Contact the Association to arrange for a demonstration or display at your event.
Wilf Laidler, Border Stick Dressers Association
Contact:
Wilf Laidler
Secretary / Treasurer
Border Stick Dressers Association
18 Crumstone Court
Killingworth
Newcastle Upon Tyne NE12 6SZ
Tel 0191 2682224
Teesdale Alpacas are available to hire for events, shows and galas. These fabulous animals always draw an admiring crowd. Their keeper is with them to answer questions and give information about them too. For more information call 07976 423258 or visit the web site www.teesdale-alpacas.co.uk
Teesdale Alpacas
If you are looking for something different for your special event call Barrie Bellwood and enquire about ferret racing. It’s great fun and can be set up indoors or outside weather permitting. Barrie has over thirty ferrets and is a very experienced ferret handler and breeder. Barrie will bring the ferrets, set up the course for you and do all the handling. You would need to arrange for the tote yourself.
For more details call Barrie on Tel no 01207 237458.
English: Ferret Português: Furão (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Living Tree ( Stilt walker )
We were asked to provide a stilt walker for an RHS event with “Nature” as the theme. The inspiration for the stilt walking tree came from a visit we had made to Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Florida. One of the attractions they have is a lady on stilts wrapped in vines. She is called “Devine” if my memory serves me correctly. We were fascinated by her and she sprang to mind when this particular job came along.
We wanted to make the costume so that Daniella ( our youngest daughter ) would blend in with the background. Hazel and I searched round the material shops and an army surplus store to find cloth with plenty of browns and greens in it. The stilt trousers were made from brown corduroy, the jacket was an ex army camouflage smock and then we attached pieces of hessian and lots of plastic imitation leaves. We thought the end result was quite effective.
The stilt walking tree was a great success and it was very entertaining to watch Daniella at work. She would position herself next to a tree or tall shrubs and stand motionless until someone walked past. She would then slowly start to move. The reaction from the public was brilliant. I wish I could have captured the look of surprise on people’s faces as they suddenly realised the tree was alive.
Themed events are popular and the stilt walking tree is perfect for any event taking place in a park, garden or woodland. Also great for themes such as nature or the environment.
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Image by ronwooduk via Flickr
Here are a few ideas to help make your Halloween party the best ever.
Download the following tracks from iTunes : Monster Mash, Adams Family, Ghostbusters, Bump in the night, Thriller, Time Warp.
You can also get sound effects such as spooky laughter, goblin, footsteps, screams, wolves howling, thunder claps. Play these between tracks or at appropriate moments during the party.
Buy Halloween decorations from the shops to put round the room. add to this by making your own too. It’s easy to cut out the shapes of black cats, spiders and ghosts from card. Find someone who is a little bit artistic to draw the outlines for you. Cut them out and stick them to the walls or hang them from the ceiling. Try and find some luminous paint and make up some spooky eyes and monster faces. Paint them and put them on doors and walls so that they will glow in the dark.
Balloons always add to the party atmosphere. Use mainly black with some red ones amongst them. Orange is also a Halloween colour or white for ghosts. Use a black felt tip pen to draw eyes, mouths, scars etc on the balloons for added effect.
Ask your friends if they have any black material to drape over furniture or put over things which you want to hide ie notice boards in a community centre or church hall. Use old pillow cases or white sheets to make the outlines of ghosts.
Make spiders out of pipe cleaners and hang these from the ceiling so that people walk into them in the dark.
Have appropriate room lighting. Use coloured light bulbs instead of white ones to give an eery lighting effect.
Here are a few to try:
Each team has a roll of toilet paper. They have to wrap one person in it to look like a mummy. The first team to make a mummy is the winner or allow a set time and give a prize for the best mummy.
Like an egg and spoon race but instead of an egg you give each team a ping pong ball with an eye drawn on it.
Set up a mini treasure hunt but instead of looking for treasure they have to find the ghost. Make a small cut out ghost from white card and hide it. Have spooky clues and signs set up for the searchers to follow. Make it more exciting by including a few dead ends ( pun ).
Suspend and apple from the ceiling for each player. The apples should be above head height but within mouth reach. The winner is the first one to munch their apple without using their hands.
Players sit in a circle. One person begins telling a horror story but can only say one sentence. The next person carries the story on. Each person tries to make the story as scary as possible by adding to what has gone before. Keep going until someone says THE END!
A quick search on Google will bring up loads of web sites with amazing recipes for Halloween party food. With a little it of imagination even ordinary food can be adapted to make it ghoulish. Put name cards out or have little signs on cocktail sticks describing what’s in each drink or plate of food ie mouldy sandwiches, blood juice, coffin crisps, devil meat sausages.
Cut shapes out of vegetables and fruit to make eyes and legs to dress up the food so that it looks like a spider or creepy crawly or monster face.
Mix up your own cocktail of juices and call it a “Monster Brew ” drink if you dare!
