flower girl project, part two

I've been a busy little bumble bee tonight. I've moved forward with my flower girl project (almost done!) and pick up some possible flower girl sashes for a measly $3 each (they may end up being used for other things if we don't use them for sashes) and I've been trawling Etsy...

Oh Etsy. I could spend hours looking at all the pretty wonders you offer...

Previously, I have merely been popping onto Etsy to search for specific items. Today however, I had a look in the "Wedding Section". Dum dee dum! I only got to page 40 and I've had to stop...it's bed time...but I could keep going!!! I think I will share some of my findings in a post tomorrow. Tonight, I leave you with some piccies from my flower girl gifts. Since the girls are too little to be reading blogs, and I know their mums certainly aren't reading this, I don't mind showing the process as it goes. I'm hoping to give the girls (or in Tamzyn's case her Mummy) the books this weekend or next. Can't wait to see their/their Mummy's reactions!

On a side note, I really need to learn to take pictures in better light...and not on my iPhone!




*EDITOR'S NOTE* Yes. I saw the typo. And had to reprint. *sigh*

busy busy day!

I'm writing this before taking off for work (yes, I don't start work until 12pm everyday...but I also don't finish until 8pm!) so it may be a little rushed...bear with me!

I have so many things that I want to put in here, and I keep running out of time! I'll get to them eventually, but I thought I would write a quick post about yesterday, as it actually turned into a day of many wedding purchases...purely by accident!

It all started off with my needing to buy some simple silver/grey envelopes to move forward my flower girl project.

Exhibit A:


That didn't take me very long on my lunch break at all, so I decided to wander over to the shopping complex. Snap second decision, I decided to go and see if Borders had a further discount going on yet.

Our local store is closing down, but their wedding section (where I had been eyeing off a book I didn't want to pay full price for!) had only remained at 30% off. Then it moved to 35%. Finally, yesterday it was 40%. Still wasn't really enough to justify me buying the book I had been looking at - It was really nice, full of quotes and explanations of where wedding traditions had come from...But really, I could find quotes on the internet. I really wanted a nice little book of vows/poems/readings. And yesterday I found it. Purely by chance because it DEFINITELY wasn't there last time I looked. AND it was cheaper then the other book, meaning that with the 40%, it was a reasonable purchase! So I got it! I love that it looks nice and vintage-y too...and inside it's all lovely visible binding, which is nice! Going to start looking through it today to find some readings for my FSIL's to choose from...



After that, I spend some time wandering through the shops...bought a non-wedding related couple of purchases (a shirt for $5 and a headband for $5! Score!) then wandered into Rubi Shoes. And found these cute little headbands in one of our wedding colours (or what I'm hoping will be a wedding colour). I figured, if we use them, great! They were 2 bucks! If we don't, great! They were 2 bucks. :) If we don't end up using them I'm sure my nieces will love them in a pressie...but they will look pretty cute on our flower girls if the colours work :)



Lastly, my sister messaged me during the day to say that there was a packages waiting for me at my parents house! (I forgot to delete their address off my Etsy account...I only moved out 2 years ago...sheesh...hehe) My photo props finally arrived!! (Thanks Easter extra-long weekend for making it a longer wait then normal) I'm so excited to play around with these this weekend. Hopefully the weather dries up a little so we can play :) I showed them to the boys last night with a "Sooo...you'll take some fun photos with me right?". He rolled his eyes and walked out...but there was no 'no'! That's a good sign ;) Hehe

Both sides:


I was discussing the "Thank You" and "I'm his Mrs", "I'm her Mr" with the photographer on the weekend and she was so excited...but more on that later! I'm off to work! :)

MoH! This one is for you...

Ok so I have already found the perfect Save the Date shoot for my MoH, who is an art teacher (take a look here) and I found some gorgeous little wooden cake toppers that I thought she would love (long story involving Woody hehe) but today...well I just stumbled across the ultimate fun thing for my MoH's future, not-even-thought-of-except-by-me, wedding: these awesome escort cards!!!



Again, it is a long story as to why these are so appropriate, but in a nutshell, I still have a leaf somewhere in a diary from high school, on which my arty little MoH wrote us all notes :) How could anything be more perfect than these?! :)

new banner...

