Lola loves… Making Girl Guide badges for a retro glamping experience!

Well wow-ee, what a fun weekend I’ve had! I spent it glamping in East Sussex with a bunch of lovely ladies celebrating a friend’s hen do. Just in case you haven’t heard of the craze, glamping (or glamorous camping) brings a whole new, and much classier, interpretation to slumming it in tents.

Our ‘tent’ had a butler sink, eight-seater dinning table and proper beds that are better than the one I have at home. We all had an amazing time, though the bad thing about glamping is that there’s no going back; I will never have the same relationship with a normal tent again.

We had a Girl Guide theme, so I made these badges for the hen to dish out to the girls. I printed images of real Girl Guides badges I found on the internet, which I then transferred onto fabric using the same method I did here. I then backed them with felt and sewed a safety-pin on the back so the girls could put them on straight away.  They looked pretty much like the real thing, which was fun. (Okay, so the DJ badge (headphones) is not an original Girl Guide badge but it was so cool I couldn’t leave it out!)

I also made tags from garden string and thin cardboard, on which I wrote the name of the badge and a suggestion for what a gal might have to do to earn it…  For example, the little blue bird badge is ‘bird watching’ and was awarded to the person who kept an eye over the gals.

I also made a guide belt with purse for the hen to keep the badges in. Another friend made the hen a Girl Guide hat and we each wore vintage scarves and toggles.

Here’s a picture of the delicious afternoon tea the ladies at the campsite laid on for us. (I would love to tell you where it is but selfishly won’t for fear of it getting booked up – I can’t wait to go again!) Ah sigh, if only
we could have stayed there forever!

Lola loves… Drink, Shop & Do – the perfect place for tea and cake

Thanks to Black Cat Originals for the invite to the Linky Party! I really recommend this place  if you’re ever in old London town! 

 

 

As an Easter treat, the girls and I went to Drink, Shop & Do — it’s the perfect place for a tea party without the fuss!  Drink, Shop & Do is a beautiful craft cafe and shop just two minutes walk from Kings Cross station, central London. It sells all manner of goodies from ribbons to boiled sweets and cocktails to cakes. It’s a little bit like heaven, except that I think the cake in heaven would be calorie and fat free!

The lower level of Drink, Shop & Do is a small shop which sells beautiful books, handmade items from local crafters, sweets and ingredients for your  own craft projects. The top level includes a bar, seating area and dimly lit snug room all decorated in a way that makes you achingly envious. (Why can’t my kitchen look like this?)

We treated ourselves to a rather decadent (and decidedly calorie-laden) afternoon tea that included chewy sweets, scones with jam, finger sandwiches, a pot of tea and a cocktail each. I had a coconut something, which to be honest took me straight back to being a teenager – in a bad way. (Did anyone else go too heavy on the Malibu at the school disco?) The other girls’ raspberry and rose flavoured concoctions were both pretty and tasty.

Wowzers, what lucky girls. Especially as the only reason we had to lift a finger was to cram some more scone into our mouths!

There are oodles of lovely  places to go for afternoon tea in London but what makes this place special for me is that encourages its guests to get involved and create. There’s a class or ‘make-along’ almost everyday; have a go at clay modelling, make a lego robot or papier-mache monster , or have your hair styled in vintage pin-up victory rolls (I MUST come back for that one!)

It’s also a great place for hen or birthday parties, especially as you can book a group lesson on how to make cake pops, a fascinator, 1920s headband or cross stitch panties! There’s an early doors disco on Wednesday, or for those more heady occasions there’s its so-called ‘dirty little secret’, Drink, Shop, Dance, which offers DJs, disco balls and drinks in similarly design conscious surroundings.

Somehow not feeling that I’d treated myself enough, I also bought a pretty vintage style ring, which went so well with my outfit I think it was fate. (It was fate I tell you, I had no choice but to buy it!) Here’s the ring and the pretty sweetie bag they wrapped it in, which I couldn’t help showing you too. Can you also spot my newspaper nails? I saw these bad boys on Pinterest, I will post about them soon.