how i'm spending my evenings...

making these!

I'm spending my evenings threading wool around a plastic doughnut to make as many of these as I can. Any of you seen the accesorize windows recently? Our one has garlands made of tons of these strung around them, with accesories hanging off them. I have to walk past it every day, worse luck! I thought they would look great or christmas, either hanging over the mantlepiece, or around the tree like tinsel, or anywhere really! Anyway,I found out that these garlands are essentially the same as the scarves they are selling in store, just with a cord on the end so that they can be hung, so the price will probably end up being the same(ish) price when they come out of the window. No, I thought I'd make them instead! I'm got 8 so far... only about 20 more to go...

changes

Some of you might remember me posting this a while ago, about my parents selling their house, the only home I've ever known, to move up to Hexham, about 40 minutes away from me. Well, they moved yesterday, and today spend their first night in their new home, with many many boxes, and a rather confused cat. Tomorrow we are getting up early to go and spend the day with them, unpack boxes, and let my dad act like a hyperactive 15 year old (he's 66 for the record). It will be rather a novelty only having to travel for 40 minutes to see them, the journey having taken 5 hours every time until now, and Mum and I are looking forward to the idea that we can pop over and see each other FOR THE DAY if we want to. Go shopping, 0ut for lunch, or just spend time together, but go home to our own beds in the evening. It will be lovely. so heres to new beginnings. cheers. Have a lovely sunday, all you lovely people. xx

wedding list idea #2

Ok, I know the idea for these posts seems somewhat greedy, but that isn't the intention. Plenty of blogs I like write posts about things they've seen on their travels, internet based or otherwise, so I don't think that its so different doing this. Its also just a way for me to show you the things that I like, things that deserve appreciation, and things I think you guys might like too!

Right. anyway, onto the item itself. or in this case, company. Melin Tregwnt. They are a welsh company, using traditional weaving techniques, with modern colour combinations. I've loved them for several years now, I mean, look at those colours!

aubergines

spices

denims

I would happily take home any item from this company, although I'd prefer it to be from their home section rather than the fashion items (yes they do fashion too, coats and slippers and bags and such. look here). In particular though, I would like an aubergine and/or a greeny gold throw, and one of these lampshades!

lampshades

Ok, I'm kidding, I'd like all of those lampshades...

Reasons to love October #3

Several blogs I follow did this post or similar recently (Becky, Fay, Catherine, and Trishiekoh, who living on the other side f the world gets to talk about spring instead!) so I feel like a bit of a fraud, but I thought I'd show you what its like around here just now.
... Tree lined paths carpeted with leaves (this incidentally leads to the in laws)....

...Scarlet japanese maples in the chinese gardens. (I am aware how culturally incorrect that sounds)...

...a tree showing the full spectrum of autumn colours. healthy green leaves on the inside, changing to yellow, through to red on the outside....

...and this golden yellow sycamore outside my windows that looks gorgeous in the sun.

reasons to love october #2

photo: weheartit

I get married! today would be my grandpas birthday, and next year will be my wedding day. I might not have time to post again today, but I couldn't let the date pass without saying something. I've been wishing James 'happy wedding pre-versary' this morning, like the nutter that I am, and hopefully I'll find time to go to the cathedral on my lunch and light a candle for Grandpa. speak soon! x

pretty posies.

I've talked about the ideas I have for the wedding flowers before, here, and my new found love of gypsophilia, here. Today, I went to the florists I want to use to talk to them about my flowers. I know its very early to be going to a florists, but I'm still on a 'get everything done early as I can cos I always leave things to the last minute and then flap, and I'm moving next year' sort of mission at the moment (except when it comes to talking to the lady at my venue cos shes scary). These are not ideas set in stone, but they have been formed in this way in my head for some time now, so I'm fairly certain of them now. I have a month to think about everything that we talked about, and if we're happy we pay our deposit. To be honest, I'm not asking for anything that breaks barriers here, so I'm pretty happy with what she told me. She said that I can pretty much change anything, including my whole colour scheme right up to a month before the wedding! So here's a sort of run down of what we've covered so far.

My bouquet: a combination of the roses above (or the closest colours to those that she can find at her wholesalers), clustered around a few purple ornamental cabbages to make a tight, but not too neat handtie, with a 'collar' of gypsophilia round the edge of the bouquet.

Bridesmaids: the same shape and size as mine, but made purely of the cream roses, clustered around a few cream ornamental cabbages, again with a collar of gypsophilia.

I'm going to take her some lace near the time, and the stems of all our bouquets will be wrapped with it. These were all inspired by this Lusan Mandongus advert:

(whose dresses, by the way, are stunning)

buttonholes/corsages: James asked for sea holly. or rather, we asked for 'those blue thistles', which are apparently called sea holly. I'm such a pleb. he's had them before at a wedding, and he likes them because they don't wilt. he's such a practical man :)

image

The mums, and James sister, we may decide nearer the time, at the moment its probably a cream rose corsage, although she did say that if I wasn't bothered about everyone matching perfectly, then each lady could go and see her nearer the time to pick something that matches their outfit.which is nice.

