The Scottish Wedding Show

Know who is going to be there

Always take the time to research who will be at the fayre and look at their websites to see what they offer. Then prioritise who you NEED to see and who you want to avoid! With those you want to see have a list of questions you’d like to ask, for example prices, when you need to order and how long it will take to be produced.

Think about what you might like before you get there… but be prepared to change your mind!

Go through EVERY element of your wedding and think about what you might like to have. Think about your dress, your colour scheme, your wedding hair accessories if you are having a theme and any entertainment. It makes talking with the suppliers much easier if you know what you are looking for or what the rest of your wedding will be like.

Dress Sensibly… and light

Think flat shoes and light clothing! You will be crammed into a room with LOADS of other people and there will be lots of walking and standing around involved so really plan your outfit before you leave. You will also be handed lots of leaflets, magazines and freebies so maybe not take your Mary Poppins handbag as you will have lots to carry!

Go down every aisle

There will be a lot of people to go and see but make sure you at least walk past their stand. You may not want to speak to them, but you will not know until you go past their stand to see. make sure you look through all the suppliers and see all you want before you leave.

Have your contact details and wedding date written out

project-wedding-logo

You be asked all day about your e-mail address, mobile number and address so if you can have them written down for someone to copy down or have sticky post-its prepared it will make it much easier and quicker to pass on your details.

It is also a good idea to set-up a wedding related e-mail address or website so you can get all the offers in one mail box but not bombard your personal account.

Bring your credit card

This is especially important if your wedding is soon. You can get some great deals if you book on the day so definitely worth taking your card with you in case you see something you really like.

Go to a fayre which is local to your venue

Look at sites such as Wedding To Plan, Scottish Wedding Directory and For Better For Worse to find your local suppliers. Go to the bigger fayres for the fun and excitement of it as well as to get some general ideas and advice, but you can often get a better deal from local suppliers as delivery etc will not be as high. Also, local suppliers are likely to know your venue so you can speak to your venue about them to hear if they were good or not.

Well that is my advice to all you lovely B2B’s (bride to be) out there and I hope it will be of use to you! I wish I knew this before I went to my wedding fayre! Happy shopping!

Have you been to a wedding fayre recently? What is your advice for future B2B’s? Let us know…

source flickr

What exactly is wrong with being a pushy parent, shouldn’t good parents push their children to fulfil their potential? Should they not help them to avoid the pitfalls that they may have had the misfortune of tumbling into?  Should parents not fight tooth and nail to give their children every opportunity going?

Well the consensus from professionals seems to say, there is nothing inherently wrong with being a pushy parent in respect of opening up opportunities for your children, but just like the old adage – you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink – giving your child the opportunities doesn’t mean they will necessarily grasp them and there isn’t really anything you can, or should, do about that.

At the end of the day all we can really do for our children is give them all the opportunities we can afford, love them, encourage them and let them fail occasionally, but tossing all that common sense to the wind, if your thinking about raising your child to be a champion, what can you do to help them along?

Here our top 5 tips and some extra resources to boot.

• Take the TV out of their room – The American Academy of Pediatrics recently issued a warning urging parents not to let infants and toddlers watch TV. Giving tiny viewers no known benefits, TV impairs cognitive skills and wastes crucial brain-development time that should be spent conversing with real people, says infant-language expert Roberta Golinkoff.
• Shell out for Music Lessons – Children who play the piano or a stringed instrument score 15 percent higher on verbal skills than children who don’t play an instrument.
• Buy a lot of books – A child who is raised in a home containing at least 500 books is 36 percent more likely to graduate from high school and 19 percent more likely to graduate from college than an otherwise similar child raised in a home containing few or no books.
• Throw out the games console – Students who spend more than two hours a day playing computer and video games score 9.4 percent lower on school exams than students who play no such games.
• Keep them healthy – Overweight children score 11 percent lower on national reading tests than regular-weight children.

On the note of keeping them healthy you could always book yourself some flights to Dubai and take them to the Arsenal Football School, travelling broadens the mind and having good role models helps your child to achieve.

Looking to make money off your offspring here’s our guide to what special skill to hone in your child that will give you the best return on your investments:

Are you raising a genius what are your tips?

Image by: hoill

As we all recover from having too many pancakes and move into Ash Wednesday we can be thankful that we aren’t feeling as rough as the people that got involved in Fat Tuesday. Mardi Gras, French for Fat Tuesday, is a celebration referring to the practice of the last night of eating richer, fatty foods before the ritual fasting of the Lenten season, which begins on Ash Wednesday. There is more going down on this Tuesday than just pancakes so here is our whistle stop look at Fat Tuesday Celebrations around the world and the foods that go with them.

