a little spray paint...

This weekend was a weekend full of DIY projects for me! Some I can share with you, and will over the next few days, some I reluctantly will have to wait until after the wedding to blog about (because some nosey bridesmaids may read my blog :P love you ladies!). I've had a lot of fun getting stuck into some of the projects I've had whirling around in my head though, and some of them were SO simple, yet so effective!

Today's DIY involves the frames that we will be using to house all of the family wedding photos we've been collecting over the last year or so. I plan to share them all with you soon (I'm currently in the process of scanning in the last few that I collected from my grandmother during our trip to Umina the other week) but for now, here's the story about the frames!

Back around Christmas time, you might have recalled me mentioning that I picked about 5 or 6 red frames from Typo for half price ($5 each!) during their big sale.

Well on the weekend I picked up some black spray paint and set about testing out a coat of spray paint on one, to see whether it was going to stick! (I was a little worried that the spray paint may not adhere to the type of material the frame was made of)


As it turned out, I needn't have worried. It worked out perfectly. Here's the finished product:

The finished product compared to an original red frame:

And compared with an original black one I bought for our engagement party (and planned to reuse at the wedding) - you can barely tell the difference!

So Monday (my day off work) was spent spraying the remaining frames...here they are all lined up in a row!

I can't wait to add our family photos in and see them all displayed on our wedding day. It's great seeing our projects start to come together. More on the way really soon! Meanwhile, you may have noticed a slight tidy up of the blog and the addition of the few things in the side bar. I've added a button for anyone who would like to use one on their blog at all (you know, if you like us that much and all *shucks*) AND I've been a busy beaver creating a separate email, Twitter AND Pinterest JUST for this blog! All pictures taken by me (mostly for DIY projects, etc.) will now have a watermark in the corner and any DIY projects will be added to our Pinterest account where you can re-Pin them to your own account, so please, be sure to follow! We'll even be Pinning great ideas from fellow bloggers and plenty of wedding inspiration from Pinterest-land! Enjoy!

our mini shoot Pt. 2

Ok so we've discovered that my computer did in fact eat some of our pictures! For some reason, whenever I rotate a photo using Window's Photo Viewer - it disappears! Like, vanishes. It's not sent to the recycling bin it's just...gone. But my brother still had a copy of all our pictures on his laptop (but had deleted them from the camera!) so I've managed to get them all back. I KNEW there should have been more colour options with the "He asked" and "She said yes!". Now maybe I can play around and make a second STD and maybe have two different options sent out...that could be fun!

Anyway, just a couple more pictures that were missed in the last round up then...ok yes, they are still pretty similar but I like them. LOL. I think the first two are new favourites as well:



It's nice to get nice photos of you and your partner, isn't it? I rarely get photos of the two of us unless they are self-taken, so they always end up looking the same! (two heads squished into the picture...you know the ones!) It's really nice to have these in general, but in particular to celebrate our engagement. I can't wait to get a proper shoot done! Just have to try not to "pretty" the boy too much... *smiles innocently* Who me? Never!

our mini shoot

Ok, as promised, here are some pics from our mini shoot with my brother. There's only a few different shots because we were really only doing it purely to get some photos for our invites and Save The Dates...that and I didn't want to scare my future hubby with a big stylized shoot! (Although I'm sure my brother would have loved it!) In FH's words, he requested that I not try to "pretty him" with too much lovey dovey stuff. :) He did agree to use the signs though, and one of my favourite shots actually came about because he decided to use one of the signs of his own accord!

With no further ado - some piccies!









And finally, my favourites as mentioned earlier:



These are all unedited...some need cropping and things, but we've only really touched the ones that we've used so far (for invites, etc.) and cropped those to the size we need. None of these have been touched I believe!

I also think that I'm actually missing a few...I seem to remember there being more...I mentioned to my brother after the shoot that we could probably only use the landscape shots, not the long shots, so I think that's all he transferred to my computer. I'm going to find out and if there's any more good ones I'll pop them up.

What do you guys think?

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!