Don’t forget the Toffee Apples!
Finally, don’t forget to have a prize for the best Halloween costume and why invite people to bring along a turnip or a pumpkin and have a best pumpkin competition.
For best results hire a professional face painter. For simpler faces you can do it yourself but if you want something really good then check out the face painting pictures in our gallery.
Have a great Halloween!
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Hen Party
Hen parties are a great excuse to go out and have a blast with your lady friends before the big day arrives. It’s your last chance to have girlie fun as a single woman. There is so much choice but not everyone wants to take part in adrenaline pumping activities, get absolutely drunk out of their minds or have to break the bank on some massive extravaganza. There are alternatives which can be great fun and low-budget. Here is our suggestion:
It’s often nice to get away from home. Find a hotel or B&B in an area where everyone can get to without too much difficulty or expense.
Decide where you want to go in the evening and book you and your friends into a restaurant so that you can go out for a special meal together in the evening.
Find a suitable village hall, school hall or community centre with a big room and good facilities. Car parking, nice toilets and a decent kitchen would be good.
Either book a local caterer or send one of the group down to the local Supermarket to buy food and refreshments for the afternoon.
The aim is just to have loads of fun, do something together and have a laugh. Book an entertainer or entertainment company who can provide a range of fun activities to run over three to four hours with a break in the middle.
Jolly Good Productions can provide a suitable mix of entertainment including Line Dancing, Circus Skills, Team Games, Balloons and Workshops. Call us for a FREE quotation.
So that’s it. You have a nice afternoon doing lots of fun stuff together then it’s back to your accommodation to shower and change and then off out for a meal in the evening.
Hope you found this useful.
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Image by Krypto via Flickr
Do you want to learn Ballroom Dancing, Sequence Dancing and Latin American?
Come along and have fun, keep fit and make friends at Snape, near Bedale, North Yorkshire.
When : Tuesday evening, 8.30pm – 9.30pm
Cost : £4
Teacher : Hazel Wood NCDTA ( Northern Counties Dance Teachers Association )
For more information call Hazel on Tel 01748 821621
Image via Wikipedia
Right now it seems that everyone is talking about Zumba. I travel a lot and whether I’ve been in London, the Midlands or Scotland I’ve heard people talking about it. Zumba is the latest dance / fitness craze to hit the UK. I am told that it’s a cross between dance and aerobics. As I am neither a dancer nor a fitness fanatic I am not qualified to give an informed analysis of either. It does seem to be mainly ladies who go in for these things. I know there are some men who participate but I think it fair to say that most of those taking part are female.
Zumba classes are so popularat the moment that in some places you can hardly get through the door. The venues are packed to the point of turning people away.
I’ve been trying to decide why something suddenly becomes so popular. There is no doubt that Zumba is a craze. I would be very surprised if all the classes that are running at the moment will still running in twelve months time. So why do people feel compelled to go?
As with all new things there is a big wave of interest at the beginning and then it gradually tails off as the less enthusiastic or less highly motivated people drop out. Lots of people are keen to try things out but then find it’s not for them, their interest wains, they find it difficult to attend regularly due to other commitments or something else comes along that they would rather do instead. Friends dropping out also has an effect because it’s not so much fun going by yourself.
Am I being skeptical when I say it won’t last? I don’t think so. I can recall many other so called crazes which have experienced huge popularity only to fade away once the initial rush to give it a try is over. Aerobics, Step, Line Dancing, Salsa are just a few that come to mind. Yes, they’ve all had their moment in the limelight and yes they are all still going but now they are old hat. They are not exciting any more.
Will I be joining a Zumba class? Probably not but if I do I will certainly be waiting until the numbers die down?
Have you tried Zumba? Did you like it? Will it last? What’s your view? I’d love to know. Leave me a comment below.
I was booked to do my Christmas Puppet Show at a shopping centre in Warrington the other day and whilst there met Adam Hanson an amazing caricaturist. He was set up on the other side of the mall to me and so I was able to walk over for a chat between shows. I really liked Adams work. If you want to be entertained go to his You Tube Channel, it’s called The cartoon loon. He’s made some really entertaining movies of his work.
Crazy caricatures
Adam told me that he is available to hire for corporate events, weddings, studio commissions and parties. So if you fancy trying something different, give him a call on mob 07738 735521 or contact him via his web site www.crazycaricatures.blogspot.com
Children love little furry animals and so do many adults. I was thrilled to be able to visit the Durham and Northumberland Cavy Club at Beamish Museum to see some of their amazing Guinea Pigs. If you need information about looking after your pet then club members are only to willing to give free advice.
Durham and Northumberland Cavy Club
The Cavy Club can be a nice attraction at a show or event. If you are an organiser why not talk to them about putting on a display.
For more information about the Durham and Northumberland Cavy Club contact Duncan McRobbie tel : 01833 628354
The Daily Beast – Bad Hair Day at the Alpaca Farm – April 26, 2013