I don't think the old one was there long enough for anyone to see it (which is good really, since it was really bad!), but what do you think of the shiny new one? Do you think I need a new background for the blog, or should I leave the solid colours? :)

About to head off to see my family for Easter...

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!

I hope you are all blessed with a wonderful day spent with loved ones... xx

ooooh shiny!

Yep, a new layout...well, it's temporary for the moment, until I design a pretty new banner and what not...but for now it will do. A little more customised, a little less cookie-cutter. Feeling better already!

So! Wedding related stuff...where to start...

First of all, I should probably note that I made the CD I was talking about in the previous post. I made the mistake of putting our father/daughter dance on there. It came on, on my way to work yesterday. I got all teary. *pathetic*...*grin*

Second of all, I've been looking at photographers for a while now - checking out websites, trying to find photographers who suit the style I'm after (photojournalism, natural light photography...aka "pretty, washed out, vintage looking photos". Technical term that one!). It's proved surprisingly difficult as most of the people I have found are interstate, or out of our price range. The first photographer whose work I completely fell in love with is sadly not taking on any weddings after April 2012. *cries* Her work is amazing though, if anyone wants to take a look - Christine @ Pobke Photography.

She was kind enough to recommend a friend of hers, Kelly Tunney. Again, beautiful work. Sadly, not available on our date.

I've stumbled across a number of photographers since then, in fact I found one today that I have just emailed for further information. But tomorrow I am meeting with a lovely photographer based up the Central Coast. Her name is Sandra Henri and her blog can be found here. Unfortunately, given that she works as a freelance photographer she hasn't been able to include any weddings on her blog as yet (as the blog is for her personal photography company), but this is one of the reasons I'm going to see her tomorrow - to see some of her wedding work and see if our visions fit. We've had some lovely email chats and she mentioned how very excited she was during our first exchange, to hear that what I was looking for was the style she likes to do so...*fingers crossed!*

Other then that, I have mostly spent time playing around with some monograms! It's been great fun and there are a number of great free ones out there. I'm still going to muck around with my Photoshop and see what I come up with on my own, but I thought I would share a few of the free ones I have made so far. All of these images were created from The Wedding Chicks website, however I'll hotlink each monogram, in case you want to go straight to it! (Yes, this post is about to get rather picture heavy)

I'd love to hear what you guys think about these! I'm going to put together a page and then show the future hubby, so that he's got a range to look at. Already there are some that just won't make the cut, because they aren't even remotely close to our wedding theme...but they were still fun to play with. Of course, the difficult thing in creating a post-marriage monogram for the future hubby and I, is that his last name is french. And therefore has 2 initials, rather then just the 1. Some monograms only offered the option of one letter...and while the 2 letters with our first name initials look odd, sometimes just the L on its own looks odd too...so I'll keep playing. But which one do you guys like the best so far?! And have any of you also had trouble making monograms with your initials?

Sources:1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9
So far I think the last one is my favourite...although I do like the "L" version of the 'vintage', and also the 'fancy' one!

mr & mrs

Last night, I realized just how much I am looking forward to this wedding. All this stuff, everything on this blog – it’s all wonderful, and exciting and fun to plan…but in the end, it’s not important. In the end, all I’m looking forward to is being his wife. Having husband I can love for the rest of my life. Us, together. In every sense of the word.

Always.

I love him.

some more bits and pieces

So. Yesterday we got our first engagement gift! It was from my lovely Aunt :) She just couldn't wait for our party hehe. We were going to wait to open it, but there was a possibility that it was something that someone else said they were going to get us...so we decided to open it. And it was that. (Sorry Laina!)

But here are pics of our first official engagement gift! (Yes, I was a naughty blogger, we opened it before I took a picture! lol)


Whoo hoo, a slow cooker :) Can't wait to try it now that the weather is getting colder - yummy warm dinners that will be ready when I get home from work...Awesome!

