wanted to try a sewing project, an easy one to get me started. I was searching around and came across this exceptionally cute pattern and instructions for a toy turtle from Purl Bee. The tutorial is for a cushion-sized toy in a Liberty print. Unfortunately Liberty fabrics are a little pricey, although they are the best, so I used a bit of upholstery fabric for mine. Plus I decided I wanted mine to be a tortoise rather than a turtle.

What you'll need:

• Fabric of your choice for the shell and soft parts (head, feet etc)
• Felt for the underside
• Sewing kit
• Buttons for eyes
• Stuffing
• This template from Purl Bee - print it off at whatever size you want your tortoise and cut it out

Step 1. Cut your fabric from the template and work out what goes where.

Step 2. Take one shell piece, the correct way up, and pin the feet, arms, tail and head on top of it, as shown:

Step 3. Sew in place. This would be so much easier if you had a sewing machine (which I don't), but I managed fine sewing by hand! Then fold out the blue pieces and iron the seams away inside the shell. You should then end up with a tortoise shaped piece.

Step 4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for the other side of the tortoise. You should end up with two opposite-facing tortoise silhouettes. 

Step 5. With the correct sides together, pin your tortoise shapes together, leaving the underside open. Sew together.

Step 6. Open up your tortoise and place it (still inside out) onto your felt underside. Pin in place and stitch together, leaving a gap at the back. Turn the right way out.

Step 7. Fill with stuffing. You can buy toy stuffing in craft shops but I was impatient so just used bits of fabric, old socks etc. Alternatively, fill him up with rice and dried lavender for a heavier, sweet-smelling pillow.

Step 8. Stitch together the opening. Give him some eyes by sewing on some buttons.

Isn't he cute? He took me a couple of hours to make, but it'd be super speedy (ironically for a tortoise) if you used a sewing machine.

Recipe - easy Tuscan biscotti / cantuccini

Yesterday I was trying to think of a dessert to make for a dinner party for 9. I wanted something I could make in advance because the oven was going to be full of casserole. Plus two courses and several glasses of wine in, cooking doesn't seem like such a good idea. So I scoured a few blogs and came across this recipe from Bread and Companatico (my FAVOURITE recipe blog).

I love biscotti and they're perfect at dessert because you can dip them in your dessert wine or your coffee. Also, they last for up to a month so you could make a big batch and bring a few out every time you have people over for dinner. They'd also be delicious with glazed baked pears or peaches.

Ingredients: 
500g plain flour
350g caster sugar
250g unpeeled almonds (I used ready-sliced because I couldn't find whole ones)
Grated rind of 1 lemon
1.5 tsp baking powder
4 eggs + 1 for brushing
30 ml milk (a splash)
Icing sugar to serve (optional)

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius. Combine your dry ingredients in a mixing bowl (flour, sugar, lemon rind, almonds, baking powder).

Step 2: Mix in your eggs and milk. You might have to stir for quite a while before the mixture starts to resemble a dough. Add a splash more milk if it won't stick together at all, but be patient, it'll get there.

Step 3: Split the dough in two and form a rectangular slab on two baking trays covered with greaseproof paper. Brush the rectangles with the extra egg mixed with a little water.

Step 4: Bake for c.25 minutes. Remove from the oven and turn it down to 140 degrees. Transfer the rectangles, baking paper and all, to a chopping board and cut horizontally into biscuit-shaped slices. If the mixture is still too runny to cut cleanly, put it back in for a few more minutes.

Step 5: Put back in the oven and bake for another 25-30 minutes, until the biscotti are turning golden brown and they stop looking soggy. Leave to cool, sprinkle with icing sugar and serve!

Biscotti means "twice-baked", which is what gives them their delicious crunchiness. However, remember that biscuits keep cooking after you take them out of the oven, so it's easy to overcook them. They will harden up as they cool down; ideally you should end up with biscotti which have a hard crunch on the outside and a slightly chewier inside.

9 brilliant, cheap and easy crafts and gifts

I decided to do a round up of some of the amazing crafts and DIYs I've come across on Pinterest over the last few weeks. There's a real range of ideas here so hopefully there will be something for everyone! I definitely want to try these all out one day.

1. DIY gilded papier mache bowl

This looks really easy and you can customise the shape, size and colours to your taste. (Beauty and Bedlam)

2. Pom-pom pushpins

These will brighten up any notice board! You could also make them with little magnets to go on the fridge. (Sarah Hearts)

3. DIY washi tape tea lights

So pretty and so simple. They'd be really lovely for Christmas in reds and greens as well. (The Benson Street)

4. Sweater slipper boots

Recycle an old jumper for cosy toes. (Most Interesting Things)

5. Driftwood Sailboat

One of my own! But one of my favourites. (Anna Louise at Home)

6. DIY "Polaroid" photo coasters

A great and simple way to make personalised coasters (One Good Thing)

7. Drift wood lamp

An amazing Ikea hack! (Ikea Hackers)

8. Vintage tea cup planters

Really sweet idea for the garden - vintage tea cups can be found in pretty much every charity shop! (Modern Magazin)

9. Seashell candle holder

This one might well be my favourite - I just need to get hold of a glue gun before I try it! (Whats Ur Home Story)

Hope you have fun trying these out for yourselves!

Craft - pressed flower ornament

This is a quick how-to for something which I've had for a really long time and have taken all over the place with me. It's really easy and also makes a really nice gift.