New Orleans

This could be considered the home of Mardi Gras. It has everything that is necessary for an amazing night, there is the music for which it is famous and the food! If this is a celebration of rich and fatty foods then you can not beat the southern cooking. Fried oysters, prawns, gumbo and po boy style sandwiches to name a few favourites. The party goes long into the night with parades, costumes and general craziness down bourbon street.

In case you don’t know what a po boy is:

And here is a video looking at the goings on from New Orleans Fat Tuesday:

Rio De Janeiro

Mardi Gras, also know as Carnival, is Brazil’s most famous holiday. This is an all out samba fest with people dancing in the streets in some of the most extraordinary costumes that have ever been seen. The floats are outrageously colourful and everyone is there to have a good time. Although Brazil has some amazing food this celebration is more focussed on the music and the samba rhythm.

If you were in Brazil pancakes would be the last thing on your mind:

Italy

Carnevale, as it was known, was a predecessor to Mardi Gras before the French borrowed the idea. The Carnevale includes floats and parades with large fireworks display to celebrate. There is a real focus on sweets or dolci which are distinctively associated with Carnevale, including fritelle, crespelle, sfingi, frappe, castagnole, cenci, nodi, chiacchere, bugie, galani, frittole, berlingaccio, sanguinaccio and tortelli, just to mention a few.

Here are some Italian celebrations:

It appears that the prospect of Lent encourages people to push that little bit harder before giving something up. There is definitely something to be said for Fat Tuesday celebrations around the world. As much as I love pancakes I think I would rather be in New Orleans to celebrate.

Where would you like to have celebrated Mardi Gras? What will you be giving up for Lent? Let us know in the comments.

Image by: Byran Sereny

The plan’s checklist

With London Fashion Week 2012 as inspiration, these are the areas you’ll have to cover to achieve pulling off your ‘do good’ fashion show:

• The charity: pick a few you’d like (preferably in the community as they’re easier to approach than large scale, international ones) and approach them with a pitch (based on the areas mentioned below) and the offer of raising awareness for them as well as raising some money through ticket sales for their funds.
• The time: plan your fashion show to happen towards the end of a season so that you can attract crowds with the promise of ideas for clothes that they may buy for the upcoming season. For example you could have a winter wear fashion show towards the end of summer.
• Clothes: approach local boutiques as they are likely to want to dress the models to exhibit their ranges for the upcoming season
• Theme:something to keep everything tied together. It could rain from a season like Burberry did with it’s thunderstorm or you could pick a theme like ‘Tea in the park’ with
  

  Image by: Brendan Lallyplastic cupcakes in all the nooks and crannies of the catwalk and models carrying tea cups as they model the clothes you selected.

• Venue: try and use a venue associated with your charity so that they gain awareness otherwise approach local halls to see if they would like to help by offering you a free space as part of their own charity goals.
• Lighting and music: make sure that you seek council from someone with experience on where to source a good DJ (with a good heart) and check electricity prices so you know how much you’ll need to earn from tickets to cover the cost price of running a show like this!
• Tickets: once you’ve ticked off the above, go to your local printing office to see if they would be willing to give you a special on ticket print outs. Design a simple ticket to save on money. Sell them around town and offer stacks to local vendors to sell for you. Blog and promote your show on line before the event as well to encourage on line conversation on your event.
• Advertise: design posters, tell people in the l0cal malls and get all your participants to spread the word.
• Models: approach members of the general public as they won’t expect pay and will encourage friends and family to come and see them take part. Connect a few with each of your boutique suppliers so that they can be sized and clothes can be chosen for them.
• Local celebrities: invite anyone from the mayor to that person that once appeared on a talent television show to increase the buzz around your show.

Image by: bbaunach

Trend setter example

As a case study we’ve chosen Burberry. The video belows showcases Burberry’s Fashion Week contribution to trends and designs for Autumn and Winter for Womens wear Highlights 2012. You can see what the impact the design and interactivity provided my multi and social media of the show and the finale at the end is something to keep in mind!

