Sunday's Quatorze Juillet was spent at the Carrousel du Louvre for a second Paris Picnic Party - Dîner en Tricolor - with lovely friends, good vin rouge, a salted-butter caramel crêpe cake and the prettiest of fireworks. Thank you to all the lovelies that came down and made it a beautiful evening. 

xx

Washi Tape Apéro Picks DIY

What did we do before washi tape?
I remember back five years ago, when it was first becoming popular, this magical, reusable paper-tape from Japan, you could only get it from one online retailer in Australia. And it wasn't cheap. Now the crazy French lady that runs the gift store on my high street sells it. You can buy it at Fnac. It's ubiquitous on craft blogs webwide (as I'm just about to demonstrate). For those who have no idea what I am talking about the Wikipedia entry for washi paper is a goody. Or watch the little video below I found on MT Masking Tape's Japanese site.


This made my heart sing - it's the cutest thing I've watched in a long time! Wouldn't you love to come home to this on your birthday?! I especially love how sneaky they are and that it perfectly demonstrates that you don't have to be a stylist, designer, crafter to use MT Masking Tape's products.

I joined a 'crafters who love paper' group in my little, no big - 700+ students and counting, go Anne! - online map design class and a fellow group member mentioned to us that she'd just bought a whole lot of washi tape because she just fell in love with the colours but is a bit stuck (excuse the pun) on what to use it for. So this post is for you, fellow mapper. Below I've listed a few of my favourite uses I've seen around the web (I forgot to do a Link Love Lundi post this week, so consider this post it!), and below those I've put together a super easy entertaining DIY.

DIY Washi Tape Pencils by Jenny Batt of Hank + Hunt, published on Julep.

Dorm DIY: Tape Picture Frames by Maxwell Tielman, published on Design*Sponge.

Happy Keyboard for Happy People by Eng Gee Fan (aka Minifanfan), published on MiniFanFan.

These are just three of my favourites, however this post from A Night Owl blog covers 100 uses!
Ouf, that's a lot of tape!

Lastly, here's a little bunting made while skyping with my sister. These look super sweet as birthday cake toppers or wrapped around gifts.

I wanted to put the following DIY together ever since I had my girlfriends over for our Valentines dinner. These would have been super handy then. I love to throw a party and I've thrown many a party in my time, but one thing I hate about them is the waste. Especially toothpicks. I love apréo hour and all the tapas-style food that come with it, but dislike seeing piles of used toothpicks everywhere. Ick. This encourages your guests to reuse the one they are given.

Washi Tape Apéro Picks

You'll need

+ Mini bamboo paddle picks, as many as you have guests - these I bought at Carrefour Market in Pigalle but they can be ordered in bulk here
+ A supply of washi tape, a different pattern for each guest
+ Scissors

1. Tear off a length of washi tape about 10cm.
2. Place the back of the paddle pick in the middle of the piece of tape and flatten against one side of the pick. Bring the otherside around and join together as perfectly as you can.
3. Cut off the jaggered edge and make a snip in the middle off the just cut edge of about 5mm.

4. Make two snips from each each bottom corner of the cut edge to meet the end of the 5mm snip to make a triangle shape. And you're all done!

Of course this works well if you have a washi tape collection as big as your guest list, but if not you can make as many as you wish with just one colour and write your guests names with a ball-point pen on the little flags.

Bon app-éro!

xx

Dîner en amoureux entre amis

The French have no real translatable word for a 'date'. They use the same word date for a 'calendar date', as in February 15. The oh so well known rendez-vous refers to a meeting/ 'hook-up'/ an appointment. But the term for a 'date' as in dinner shared between two people, gazing at each other over their magret du canard and playing footsies under a candle-lit table, is referred to as dîner en amoureux - 'dinner in love'. Sweet, hunh?

Three of my closest friends in Paris work nights in bars, and sometimes I strike it lucky and two are off on the same night and we can go out as a clan. This year I struck it super lucky as not one, but two of my friends were given Valentine's Day night off. And so, as Mr M had to work himself and we had no romantic dinner planned, the girls came to my place for our own romantic and silly dîner en amoureux before heading out for cocktails.