What you'll need:

• Flowers - freshly picked and cut to the right size
• Flower press (or heavy books and plain paper)
• Photo frame - I used this one from Ikea (http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/00075689/) 

Step 1. Choose and pick your flowers. My sister and I picked these flowers on the day my grandfather died and decided to press them as a way of commemorating him (he was Welsh, so thus the daffodils!)

Step 2. Press your flowers. If you have a flower press, you just need to slip them in between the layers of sheets, tighten the screws and wait for about a week. If not, just put your flowers between two pieces of clean plain paper (ideally some sort of blotting paper) and place between the pages of a heavy book. The more you weight it down, the better it will work.

Step 3. Put them in your frame. I loved this frame from Ikea because it displays the flowers but also works as a paper weight and is completely free-standing. I wanted the blooms to reflect the heart shape of the frame, so I chose two flowers which looked symmetrical and arranged them accordingly.

Try not to keep your pressed flowers in direct sunlight as they'll start to fade, which would be a shame! Otherwise they can last for years, like mine have. Enjoy!

Craft - Driftwood sailing boat

Whenever I go to the beach, I'm always collecting shells, sea glass and bits of driftwood. They usually end up sitting in a drawer gathering dust; shells look so much prettier when they're still wet, don't they? But this weekend I decided to try making a driftwood sailing boat. I made one a few years ago and I still love it. This craft is a great use for little odds and ends of fabric.

What you'll need:

2 pieces of driftwood - one for the hull and one for the mast
1 piece of material big enough for a sail
Little fabric triangles or bells for the rigging
String/ribbon
2 pins, drawing pins, tacks or staples

Step 1. Super glue your "mast" into your driftwood boat. Mine already had a notch in it for the mast to sit in, but you could easily gouge a bit out. Prop it up in the right position and leave it to dry. It can help to put a bit of blue tack on the bottom of the boat to help it stand up.

Step 2. Press a drawing pin or a tack into each end of the boat (you might need to tap them in with a hammer). These are to keep your rigging in place. I had run out of drawing pins so I had to improvise with a dressmaker's pin at one end and a bent staple at the other.

Step 3. Prepare your sail. Measure out approximately how big your sail needs to be and cut your material to size. If you have a nice straight mast this is quite easy as you can just make a right-angled triangle. My mast was all wonky, so it took a few attempts to get it looking right.

Step 4. Hoist the sail! How you do this will probably depend on what sort of fabric you're using. My fabric, apart from being hilariously retro, was very liable to rip. I tied a piece of string around the bottom of the mast before using a needle to thread it through the bottom left corner of the sail. I sewed it along the bottom of the sail and tied the other end of the string onto the pin at the end of the boat. I then tied the top corner of the sail directly to the top of the mast, carefully pulling it taut.

However, if your fabric is a bit more sturdy you can just make a little incision in each corner and use an individual loop of string to tie each bit in place.

Step 5. Make your rigging. Tie a piece of string or ribbon from the top of the mast to the pin or staple on the opposite side to the sail. For my first boat, I decided to make little flags by cutting little triangles of contrasting fabric and attaching them to the string with a simple stitch.

This time I made use of the little bells that come on the collars of Lindt bunnies. I looped the ribbon twice through each bell to keep it in place before tying it onto the staple.

These make such pretty decorations and gifts. The big boat currently lives on top of our bathroom mirror and the little one is going to sit on the window frame. They're very light, so it's easy to blue tack them in place. Have fun making your own!

Homemade Pasta - a surprisingly easy recipe

The other day I was scanning through one of my favourite blogs, Bread & Companatico, when I came across a recipe for buckwheat orecchiette. It was around lunchtime and I was starting to get pretty hungry and these "little ears" of homemade pasta caught my eye. They were especially perfect as we had almost nothing to eat in the house except for some cupboard ingredients and a jar of passata.

I decided to give them a go. I didn't have soy or buckwheat flour so I tried them with normal plain (all-purpose) flour, but I'd love to try it with a more exciting gluten-free flour one day. I imagine this is one of those recipes which gets better every time you make it. The joy is that it's so simple.

I changed the quantities around a bit from the original recipe (which you can find here) since I was only making it for myself. However, the quantity of dough definitely makes enough pasta for two people.

Ingredients:

1 cup plain flour (or other flour of your choice)
1/4 cup lukewarm water
1/2 teaspoon marine salt
A sauce of your choice

Step 1. Combine all the ingredients in a mixing bowl to form a dough. Mine was definitely a bit watery and I had to faff around adding bits of flour later, so if it looks really sticky add in a bit more flour; you should be able to handle it without getting bits of dough all over your fingers.

Step 2. Roll into a ball, cover and leave to stand for half an hour.

Step 3. With a rolling pin or your hands, stretch it out on a floured surface until it's nice and thin. If you make the bits too thick they won't cook evenly. Chop into your desired shapes either using your fingers, a knife or scissors.

Step 4. Put a bit of salt and olive oil into a pan of boiling water. Drop in your pasta pieces and boil for around 10 mins.

Step 5. Strain and serve with your favourite sauce. In the pictures I've served it with passata and stirred through some spinach and rocket.

Enjoy! This pasta is very filling (like all fresh pasta) so you really don't need that much! Most Italian fresh pasta is made with egg, so in the future I'm definitely going to try replacing the water with egg and seeing what happens.

Thanks so much to Bread & Companatico, whose recipes I use all the time.