How to go interactive

With your fashion show ready it’s time to apply a multimedia-social media layer over the top just like Burberry did in the above video. Heres a few ideas:

Image by: manu contreras

• Audience: in the ticket and poster process make sureyou encourage all of them to keep their phones on silent but all Tweeting and Facebook updates during the fashion show are welcome! Set up a hashtag on Twitter and a Facebook page for people to post updates and comments on.
• Bloggers and press: invite bloggers and journalists to your show and encourage them to live blog on their phones or tablet computers to give you on line exposure.
• Tablet team: gather all your friends with tablets and ask them to attend your fashion show. Afterwards they can go to the audience with their tablets to get them to rate the show using ‘twit polls’ or a rating system you can easily set up on your Facebook page or blog.
• TV: you can get your friends with TV’s that connect to PC’s to bring them in for the day so that you can sync up them from your computer to connect to a digital sideshow advertising the clothing brands or profiling your models.

With this fashion show being no easy feat it will definitely be the talk of the town if you do it right! Give yourself time to plan, a few months at the least and who knows what will happen as a consequence after your show given the contacts you make. This could become a serious career! Good luck and let us know if this has inspired you to do good and plan an event for charity!

We’re very excited about Pancake Day here at Calm Your Beans, why wouldn’t we be when we get to stuff our faces with yummy pancakes all day long?! But as Andrew Scott pointed out yesterday in his post ‘What is Shrove Tuesday All About?’ there is more to celebrating Pancake Day than just munching on syrup covered fluffy buttery pancakes…YUM. We loved the idea of a pancake race so much we thought it would be fun to think of other ways to celebrate Pancake Day too! Here are a few of our suggestions to really get into the spirit of Pancake Day:

Share Your Toppings?:

Yes…half the fun of Pancake Day is eating Pancakes but there is also fun to be had in deciding what to put on them! There are so many options for Pancake toppings from the traditional lemon and sugar to the more adventurous bacon and maple syrup. You can even combine toppings to create new unusual pancake offerings or create pancake art out of your toppings. There is so much fun to be had, once you’re finished your masterpiece why not share your topping creation! Send sms picture messages to your family and friends and see what interesting creations they send back!

Need some ideas for your pancake toppings? We asked around the office and here is what our fellow calm your beansers will be having today!

Flipping Pancakes:

We all know that it is both incredibly hard and absolutely hilarious trying to flip pancakes without ending up with a pile of pancake mush in a frying pan or the equally unplanned pancake on your head! But imagine how much funny it would be when a little friendly competition is added to the mix? Why not get your friends together for a flip off? You could even try it over webcam chat, which can only lead to some hilarious pancake on head videos to embarrass your friends with on YouTube!

Stack ‘Em Up!:

Why have one pancake when you can have two…or three…or four? That’s right…the best thing about pancakes is that their flatness makes them easily stackable! But how easy? Why not see just how many pancakes you can stack on one plate? Make it more interesting by challenging your friends to create the highest pancake stack, or a tower of pancakes if you think you can stack them that high.  But be warned, if your stack falls down not only will you lose the competition you will also lose a pile of super tasty pancakes! Unless of course you are happy to apply the 5 second rule to a stack of pancakes?!

Eat the lot!:

If you’ve been reading this post thinking, this “fun” stuff is all well and good but why can’t I just eat some pancakes? Then you my friend have discovered the true meaning of Pancake Day and this next suggestion will be right up your street! The best thing about Pancake Day is eating pancakes AND being able to eat as many as you like because Jesus says you have to! But how many do you think you can eat…a lot…really?  I hear another competition coming on….PANCAKE EATING CONTEST!

Of course if you just want to get on with some pancake eating that’s fine too! We’ve found this great video by Chef David Creamer of Marriott Hotels, if you need a helping hand making a perfect pancake:

If like us you just can’t make a decent pancake you could always try out the real thing at one of their London Hotels.

How do you like to celebrate pancake day? Let us know below!

Shrove Tuesday is the day before the start of Lent, the first day of Lent being Ash Wednesday. Lent is a Christian Festival that was traditionally a time of strict fasting, when people gave up all rich foods, between Ash Wednesday and Easter – that’s a whopping 47 days without chocolate or anything nice!

So what is the Shrove all about?

The word Shrove is derived from “shrive”. To “shrive” is to confess and receive absolution. This shriving releases you from your sins. Shrove Tuesday is therefore a day to clean the soul and celebrate before Lent starts.

And the pancakes?

Well if you are about to give up all rich foods for 47 days, what better way to get rid of all that fatty sugary goodness left in you cupboards than to make great pancakes!

So what is Shrove Tuesday? It is a day to clean out your soul and the kitchen cupboards of sin before the start of lent.

