Fundraiser Tea Ceremony

A few weeks ago I read about a fundraiser at the innermost gardens, the fundraiser was to repair a castle damaged by earthquakes in Japan. 

The fundraiser included a traditional tea ceremony and lots of Japanese goodies so I had to come along and Ria was happy to come along with me!

When we first arrived a tea ceremony was already underway, so decided to check out the stalls which we selling a lot of cute treats.

Sorry the picture is slightly blurry! I thought these rice balls were so cute, once you bought one you could draw a face on the glad wrap that they were wrapped in with a felt tip pen.

Ria bought one of these bears and drew a face on him, I looked up this character and he's call "Kumamon" and is "Japan's most popular bear".

There was a bit of a wait before we could join the next tea ceremony, but it was ok to wait as there was cute stuff to look at including these cute cranes.

As part of the ceremony we got to have the most delicious matcha ever and these crunchy sweet biscuit things (no idea what they really are!).

The team ceremony itself was pretty amazing to watch, there was so much ritual involved. I just wish I knew more about what each movement and action actually meant.

Before leaving we decided to explore the innermost gardens where the event was held which is a community garden, it's a little over grown, but that's part of it's charm.

Before we left we asked a couple of the ladies if they would mind having a photo with us in their beautiful kimono.

It turned out all the people in traditional Japanese clothing were just as excited as we were about photos, so for the second photo a bunch more people joined in!

I just thought I'd finish up this post with a Selfie, because that's who I am! Ria made her adorable dress and mine is from Lindy Bop. I'm also wearing a bunny because this was the weekend before Easter!

I hope you have a lovely weekend, I think its going to be a chilly one here in Wellington x

Halloween Swap 2015!

Hello All and Happy Halloween!! I hope you all have some kind of creepy fun times planned today. I've going out to lunch with my lovely club friends in theme and then a few of us are heading to Tretham for the Pet Festival, apparently there is a costume competition for pets. I'm pretty excited about that.

Anyways I thought I'd share a post today of the things I received from Vany craft ninja for our Halloween swap this year.

Due to the cost of postage and well, LIFE being busy we decided to cut down our number of swap days from 13 days to a week. Still a week of Halloween is still a pretty great time!

DAY ONE

This is day one's package, which I was really puzzled by, I mean what could be in HERE! One big box and a bunch of pod shaped packages?

The big package was these Hello Kitty kinder surprises - Vany told me about these ages ago. I was so happy to have a box of my own.

But guess what was in all the pod shaped packages? A bunch more Kinder Surprise capsules, fulled with Hello Kitties.

This little dude was  also  in one of the capsules, he's a Natoons character.

This package was so much fun to open, who doesn't love a package made up of a heap of tiny packages.  Also so much Kitty - yah!

DAY TWO

Day two came in its very own box with three wrapped packages inside - two small ones  and one big one. What was in the smaller packages?

 Inside the first small package with this this cute Hello Kitty skeleton patch - I LOVE the wee bow.

The second little package was this ADORABLE My Melody ghost patch - its one of the cutest things ever. I love it.

What was in the big package? My favourite German chocolate - so delicious!

DAY THREE 

On day three I found a note from Vany that I had totally missed previously! This is our third year of swapping at Halloween times, hard to believe!

 Here's the package for day three - what's inside?

Something to reflect my love of lavender and visiting lavender farms! Some really beautiful soap! She also made these two cute scent sachets filled with lavender - skully bird and bunny.

DAY FOUR

 Day four was a day of craft supplies that included a DIY felt bird kit, very cool shark ruler, cross-stitch phone charm and creepy cute patch.

DAY FIVE

Day five was a cross-stitch day and included this awesome "What we do in the Shadows" cross-stitch.

DAY SIX

Day six was a day for all thing tea related! I received a box of tea, complete with a skeleton dressed as a bunny and a little plate for putting used tea bags on. I have a bunch of teas from Germany to try now!

DAY SEVEN

Vany has made me SO MANY amazing things over the year, but this was really next level. I don't know how she got so many things I love into one item (and also how she new my current bunny slippers were totally past it).

 That's right people, she made me zombie bunny slippers and in case you were wondering, the nose is a tiny skull.

The bottom of the slippers says "zombunny"  obviously! So amazing!

Well that's it for my Halloween swap package from Vany - pretty amazing right? I'm excited for next year already!

Stuff I did this weekend - upcycling, roller derby & morning tea

Hello World! Hope you all had a good weekend - here's a few things I got up to this weekend. First of all I made a new dress.

This dress is an upcycle - I bought a vintage dress a while back because I loved the fabric. However, the dress was hideous. The body was literally two squares sewn together (not flattering) and it had a horrible cowl neck.

So much ugly in one dress - but I LOVED the fabric and I decided I must have it, and then it sat around in my sewing pile for literally months.

Here's the ugly frock reborn using my vintage maudella 5619 pattern. The blue fabrics are the remnants of some fabric that Emi gave me that I've already used to make an A-line skirt.

Unfortunately daylight savings is well and truly over here now so I had to get an indoor photo of this dress as by the time I returned home daylight was almost gone.

I actually prefer the back of this dress to the front as most of the pretty vintage fabric is on the back of the dress. The original dress pattern didn't have ties, but I felt like the frock didn't have quite as much shape as I like and I knew it would look weird with a belt. So I added some ties to give it some shape.

But the past weekend wasn't just about sewing! It was also about roller derby - I got to see my friend Jaimee skate as "Jammit Frame" for her team "Smash Malice". It was a pretty fun night, we went with our friend Andrew and then got some Mexican food afterwards. I even bought a Smash Malice tee shirt to wear to the next bout.

Finally I met up with Jaimee on Sunday for morning tea, we went to Martha's Pantry which is quite possibly the most girly cafe in Wellington. Here's a few pictures.

I love the fans - they also have some very lady like hats you can wear whilst sipping your tea (or coffee).

Hope you all have a good week xoxo