On a side note, I've been making up a CD of lovey dovey songs to listen to in my car...partially because I'm in the mood for it, partially to get some ideas for music. Yes, it is rather early to be organising music but anyone who knows me will know that music is a big part of the feel of the wedding day for me. Certain songs have already been picked (and have pretty much been picked for years!) and are locked in! Bride's entrance, signing of the certificate, reception entrance and first dance music are already set. However for all the other music slots, I have too many options of songs I love...I need to limit the number and then make some suggestions to the boy :)

Oh, and thanks to my gorgeous SIL Juzzie, my Father/Daughter dance was discovered at the beginning of the year :) Originally I had always planned to dance to "Horses" by Darryl Braithwaite with my dad...Memories of car rides with my dad as a little girl...BUT no longer the case! (I'm leaving it for you Laina!) Juzzie found the best song for me...But I don't really want to post it 'cause I want it to be a surprise... Same with my entrance song... maybe...LOL

Now I'm sneaking off to bed after a TIRING day at work, but I thought I would leave you with some more little tidbits that I like and am considering for the wedding:

This was one of the FIRST things I found and wanted to use at our wedding, and my mum was quite excited by them too :) I know they are rather popular in America now, but here in Oz we've never seen them at a wedding before. The good ol' ribbon wand:


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I am considering some more manly "flags" for the gentlemen...But I love the idea of our nieces and nephews who can't be in the bridal party getting to hand these out before the ceremony from a cute little bucket, then as we walk down the aisle as husband and wife for the first time (*squee*) everyone waving them - I would love the photographer to get an awesome shot of it from the end of the aisle.

I also love the idea of this little chair addition - it's so cute! Obviously we would need to work it in our colours but I love the idea of it...


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This was the banner I was talking about in an earlier post, when discussing the idea of incorporating it onto our table -


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original Martha Stewart Wedding post here

Annnnd lastly, the seating chart I'm considering making. The frames that I would use on this chart would be replicated in the picture I want to have beside the cake, the frames for the family wedding photos I want to display and the instructions for our thumbprint tree! Below is also a gorgeous picture that lead me to want to incorporate our family wedding pictures...I'm thinking of doing the display of pictures on the island in the middle of the room (see what I'm talking about here) so long as they won't block the view for the people behind the island.


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[source] - Editor's note: I can't seem to find the link for this tonight, will post if I locate it!

gold dove and letterpress

I spent today with my mum, searching for gold doves. Preferably stickers, but was open to paper cutting tools, paper doves...just in general, two small, flat, gold doves.

"Gold doves?" I hear you say. "That should be fairly easy!"

Don't be fooled. It's not. NO ONE HAS GOLD DOVES. No one even has SILVER doves. No one had any dove stickers, cut outs, ribbon OR paper cutters.

"What the?" I hear you think. "Aren't doves nice and wedding-y?"

Yes. Yes they are. Or they USED to be. Nowadays? Impossible to find...

*sigh*

So, a new project was born. Fairly simple really but just a pain in the butt that it even had to be done. We managed to find some cream, felt doves. I have now had to paint said doves gold. And I will have to adhere them to an envelope and hope they stay...

Voila!




"Well what on earth do you NEED doves for?" (I'm good at reading your mind, aren't I??)

That question brings me to the project I have started for my little flower girls.

Given the effort I put into the cards for my lovely ladies, I wanted to do something fun for the littlest members of our parties too!! Now, the two youngest are at ages where quite frankly if it can't go in their mouth, they don't really care about it (they're 7 months old - they'll be 2 at the wedding), but I wanted them to have something to keep. My older flower girl (or my "senior" flower girl, as I like to call her) is almost 3 and definitely able to enjoy this a little more.

Back when I first started to organise the dollies for my ladies, I hunted down a Flower Girl and Ring Bearer (we aussie's prefer the term "page boy" but good luck finding a book about THAT) book and saved them both to my wishlist on Amazon. It just so happened that while I was at the bridal expo a few weeks ago, with my mum and bridesmaids, they were selling Flower Girl books. They actually looked a little nicer then the one I had found, so we picked up two.



It wasn't until we got home and actually read through them that we realised (drumroll please)...

...the bride in the book is none other then "Aunty Amanda!"


Pretty damn cool if you ask me! I was pretty stoked.

SO. After reading through the book and finding that, I decided that rather then just writing in the front cover of the book for the girls, I would replicated the letter in the book and adhere it to the inside front cover. As you can see, the envelope has a tiny gold dove in the corner, and the girl's name in "curly special writing". Well, that would be easy...or so I thought until today!