These days Lent is only practiced by the more serious Christian adherents, but Shrove Tuesday and its pancake eating customs have remained highly popular – I can’t imagine why – and to many people Shrove Tuesday is simply called pancake day – poor Jesus side-lined by a sweet or savoury snack!

All sorts of carnivals and parties are held across Britain, but if you really want to make Pancake Day special this year, you couldn’t do better than to get 4 of your friends together and booked into some London hotels to head along to the Great Spitalfields Pancake Race!

Fancy dress is encouraged and you’ll all need to take your own frying pan, but the pancakes will be provided. The race will be run along Dray Walk at The Old Truman Brewery on Brick Lane and all you have to do is toss the pancake a couple of times en route –shouldn’t be too hard, or will it?

The heats start at 12:30pm followed by the finals and then the prize giving.

The winning team will receive a beautifully engraved frying pan! There are prizes for the best dressed, the runners up and the most well behaved team too.

The event is free and is being organised by Alternative Arts in aid of the London Air Ambulance, so there really is no excuse.

Are you doing something exciting for Pancake Day? Let us know in the comments below

Decide how much you want to spend on your garden

Start with a budget and stick to it, decide on the basic elements you want for your garden and look for the best deals before you actually purchase something. Some DIY stores usually have great offers on furniture during winter months, consider this and decide what’s the best time of the year to buy the things you need for your garden.

Source: bhg.com via Jack on Pinterest

Create a garden map

Study the available space in your garden and decide how you’re going to arrange the items that you’re planning on buying. Draw the lawn, flowers, vegetables or decorations that you’d like to have in your garden.

After studying your lawn areas, you might find that some of them are quite difficult to maintain. A nice solution is using fake lawn, check artificial grass prices online and consider if this might be a cheaper option compared to planting new lawn.

Decide which flowers you want to plant

Make a list of the new flowers that you’d like to have in your garden, we’ve created a pinterest board with the best options for spring, go ahead and take a look for some inspiration!

You can use your own seeds, keep them from the flowers and vegetables that you grew in your garden during the previous season. Pick the seeds and allow them to dry after placing them in labelled bags. When spring starts, plant these seeds in seedling trays and keep them in a warm indoors environment until they’re ready to be transplanted to the garden.

Ask for cuttings from someone in your neighbourhood, people love to share the plants they’re proud of! This is a cheap way to have new flowers in your garden, keep the cuttings in water and make sure you check the water until they can be put into soil.

Wait until frost season is over

Make sure you start working on your garden when really cold temperatures are over. Don’t plant anything until then or you might be surprised by frost and will have to buy new flowers again.

When the temperature is slightly warmer take the seedling trays outdoors to help in the transition from an indoor environment to an outdoor one.

Create your own garden decorations

Restore those old chairs in your garden and leave them ready for the new season. You can create fantastic garden decoration with little money, take a look at this DIY bird feeder from a recycled bottle!

DIY bird feeder via Shelterness

Do you have your own tips for preparing a garden? Want to share your DIY decoration ideas? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below!

A Feng Shui hazard (Image Via apaixonada......)

The sofa is not only important for making yourself comfortable in the living room, it has a major impact on the flow of chi. It’s also where people meet and gather. The living room is said to affect the relationships of family and social lives. There are many don’ts and it may seem there is nowhere to place it, but persevere as there are alternatives whilst maintaining Feng Shui.

Placing it directly in front of a door will mean chi will be aimed at you when energy enters the room. This can make you feel uneasy. A sofa with its back to the door or window is also to be avoided. Chi leaves the room through the door and window; therefore you would be in the flow. By placing it against a wall it symbolises security and protection.

Avoid placing the sofa directly under beams or lights. Lights can produce negative energy and reduce your luck. Overall, it’s best to aim for a view of the whole room such as the corner furthest from the door. If the sofa is not in the way, it allows chi to flow freely and therefore harmony can insue.

The colour and pattern can also have an impact. Dark or loud patterns can create a nervous energy. Try to stick with light and plain designs. Sofas with sharp edges are said to create arrows which make angles. These angles are treacherous as arrows represent poison. Sofas with curves are deemed best.

What’s your favourite sofa position? Tell us in the comments section below.

Image by Lululemon Athletica

After last year’s ‘no carbs’ fiasco in which I almost lost my boyfriend and all of my friends to a hunger induced, uncontrollable fury, I decided that eliminating the foods I love just wasn’t going to cut it for me. A few months later however, my gym buddy moved away to go on work placement. This meant no one to chat to whilst on the treadmill, or come round at 8.30a.m, prise you from your bed and guilt trip you into your gym gear. Er… Houston we have a problem.

