last minute decoration purchases and an exciting piece of news!

Well, the name pretty much says it all, these are some last minute purchases for our engagement party on Saturday. I have moved everything into our dining room now (and have my study back, YAY!) in prep for Saturday morning, and I'm getting rather excited now! Some family I haven't seen in ages, as well as some friends we haven't seen in a good while are coming, so we are very excited to see everyone!

I promise this will be my last decorating post, they are probably boring you all by now, but I love having a record of every minute of our engagement and our wedding planning. And also, I'm worried I won't get photos of everything at the party, because I'll be too busy having fun :)

So without anymore ranting, here are some pics of last minute things I found at the wonderful store, Typo. For those who don't live in Aus (I don't think Typo is an international store), Typo is an AWESOME little stationary store that is just full of quirky little buys - it's very dangerous to walk into! I originally went in the other day to pick up some scrabble letter canvases to spell out "LOVE" for our cake table, but sadly they were out of stock of L and E! I did however find these AWESOME banners, which were hidden away on a little shelf and I only saw because I dropped something and had to pick it up. SO glad I did because I think these are my new favourite decoration. We plan on hanging this across the front of the stage in the hall!!!



I also found this cute little gold heart, which I have decorated with pictures of the future hubby and I throughout our relationship - from 2005 until the present! We didn't want to bombard people with pictures of us around the room, so this is fairly small and will sit on our guest book table. I'm sure I"ll find a way to use this at a later date as well!



And lastly, our guest book and a little side book (for any crazy comments from crazy friends!) that I picked up at Typo on sale, because it was so damn cute! The guest book I ended up finding in a wedding store and let me tell you - it is DIFFICULT to find one that isn't too "wedding-y" (ie. lots of white and diamontes and flowers!). I wanted something sleek and elegant, and with enough pages for all the guests we have coming! This fit the bill. You can't see too well in the picture, but the plastic protective sleeve comes off and underneath the black cover has a gorgeous silky pattern to it.



Now, for the exciting piece of news!!! My newest little godson, and the first godson for the future hubby and I as a couple, finally entered the world last night (after giving his mummy a LOT of false starts!) on the 29th of June, at 9:34pm. He weighs 3.77kg and is 51cm long! We haven't met him yet, but he and Mummy are safe at home now and we hope to be able to visit them tomorrow if Mummy is not too tired! See, he wanted to make it in time to celebrate with us :) (Mind you, his due date was the 26th - Mummy really wished he had come early!) Master Logan, welcome to the world!!! We can't wait to show you around :) xx

ice cream parlour bits and pieces

I've been a busy little party planner this week, hunting down items for our ice-cream parlour and giving them some sprucing up for the party! I've also finished all of the printing for this project and let me tell you - those little signs are a PAIN to cut out! It's been fun though, and I think it is all starting to come together...hopefully it looks good on the night, all those jars filled with yummy lollies and toppings!!!

My mum and I actually went shopping last weekend to get all of the cutlery, cups, plates, bowls and table cloths for the party, and almost all of the ordered decorations (my Chinese lanterns!) have arrived. We've had to go with more of a pink colour, rather then a peach, for most of the decorations, which is a bit of a bummer...but it's very difficult to get anything in the peachy/blush colour I like! Well, for the engagement party anyway! But I think it will be ok and hopefully the grey and white balances out the pink for a pretty ok balance of masculine/feminine. I just don't want the place to feel *too* girlie!

Without further ado, some piccies of my decoration work this week:


There are 3 of these guys, one for chocolate syrup, strawberry syrup and caramel syrup


These jars will have jelly beans, mini marshmallows, choc chips and m&m's in them...


...with these little guys inside to scoop them out!


And lastly, these little signs will be sitting inside icfe-cream bowls (yes, bowls that actually look like ice-cream...I haven't taken a picture of them, bad blogger!) with little spoons to dish out sherbert (my mum's request), 100's & 1000's, coconut and peanuts.

Mum and I also bought two big metal pots with lids (12L ones!) that we will store all of the ice-cream in. These will also have signs and ribbon. Unfortunately, they are at my parents house, so no photos for the moment.

