Edwardian Bling

On Saturday, The Geffrye Museum held a Love Day that included some Valentines Crafting. I was asked to run a workshop for teenagers inspired by this beautiful Edwardian picture frame. It is absolutely stunning, the photo doesn't do it justice. It's totally sparkly and seems to be resin coated with gorgeous pearly shells and gold dust. I highly recommend visiting the museum to see it in person.

I came up with this concept to make your own version - participants made 'heart shaped' versions to keep with the Valentines theme but I stuck to having my own leaf frame just because I'm so in love with the original.

To make one, you will need:

• Stiff Card
• Black poster paint
• PVA glue
• Thick gold and pearly glitter (looks more like shreds rather than ordinary glitter)
• Mirror card

1. Draw the shape of frame you want to make on the card and cut it out. You will need to use a combination of a craft knife, scissors and possibly tearing by hand to get through thick card.

2. Then cut a rectangle of card so you have two pieces of card in total.
On this smaller piece draw a window in the centre, either a square or oval like mine, large enough to fit your photo in and cut the centre piece out.

3. Draw an edge around the main frame and along the edge of the centre frame and paint these black.

4. Time to get messy. Work on the two pieces separately, coat them in thick glue and then pour on the glitter - get a full coverage by pressing the glitter into place with your fingers.

5. Cut out some shapes from mirror cards and stick these on randomly.

6. Finish with some more detail in black paint.

Voila, your own antique Edwardian frame, perfect gift for a Valentines gift, maybe for someone in your family. My frame has a very old family photo in it!

Sundays were made for afternoon tea

For my birthday last year my sister promised to treat me to an afternoon tea in a posh hotel, so today we donned on our glad rags and headed to the Athenaeum in Mayfair. It was a tough choice but I settled for 'Bingo Blueberry' as my tea of choice for the afternoon.

Of course the highlight of the experience was the cake trolley!

Knowing where to start was the problem......

Rather interestingly, it was a very crafty hotel, intricate papercrafts were on display throughout including this paper dress once worn by Kate Moss

I guess this is what happens to the broken teacups, they end up in mosaics

There was a fabulous array of mirrors on display too, I wanted to take this one home

My sister preferred the mirror edges with London buses

But in the end she also had her eye on my favourite one

We started with a selection of finger sandwiches, followed by scones with homemade preserves, moved onto the cakes and finished with crumpets and teacakes. Highly recommended, though next time I will be putting on my own tea party. Anyone fancy coming to mine?