Craft time - Let's make paper flowers

Hello there,

Welcome back to Bake, Natter & Roll - the Farnham WI blog!

One of our crafts at our first WI meeting in January was paper flowers. These are easy to make, but look great and can be used to decorate all kinds of things.

Cat made them to decorate presents last Christmas

You will need:
Brown paper
Stamps, ink & glitter paint (or other decorating materials)
Card for petal templates
PVA glue
White paper

To make the flowers:
1. First you need to decorate the brown paper. Get creative for this part - Cat used stamps, glitter paint and tipex for her flowers.
2. Cut out a template for your petal shapes - 1 smaller and 1 larger. Try different shapes and sizes to create different flowers.
3. Use the template to cut out the petal shapes - you will need approximately 5 or 6 of each size for every flower.
4. Next cut out a small rectangle of white paper to make the stamens.
5. Cut the top third of the paper into narrow strips and then roll it up tightly before sticking the end down using a small amount of PVA glue. Fan out the cut end and voila - you have a stamen.

6. Now crumple each of the petals to give the flower a more natural look when finished - don't be afraid to give them a really good crumple as it gives the petals a great texture.
7. Starting with the smaller petals, use the glue to attach them one at a time to the rolled end of the stamen, overlapping them slightly.

8. Once you have added the small petals repeat for the larger petals, overlapping the smaller petals.

9. When complete, fan the petals out to open up the flower

As you can see these flowers are really pretty and can be used to adorn many different things.....

They can also be as unique as you, as the decoration on the petals is designed by you.

So what are you waiting for - why not give it a go....and don't forget to pop by our Facebook page and show us your make!

The original idea for this project is from A Piece of Rainbow blog.

Thank you for popping by today,

the Bake, Natter & Roll Committee

Our First Meeting - January 2016

Hello and welcome back to Bake, Natter and Roll - the Farnham WI blog!

On Thursday 21st January we officially became a WI group, with 69 ladies signing up to be members on the night. If you've popped by our blog previously you will know a little about our history and why we started this group, so today we're going to tell you a little bit about that first meeting.

As you might have guessed from our name we love a spot of cake and so a cake table will be a regular feature of our monthly meetings.....

Lydia and Laura preparing the cake table

Currently members of the committee have been providing the rather scrummy cakes at each meeting, but in the future we are looking to run a cake rota with our members....any willing volunteers please get in touch!

The scrummy cakes - which was your favourite?

As with anything new there is always a little nervousness that people might not turn up on the night, we might have prepared all that cake and have no one to eat it! 

But we shouldn't have worried - word had spread on social media and we had a queue of lovely ladies waiting to join us when we opened the doors at 8:15pm....

Our membership queue

It was very exciting to see our first official member sign up....

Our first member!

At the first WI meeting there is a certain amount of official bits and pieces that you need to complete in order to form the WI officially. We had our local WI Advisers join us again, and following a general welcome from our President Cat, they shared a little history of the WI with us. 

Did you know that the first Women's Institute was formed in Ontario, Canada? To find out more about the fascinating history of the WI visit their website.

Next came the voting - first an agreement that the WI should form and second that the members were happy with the proposed committee....luckily for us everyone was happy....

You voted yes!

Next came the signing of the constitution, which was done by our president Cat and our Secretary Laura....

Laura and Cat sign the constitution - making us an official WI

Once all the official bits were finished the fun could commence and we dedicated the rest of the evening to crafting. The original idea was to hold a speed crafting session, with ladies moving between tables to try the crafts. But as we found out....it's quite hard to move over 70 ladies in a small-ish hall!

Let's craft!

Instead we decided to move the crafts around and everyone got to try one or two of the following:

pom pom making ...with forks

fabric flowers

paper flowers

There was plenty of nattering as the crafts got underway.....

Pom pom making!

And ladies enjoyed showing their makes...

Finished paper flowers

A paper flower being modelled

Ladies also had the opportunity to sign up to the various interest groups which will start running soon - from gardening to wine tasting from papercraft to pudding club, there really is something for everyone! More information to follow soon.

Everyone who attended the evening also went home with a lovely goodie bag which included our provisional programme (beautifully designed for us by Helix) and also some lovely goodies donated by Neals Yard in Farnham .

Our beautiful programme designed by Helix

All in all it was a very successful first meeting and we can't wait to see everyone again next month. 

Our next meeting is on Thursday 18th February where we will be enjoying an introduction to mindfulness with speaker Suzette Jones....and of course we will be enjoying a spot of cake!

Don't forget to pop by our Facebook page or Twitter to see our latest news!

Thank you for popping by today,

the Bake, Natter & Roll Committee