Buns & Roses WI

October Workshop - Rhinestone Cowboy - Jewellry Making

Saturday, 4 October 2014 § 0

At Buns & Roses we love it when our members offer to get involved in our meetings and workshops (and anything else - please let us know if you would like to help out - it makes us very happy!) and so Rhinestone Cowboy our jewellery making workshop gave us the perfect opportunity for Bev and Donna from A Dog Called Dill to share their beading skills.

This was a great workshop as everyone went away with a necklace, at least one bracelet (most people had 2) and at least one pair of earrings - not bad for £13 - 15 and a fun and relaxing couple of hours beading and chatting!

Bev and Donna took one table each after we'd selected from 10 different colours of glass beads and laid them all out on our beading boards - which helpfully show how long the necklace or bracelet that you are making needs to be with inch and cm markers.

Bev introduced us to Tiger Tail (the first of many amazingly named beading ingredients!) which you have to be careful not to kink accidentally as you can't get it out again! We carefully threaded our beads onto the Tiger Tail after we had made a kink in it, threaded on a Lobster Clasp and fastened it by squashing a fixing bead with pliers. Once we had finished threading all the beads we then fixed a Jump ring (see I told you they were cool names!) and the necklace was complete!

We then moved onto the bracelets which used heart shaped glass beads. It was a similar process to the necklaces, although you could either use Tiger Tail and fix on a jump ring and T-Bar fastening or use elastic. If we were using the elastic Bev and Donna passed on a useful tip - when you knot the elastic, use a blob of nail hardener/varnish to make the knot more strong and durable.

Finally we tackled earrings which were again using heart shaped beads. A simple process - we just used pins and pliers to fasten the bead to earring fixings and twisted a hook to make the hoop to connect the two together.

All in all a great evening of crafting with some lovely results - thanks Bev and Donna for such an informative and relaxing evening.

August Meeting - It's the Finance Countdown

Thursday, 18 September 2014 § 0

Finance is one of those topics that isn't always the most exciting to think about, but we were fortunate enough to be joined by Yvonne Goodwin who cut through the complicated jargon and answered some burning questions from our Roses in an engaging and interesting way.

Yvonne has a wealth of experience starting out with a life and pensions broker and studying her professional exams with the CII and in 2007 set up her own business in 2007 - Yvonne Goodwin Wealth Management Ltd and now employees 3 staff and looks after. 73 client families.

Yvonne is a regular speaker on BBC Leeds and has also featured on BBC Breakfast News and Sky News and in 2003 won IFA Woman of the Year and in 2004 won an award from the financial times for individual pension advisor of the year.

Questions included "What does APR mean?" "What factors affect your credit rating?" "What can you do to reduce your weekly costs?"

Key tips included - getting a water meter to reduce costs, make sure you're on the electoral role for your credit rating and for ethical banking investigate companies like Ecology Building Society.

Yvonne pointed out some useful websites for further information including Martin Lewis Money Saving expert, Step Change for debt advice and also the CItizens Advice Bureau.

We could have picked Yvonne's brain for hours and are extremely grateful for all her sound advice and suggestions.

Beamish social trip

Wednesday, 20 August 2014 § 0

What fun we had at Beamish despite a little moisture in the air.

Zooming through the ages by foot, rail, engine or hoof was enjoyed by all, we sampled all the delights from Fish and chips fried in beef dripping to freshly made sweets still warm, yum.

It was not all about the food of course, the wonderful hands on experience of the day meant people could touch, smell, and hear the history around you coming to life including the carousel for those of us brave enough to give it a try.

There was so much to see and do it was imposable to fit it all in, but it was great fun trying.

July Workshop - Unbreak my Art

Thursday, 31 July 2014 § 0

Our July workshop named ‘Unbreak my Art’ was an intimate affair thanks to the opening event of the tour de France. However, a fantastic time was had by all. It offered an opportunity to learn how to recycle and upcycle old t-shirts into rockin new one.