Oh and I printed out and stung up the awesome banner from my previous post, which I love! :) Everything is now basically done, we just need to buy all the yummy treats to go inside!

I can't wait to see it all set up at the party, I hope everyone has a good time making their own sundaes!!

signs

I've decided that work takes away too much time from blogging. It's just rude really! I feel like I have all of these things to blog about, and not enough time to do it! *sheesh* :)

Meanwhile, rant now over, I would like to show you some things I've been working on today!

First up, a little sign for beside our guestbook (all going well, the guestbook will have an entire blog post to itself!). I plan on reusing this little frame at the wedding for instructions for the thumb guestbook.



Second, the sign from an earlier post:



Now this is the one I would love some feed back on. The frame for this one will also be reused at the wedding on the cake table, with this little beauty inside:


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(come on, it's almost mandatory to have this phrase somewhere in your wedding these days, isn't it??)

My question however, is whether you think the sign I have made is readable...for the guests who DON'T stare at fun typography signs all day (like the rest of us!). I tried to make each line of the poem a different colour (grey/black/grey/black) to try and make it a little easier to read. Did it work, or do I need to hit the drawing board again? Thoughts?

cute little sign!

This evening I thought I would show you guys a little something that I've been working on.

During my wedding blog stalking, I came across this awesome little poem in a Ruffled blog post. I thought it would be a great addition to our engagement party, in particular so that those who are drinking alcoholic beverages don't get their cups mixed with the non-alcoholics!



I love the idea of filling one of the jars I've decorated with some black textas and popping a print with this poem on it next to it!

I'm trying to create a print on Photoshop. This is the look I'm going for:


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However, I'm not terribly good at working out which fonts to use and where to place them. Hopefully I get it sorted and can create something half decent!

Do you guys think this is a good idea?

layout

Ok I just made a quick layout concept for our party, and thought I'd share! It's very dodgy and in no way accurate in terms of sizing, etc. but it's a general idea. I'm working from memory here - our family used this hall for both my brother's engagement party and my SIL's 21st, so I already know it's a great space and therefore didn't go down and check it out. Only bad thing is that it means I am trying to remember everything from...oh a while ago! I will organise a visit before the day of the party, but for now, memory it is!



The pink dots are the floating candle pieces, and the white ones represent the flower jars...apologies for the dodgy-ness!

I also have purchased these lovelies from various eBay stores to hopefully decorate the room with. I'm thinking about using them in groups along the edge of the stage, the kitchen window bench (the shutter will be closed to not see in the kitchen) and also on the cake/card cage tables. What do you think?


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What do you think?

On a side note, I've spent a very productive afternoon reorganising all of the wedding stuff I have collected so far (my folder is full of pretty things now!) and also organising everything I've collected and bought for the engagement party...and I've discovered the engagement party is going to need a folder all of it's own! Did anyone else find that? Or am I just an overly-organised freak? :)

engagement party decorations

I've started pulling together the decorations for our engagement party. There's plenty more to come and plenty more to pick up, but here's what I have so far.

The other day, my order from Fabulous Fete on Wedzu (they also have an Etsy account!) arrived. You might remember me blogging about it in my engagement party post. They are really cute and I can't wait to hang them up around either the ice cream parlour, or the cake table. I have to make a comment on the LOVELY personalised postage that Fabulous Fete do as well - not only does it all come wrapped all pretty in tissue paper, but there is also a fabulous little individual thank you card as well! So cute. Makes you want to buy more :)



I also bought these great tiny pink pegs (which look SUPER pink in this pic...they are really not that bright!) from Office Works, and I'm toying with the idea of hanging little pictures from the beginning of our relationship up in between the flags...I'm debating whether it's Graham and Amanda overkill however!



Next up are the centerpieces. As well as the little jars you saw in the DIY project post, these lovelies will be down the middle of the long rows of tables. Filled with gold stones, water and white floating candles (couldn't get a happy medium peachy colour and didn't want to go with pink!). I have an alternate plan for these lovelies at the wedding but for now, that's a secret :)



Last up, some fun sprinkles for the tables! The white/shimmery sprinkles aren't as full on as they seem in these pictures, they are much more subtle when they are spread out. And the gold hearts tie in with the engagement theme, as well as the gold stones :)



Whatcha think guys???

diy projects!