Anyway, I've now got some little gold doves (even if they're not tiny!) and will be doing up the girls envelopes and letters soon. I will definitely keep you all posted on the end result!

In another note, today my mum and I discovered the L Letterpress by QuicKutz. I may have fallen in love...



Since getting home and doing some research on the product, there have been a number of problems with the printer plates cracking after a number of uses...presumably because they are only plastic. However the QuicKutz website offers custom made printer plates in the professional moulding, which appears to fix the issue. That and a soft rubber brayer instead of the included brayer, and most people seem to have agreed that you can get some good looking work out of the machine! Sooooo....I might be getting one to do our wedding invites on! I'm VERY excited and can't wait to get one and play around on it. Will keep you all updated on any practice projects!

Have any of you guys bought craft-related items you usually wouldn't have, for wedding related projects?

colour scheme cont.

Ok. So while I really liked the idea of that scheme, the idea really didn't get set in my head until I came across all of these.... Now, I am completely in love....







I love how the colours are pretty, girlie and rather romantic, without being SO overwhelmingly girlie that they will make the future mister cringe...In particular, I love the photos with the girls in the three different colours - the peach/salmon/grey. I never though that grey bridesmaids dresses and grey suits would work, but the mix of colours looks amazing!!! However, I also love the fact that I think other pastel colours, like green or lavender, could easily slip into the colour scheme without looking out of place...particularly lavender, given it's closeness to grey...

These cake pops gave me the idea of possibly adding lavender:


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The washed out peach/blush in this photo is the type of colouring I originally had in mind, but I also like it a little darker, like in the earlier pictures. I really wouldn't mind these three colours for the girlies, with the boys in grey...

So! What do you guys think? Do you think it will work? In particular, do you think that the roses will still work with this colour scheme?? I'm hoping now that we can find some pretty dresses for the ladies in colours that go together well...The future hubby has decided on a light grey for the groomsmen, as opposed to a dark grey or charcoal, so this appears to be our scheme so far! It will be interesting to see how this changes as we go along...

colour scheme

Well, I had a few more ideas to show you, but since I've been working on this today, I thought I would share what COULD be our colour scheme with you...

Now. I should note that this has complete evolved from me having no idea of any colours except my flowers, to me completely falling in love with a particular set of colours...BUT I am highly open to change and we could end up with something completely different!!

SO. I'm going to take you through the process of how I got to where I am today...sorry for any rambling, this is bound to be a long post!!!

It all started with a rose.

A rather pretty two-toned rose actually.

My nan grew these roses in her garden. They were huge. As a matter of fact, in my family these roses have come to be known as "Amanda's HUGEMUNGOUS roses". Yes. I was little. And that is what I would call them. Below is an example of the roses, although my Nan's big ones weren't QUITE so pink at the tips - but she did have a smaller version that went quite pink.



Now. On our VERY first Valentine's Day together, the future hubby gave me a Teddy Bear. And that Teddy Bear was holding none other then a faux version of one these roses. I still have it. See, there it is!!! (Ps. The Teddy's name is Alfred. I still have him too!)



So naturally, these flowers have a lovely back story for me. Even more so since my grandmother will be unable to attend our wedding day - she has been in a nursing home with a number of years now, she suffers from Dementia and Alzheimer's. I love my nan, and I love the idea of getting to have a small piece of her with me on my wedding day, despite the fact that she cannot be there in person. So these roses were always going to be part of my flowers, no matter what. As such, I was planning on using the yellow/pinky coral as accents for the day - they would be in all our bouquets and also in our centre pieces.


This is the smaller version of the roses that I am hoping to use in our bouquets

When it came to bridesmaid colour and table setting colours, all I knew was that I didn't really want the bridesmaid dresses to be "matchy matchy" with the tables. I wanted a nice neutral palate for the tables, for the colours of the roses to pop against, and a nice neutral scheme over all, so that the bridesmaids would pop as well! As for the specific colour of the bridesmaid dresses, well I was pretty much open to anything that would look nice against the yellow and pink of the roses. Originally I had a pretty moss green in mind, but had decided (and still have decided) to go with whatever colour myself and the girls fell in love with.