Jen Cantrell, Helen Doyle and our lovely model for the evening Alix Parish, worked through some great ideas with a range of expertly made examples to inspire the group to redesign their own items.

Everybody grabbed there scissors and with the instruction of cut ‘an inch’ set to work. Some more precise than others, but with amazing results all around. So everybody left with a range of new t-shirts, dog toys and bags ready for a summer of fun.

June Meeting - Herstory

Thursday, 10 July 2014 § 0

For our June meeting we had the chance to look back at the history of the WI as well as taking a trip down memory lane to look back at the history of our very own Buns & Roses.

Lucy gave the group an informative talk on how and when the WI was formed (It was founded in 1897 in Ontario Canada fact fans but in the UK it was founded in 1915 at Llanfair PG, on Anglesey, North Wales).

We also looked back at the history of Denman College and how it was formed as well as the West Yorkshire federation which was founded back in 1983 – with the first meeting of the new federation being held at a coffee shop in Pudsey as the new offices weren’t ready. After that we moved forward to five years ago when our very own Buns & Roses was formed upstairs at Mojos by Zoe, Gloria, Georgiana and Hayley.

The Founding Committee

More committee shots

The current committee

Buns & Rose's three presidents

And now for a walk down memory lane:

And right back to now with a few pics from the meeting:

June Workshop - Cakey Breaky Heart

Sunday, 29 June 2014 § 0

For June’s workshop the Roses got the chance to test out their cake decorating skills thanks to the lovely pin up pantry and Cakey Breaky Heart (got to have a good song pun) was a huge success.

The Roses got the chance to decorate their own cupcakes under the careful guidance of Becky from the Pin-up Pantry. The Roses started by making a rainbow cloud cupcake as well as learning to pipe roses (our very own Buns and Roses!) before being let loose to freestyle their own designs.

Overall it was a really fun and informative workshop with the added addition of chocolate, sweets, buttercream and of course cake and we clearly have some very talented Roses as the finished cakes were amazing.

May Meeting - Honey to the (Bumble) Bee

Sunday, 1 June 2014 § 0

Last meeting we had the lovely Alex Brown Minster FM Presenter and Beekeeper come and talk to us about bees. He took up beekeeping 5 years ago and he told us all about the life cycle of the honeybee, what life is like for the queen bee, the drones and the workers, what inside a hive looks like and most importantly what we can do to help nurture and support the honeybee population.

Along the way we learnt that when the queen bee mates she gets enough sperm to last her for six years, that bees have little pockets on their knees that can store pollen (the origin of the phrase bees knees) and that one in three of the mouthfuls we eat is thanks to the bees pollinating the crops. Plus if you see a swarm of bees and can capture them they become yours and this is the origin of the phrase 'freebies' as bees are literally free to anyone who can catch them.

The average year for a bee goes like this:
In winter they huddle together in the hive for warmth, around February time when the crocuses come out they emerge from the hive and start foraging,and the colony begins to grow, from May to July they swarm a lot, in August they start building up their winter stores of food and by the autumn wintertime they're back in the hive to keep warm.

He explained that the biggest threats to bee populations at the moment are the damaging effects of the varroa mite, the decline in bees natural habitat and the use of pesticides.

But there are things we can do to help support the bee population:
1 Plant bee friendly plants

2 Create more natural habitats
3 Be more lazy when it comes to gardening as bees love a more natural as opposed to overclipped garden

4 Avoid using pesticides

5 Use jam and not honey in wasp traps

6 Calling the Beekepers Association (details can be found on their website: www.leedsbeekeepers.org.uk if we see a swarm.

He also told us that if we have some honey and it has crystallised then you can get it to unsolidify if you heat it up very gently in some warm water and that beekeeping is a rewarding and satisfying hobby - even if on occasion you can get stung. It was a fascinating insight into the life of the honeybee and if you weren't there you missed a treat.