Venue: our reception doesn't need too much decoration, in fact I'd almost verge on 'it doesn't need any decoration'. She very kindly decided to give me honest advice, based around the fact that her brother had his reception there too, and the tables really aren't that wide that you can afford anything large on them, so she was fine not to put anything down for the venue thankfully.

Church: I've fallen in love with gypsophilia on this wedding journey. I particularly love this tiny tiny gyp, which my florist tells me is probably called million star gyp, in case any of you are interested. It looks like little clouds floating above the table, I love that it pretty much takes no arranging, is cheap as chips, and is a perfect colour for weddings. Our church, as I said in my original gypsophilia post, has large window ledges all along the aisle, and I'm thinking of filling them with vases of this, rather like the second picture below. She was totally fine with this, with me buying masses of gyp through her, and then arranging it after the rehearsal or something on the Friday.

photo: sedona bride via Zoe Lingard

photo: the brides cafe

I think that's it all for the moment, that was rather long wasn't it! seems all my flower posts get rather extended, it must be all the pretty pictures.

Brown paper packages...

...unfortunately not tied up with string. Debenhams aren't *quite* up to that standard I'm afraid. But these landed on the doorstep the other day. We decided after looking at the hire suits in greenwoods that we didn't particularily like the ruches wedding suits generally come with. I'm not against them, before any of you who may be having them throw your hands up in horror, but you should probably understand that we are trying to keep this weeding as informal as we can. One main reason for this, apart from the fact that neither of us is particularly looking forward to feeling lke we are in a goldfish bowl for the day, is that James spends most of his life in a polo shirt and work trousers with 20 pockets and knee pads, as he is an electrician. Suit wearing, doesnt generally come into that job. So anyway, a 'ruche' is a step too far for either of us really. I've been looking at ties whenever I find them in dept stores for a while now, and there are some great ones on Etsy too if you're interested in this, they were just a bit to jokey fun for James, and too pricey for me. We found these in Debenhams, they were at £7, when we bought them they had been reduced to £5.60! So we plumped for them, and they sort of double for a little thank you to the men too, even though they are pink, which James doesn't think they'll thank me for. Oh well, you can't have everything. Now I want to find socks for them all too. Anal, you say? why yes, I am. and proud. but I ain't putting that on a t-shirt!

beautiful vintage wallpaper

wallpaper:100layercake

This just caught my eye, I thought I'd link to it as the uses for the wallpaper are universal although its from a weddings blog. I know there are some lovely crafty people out there that would love to be inspired by these pictures, so go here and have a look!

cake of the wedding variety.

cake: Charlstonmag via Classic Bride

I was catching up on my reader today and I saw this post over at Classic Bride. I've already said how my sister-in-law-to-be (from now on she will be 'SIL2B') offered to make our wedding cake, so I don't want to ask her for anything too complex, especially since IT'S ONLY GOING TO GET EATEN. The SIL2B had already said how she had done a cake before which had icing 'pearls' stacked up the sides of each tier, I don't think this is necessarily too far beyond that idea do you?Of course I'd make the flowers for the topper etc, I just think its so vintage pretty, and yet so classic and stylish. Maybe just a couple of petals here and there in plum to put some colour in it...

As always, opinions welcome!

p.s. as someone pointed out in the comments over at classic bride, the cake in that tutorial isn't homemade or decorated by them (although they don't claim to, CB implied it) but I found this tutorial on how to do the swiss dots too if you're interested.

Reasons why I love october #1

Ok, I'm not one of those people who has a month they love over any other, I enjoy all seasons in different ways so I never had a set idea of what month I'd like to get married in. We had been thinking about either feb/march, or oct/nov for the wedding as the weather in Cumbria, especially Carlisle is fairly unreliable at most times of the year, so a July wedding was just as likely to be wet as a December one. Then one day we were looking at saturdays in October, and the 16th popped up on a saturday, which was my Grandpas birthday and it just seemed right. (I know sometimes I must sound like I'm steamrolling this wedding but I'm honestly not!)

Anyway, I'm happy with the choice, I just thought I'd do a little post anytime I find something I love about the month. (this series may end at two posts, who knows! I'm so dedicated.)

Reason number one:

ornamental cabbages! I love these flowers, they look so delicate but are really so sturdy, they come in plum or white (perfect!) and they just came into season! I picked this one up at the florists the other week and its sitting next to me in the living room at the moment. I was afraid these wouldn't be available until after the wedding so I was so happy to see these turning up! I saw a bouquet a while ago that was just a bunch of these and it was lovely! I'd like to mix these in with roses, probably wit the white ones in the girls bouquets ( I don't know why I say girls, they're all older than me!), and have some of the plum ones in mine. What do you think? hopefully I'm going to speak to the florist soon, so I'll let you know how we get on.

the ceremony, part one.

I haven't spoken about the actual ceremony yet I don't think. I will, in time, when I'm ready to, as its very important to me, obviously. But right now, I don't think anything could say what I think better than Meg did earlier today in her post about wedding vows. So, over to Meg.