By not having the girls matching the tables, it really meant that I could start planning the table settings (and therefore invite schemes) without worrying about matching certain colours or tones. Originally, I had in mind an ivory/dark champagne/black theme for the tables and the invites, as I felt it was elegant and neutral enough to go with most colours.

The future hubby however, has decided to go with grey suits for himself and his groomsmen, which I LOVE. I did however then feel that the black in the ivory/champagne/black combo might look a little odd - having black accents when the boys are in grey. I decided to put the colouring aside for a while, and talk with my wedding coordinator a bit later about how she would suggest tying in the colours.

Then one day, as I'm out shopping on my lunch break, I discovered this headband. I couldn't believe it, I bought it on the spot. The grey, the ivory...the "blush" colour that was *almost* identical to the pretty champagne colour ribbon I had been carrying around, just slightly more pink...I loved it!!


A most unusual place for inspiration...a head band...but given my accessorizing history, maybe not so surprising...

So since finding this headband, I've started looking around for inspiration for this colour theme and have completely fallen in love. Here's a couple of inspiration boards I've found:






See that bouquet there, in the second last inspiration board??

This one?

I love it. I hope my roses will look ok in something similar to that. What do you think???

random things I love so far

Ok so before I launch into today's post, I wanted to share this pic that my iPhone accidentally took yesterday. Just because I think it's cool and it's likely to get lost among the random photos I have on my phone other wise...


Cool huh?

Anyway...onto the real post!

These are just a few of the million awesome things I have found online so far...please note that I DID spend almost a whole afternoon and evening on DIY bridal related websites the other day *sigh* It's so dangerous!

But these are a few of the things that I have fallen in love with and we are likely to have/use at our wedding. And a couple of things I just think are cool (and wish I had found when my friends were getting married!)

First up - the thumb print tree! I found this on Etsy and fell in love with it a while ago. I LOVE that we can have something with all of our guests from the wedding that we can hang as art in our house - tell me that isn't going to be a conversation piece! Plus, I LOVE green (our house has a lot of green accents at the moment) and I love trees! It's a win/win really...maybe I can add some cute little love birds on there after the wedding ;)


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The tree comes with 2 different colour green stamps and some instructions for use (also quite cute!). I've got the perfect vintage-looking frame (the style of which I also want to use in another decor element) in mind already :)



They do offer a number of different sized trees for various sized weddings and I think they are a great idea. I also like the nice "simple but elegant" design of this thumbprint tree, as opposed to others I've seen.

Next up is the ring bearer bowl that I plan on ordering for my little nephew to carry down the isle. The rings are tied in place, so less likely to go running off under chairs, and I love that we can customize the wording on the dish. These bowls do come with gold or silver gilding as well, but I personally prefer the plain white. Again, something wonderful that we can keep and hopefully one day we can pass it on for our children to use (if it survives without breaking!)


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Ever since I saw an article on customized cutlery at weddings, I knew I wanted to get a little set for the future hubby and I...now the choice becomes, "Which gorgeous set do I choose?!". What do you guys think?



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I also want to incorporate something similar to these gorgeous signs onto or around our bridal table. But I plan on making them, after finding a DIY tutorial, with our wedding colours. But more on that later!


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I also love that we could incorporate it into our photos! I love a good typography-related photo prop! Exhibit A:

The last Etsy related-comment I would like to make, is that I made my first official "wedding related" purchase last Monday! These gorgeous photo props!


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Assuming I can convince the future hubby (which could be difficult!), I'm hoping to use the proposal-related props in the shoot that my little brother is going to do for us, to get some images for our engagement invites, and our Save the Dates. I LOVE the blurred out picture with the kiss, maybe we can muck around with something similar...

So that's pretty much it so far...they are mostly things that I want to include in the wedding, but there may end up with things being culled, given the amount of amazing things I have found! Once I've cleared out some bookmarks and worked out what things I truly love, I'll definitely share some of the ideas I have! I also hope to start working on our colour scheme, and possibly the start of an inspiration board. More on all of that soon!

Leaving you with some pretty images of these GORGEOUS bracelets I found on Etsy...Yes, I am an Etsy-aholic. Come join me. We have cookies.




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