Today I'm going to give a little run down of what was keeping me so busy last week (aside from the invites and the wonderful blogs I was reading!) and prevented me from posting much!

I've been working on some DIY for the engagement party and I have to say, these projects have made me realise how much I love making things, and how much I'm going to miss working on all of this after our wedding! I'll have to find something to keep my hands busy as a newly wed I think!

First up, I made a whole bunch of little flags to decorate the cupcakes I will be making for the dessert table. There's heaps of them, but here I've just included one of each design. (Please excuse the terrible photos, they were all taken on my iPhone in bad lighting!)



Then I started working on decorating the jars for the flowers and/or tealights (we have a bunch of different sizes, the extra small ones are likely to have tealights in them!). I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. All the jars have an individual design and I have to admit that I like the look of the ones I made AFTER taking these photos best, but I couldn't be bothered taking more shots! Will include them in photos from the actual party :)

This was a simple and straight forward DIY, but I think they turned out well! Very easy for everyone to do themselves, little instruction needed. Just to note, the paper in the first few shots is actually a light grey and a peach colour, however the lightening makes them look pretty similar!







And lastly, I jumped on the computer and used Photoshop 5 and our new snazzy printer to make these cake toppers for our engagement cake! Not sure which one/ones we will ended up using, if any, but again a really easy DIY that I think turned out pretty well! What do you guys think??

the engagement party!

Ok, so I am still working on the invites - they are done but I can't put them on here just yet! I'm still waiting for a few addresses, then they will be sent out and I can share them! I would love to hear what you guys think of them.

But what I CAN share, is what I've gotten (or am getting!) organised for the decor for the party!

We're having the party in a local hall, connected to my sister-in-law's family church. The hall is MASSIVE compared to most of the local halls around here, and trust me, we are going to need the space! So far, we are planning on having all the tables lined up in long rows (as opposed to smaller round tables - I feel like everyone might get chatting more and mix up the groups a bit more if they are all together!) with kid-friendly grey table cloths (we are having a LOT of kids there, so they may have to be plastic!), glass bowls with gold stones and peach (or as close to the peachy/pink I'm after as possible!) floating candles, and mixed size, decorated glass jars with some blooms inside. The glass jar decorations will be a DIY project so there will definitely be more on that soon (right now I'm still collecting jars!)

The reason I'm having the glass bowls with the floating candles is that a) I wanted a smaller centerpiece that people can talk over and that also won't take up too much room on the tables (since we are having so many people!) and b) I plan to recycle them at the wedding for something specific...but I don't want to go into that just now!

So that's all pretty simple and straight forward...I'll be picking up some blooms the morning on the party and just popping them in the jars myself. Nothing too fancy. The part of the decor that IS getting me very excited though, is our dessert/cake area!!!


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A DIY Ice Cream Parlour!!! If you go to the source link, you can see the full, amazing layout of this parlour and all the freebies are there! I've downloaded them all and I'm SO excited for this part of the night!

Given that we are having so many children at the party, my mum and I had already decided to have a big ice cream dessert area. Finding this DIY project was icing on the cake! I'm so excited to decorate this area, and also the cake table and slushie machine area that will be near it. It will all be decorated in a similar style! I've already printed off THIS amazing freebie from Heirloom Paperie, to go over our cake area:



I have also downloaded these cute-as-pie mini flags for some cupcakes I hope to make:

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Lastly, I have also bought these cute little flags, which I'm sure I'll find a home for, from Wedzu:



I just hope that it's a nice, fun and relaxed atmosphere and it looks good :) Thinking about trying to find some grey, peach and white paper lanterns to hang or sit around the room as well...And we managed to work some bunting into our invites so I think they really reflect the look I'm going for for the room!

What do you guys think? Is it going to work? I always get so nervous that things will just be a flop...

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!

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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