Most gyms offer an online booking facility for classes, and it’s a good idea to book in one or two per week to break up the monotony of your day- to- day workout. (Don’t try this after a few glasses of wine…your motivation is somewhat jaded at this time). You can also view how many other gym members are attending in case you are nervous about being in a small class.

I’ve always fancied circuits so I signed up for an hour long session the following day. When I arrived my lost looking demeanour attracted a trainer who informed me that he was taking the class. For those of you who don’t know, circuit training is a type of endurance training, designed to help you sustain a more cardio vascular demanding workout for a longer period of time. The idea is you take a group of exercises usually tailored for your A. problem areas (bum, thighs etc) and B. ability level. You work your way round the circuit spending a short burst of time on each exercise and on to another in rapid succession.

One of it’s key benefits is that it’s structured to provide a whole body workout and you don’t feel intimidated because you are working in a group (usually). In fact many sports teams use circuits in resistance training because it can be tailored to work various areas of the body applicable to any particular sport.  Most importantly, you really work up a sweat, which may not be to everyone’s liking, but I don’t really feel like I have worked out unless I return from the gym panting, sweating and unable to climb the two flights of stairs to my apartment.

Several of bench dips, press ups, shuttle runs, tricep curls and then some toning exercises, a series of sit ups, side planks rounded off with squats on the balance trainer. This actually became my favourite exercise in the circuit, until I fell, face first onto the suspiciously pleased looking trainer.

The next few days were painful, with aching glutes and calf muscles but it does ease off and  if you keep it up, it really does get easier. To my surprise I went back the following week and was delighted to find I had a few acquaintances this time round, which made the experience much less of a challenge. I recommend circuit training 100% to anyone who loves to work up a real sweat at the gym and if circuits aren’t for you- there are many, many others to help keep you motivated and engaged.

Have you ever tried circuit training? Tell us about it in the comments section below.

Cramond Island 

Photo by Jen Schofield via Instagram

Cramond is a seaside village 20 minutes away from Edinburgh’s city centre. Along the coast of the village is Cramond Island which is close enough to walk onto when the tide is low. The island is one of several that lie on the Firth of Forth. The island is attached to Cramond Beach and makes for an interesting walk.

There is evidence of historical significance on the island with fortifications that might suggest settlements during World War II. The island provides an interesting range of terrain for the pups and includes grass, beach, stone and designated paved walkways. Walking along Cramond beach and around the island will take you about 2 hours.

Arthur’s Seat 

Photo by Amanda Butler via Pinterest

Arthur’s Seat forms most of Hollyrood Park and lies within the city centre of Edinburgh close to the Scottish Parliament. There are a couple of options for walking around Arthur’s Seat and you can choose depending on how hard you want to push yourself and your dog.

Walking upwards to the peak of Arthur’s Seat is very steep and straight, this would be the most strenuous option. You can also walk through the valley of Arthur’s Seat which is quite level and has long grass, small hills and plenty of areas for the dog to run further and sniff. The last option is the Craggs, which is a relatively steep pathway halfway up Arthur’s seat and down.

Personally my dog enjoys the valley walk the most and it seems to be the most popular amongst other dog walkers (as we see so many on the walk every time we go).

North Berwick

Photo by Tim Grey via Pinterest

North Berwick is probably my favourite place to walk my dog. You can spend an entire day here and the humans will have as much fun as the dogs. This is the furthest away from Edinburgh’s city centre, a 45 minute drive or a 30 minute journey on the train but I assure you it’s worth it. North Berwick is the perfect location for a mid-summer walk because it’s ALL beach.

In fact, last Sunday we spend 4 hours walking along this huge stretch of beach. It is clean, interesting and is always full of other happy dogs and owners. Grab yourself some famous North Berwick fish & chips and an ice cream and enjoy the sea breeze. There are plenty of dog friendly pubs in North Berwick as well if you fancy a refreshment in a cosy pub. Then you can hop back on the train which are every 30 minutes back to Edinburgh and watch the dog snooze for the rest of the week!

The best kind of dog walk is when everyone feels like they’ve got something out of it, North Berwick is perfect because you have to make the effort to get on a train which means you really feel like you’re out of the city and you enjoy your walk more because of it. Why go out for only an hour? Take a packed lunch and a book and make a day of it! Healthy owner + healthy dog = happy family.

What are your favourite places to walk a dog? Tell us in the comments section below.