Menu for a dîner en amoureux entre amis (between friends)
Apéro
+ Organic hand-pressed cider from Haute-Normandie
+ Black olives à la herbes de Provence

Main
+ 'Heart Tart' with beetroot and chèvre (goat's cheese).
To make;
- Prepare the pastry (I used store-bought roll-out puff pastry - pâte feuilletée).
- Cut out a 'dip point' in the top and taper lower sides down to a point.
- Place thinly-sliced pre-boiled potatoes all over the base and very lightly brush with olive oil. Sprinkle gently-crushed rosemary all over. Top with sliced zucchini. Scatter small cubes of already cooked beetroot around the edge to form a heart. Place cherry tomatoes and thin slices of chèvre.
- Place in the centre of a 180°C pre-heated oven for 20 minutes. If the middle where there is no beetroot puffs up just gently pierce with a knife to deflate.
+ Salad drizzled with Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena.

Dessert
+ Côtes de Provence AOC rosé with added fresh raspberries.
+ Single-Serve Chocolate Cheesecake (recipe and step-by-step can be found here).

xx

Birthday Candle Garland

The beginning of this week saw the birthday celebrations of not one but two lovely friends. It was a birthday bonanza of a weekend.
The tradition of putting candles on a birthday cake has been around since Ancient Greece and it was thought that the smoke from the blown-out flame will take the silent wish made before puffing your cheeks to the Gods above.
The idea of sending my friends' wishes to the heathen gods, and wanting to use the red stripy straws I had left over from Christmas, inspired me to make this birthday candle garland.

You'll need

+ 8 x stripy straws - I used red but really you can use any colour
+ 2 x tissue paper, orange and yellow
+ About 2m of twine - I like to use cooking twine; it's strong but very fine so doesn't draw too much attention should you not want it to, and it's coated so it won't leave filaments stuck everywhere.
+ Scissors
+ 5 cm circle punch (optional, you can use scissors)
+ Ruler
+ Pencil
+ Sharpie, or other type of  marker
+ Adhesive tape - I used red washi tape, but thin cellulose tape will work, too.
+ Glue gun and extra glue sticks
+ Letter template, downloadable here, printed on 190 gsm card stock.

Prepare your letters
1. Cut up the gold grid on the template into long strips, one square across by four down. At the end you should have four strips.
2. At the top and bottom of each strip should be a tiny gold-coloured mark. Using the Sharpie or marker make an inky dot over the gold mark, enough so that it bleeds a little onto the back of the card and you can see it when you turn the card over (b).
4. Using a pencil and ruler mark a light, thin straight line from the inky dot at the top to the inky dot at the bottom on the reverse of all four cards.
5. Then, either using the circle punch or the scissors, cut out the circles following the grey line.

Make the candles
6. Using the two oval shapes on the template as a rough guide cut 16 flames of each the yellow and orange colour. Snip the tops into points and the bottom third off to make a flat base. Layer the yellow flame on top of the orange, sitting a little lower to create the middle of the flame. Twist the ends together and lightly pull each piece of tissue paper up to put a wave in the combined flame. Flatten out the new base of the flame, just above the twist.
7. Using the ruler, measure the half way mark of the straws and cut in two. If the end where you cut forms an oval shape gently push your pencil in the hole and lightly twist to recreate its round shape.
8. Using the glue gun squeeze glue into the opening of each half, twisting piece of straw to coat the whole top. Push the twisted end of the paper flame into the middle of the glue and jerk in and out to "catch" the glue as it cools. When the flame can be supported on its own in the middle of the straw lay the straw aside to dry completely. Repeat with all your flames and straws.

Make the garland
9. Working very quickly, squeeze a thick strip of glue along the pencil line on the reverse of the circle letters and push your candle into the pool of glue, leaving about 1 cm of straw exposed at the bottom. Start and finish the glue strip about 5mm away from the top and bottom of the circle - you don't want to be gluing your letter onto the table!
Keeping the circle right-side down, push to the side to completely dry. Repeat with all your candles and circles.
10. When completely dry, arrange your letters so they spell "!YADHTRIB YPPAY" - HAPPY BIRTHDAY! in reverse. There are two blank circles. The first is the space between HAPPY and BIRTHDAY and the second is to place before the exclamation mark should you wish to put your friend's name there. I've used the first, but not the second, in my demo pictures. Turn all the letters over, right-side down, so the circles are close together but not touching.
11. Take the twine and fold in half to measure where the middle is. Place the middle point on the top of the "I" candle, or between the "I" and "R" if using all the circles and lay the twine flat with each end over the first and last candle. Snip or tear your adhesive tape into eight 1.5cm strips and then snip again lengthways to make 16 skinny strips.
Making sure you keep the twine horizontal and the letters close together tape the twine to the candles.

Hang your garland flat against a wall or window, or across your party dessert table - keeping it away from the real birthday candles!

Don't forget to make a wish! Happy Birthday girls!