Accidental Vix

Instead of a showcase Sunday today I’m going to dedicate this post to my gorgeous husband as it is our first wedding anniversary today! I thought I could share and showcase some of my items inspired by him, but there are way too many to choose from so instead I thought I’d share a few photos from our weekend away in quaint, pretty and rustic Rye on the south coast near Hastings, definitely worth a visit. It stil overwhelms me sometimes that I am married, but thinking back to this day a year ago makes me smile and I wouldn’t change a thing about the day despite the rain, even the madness and mayhem before the church (my bridesmaids will know what I’m talking about.) So Happy First Anniversary Dan.

Enjoy what’s left of the weekend,

Xx

After all the machine sewing that has gone into my bibs and booties I thought I’d make the most of the sunny weather whilst still off work to sit in the garden and do some hand sewing. What better to sew in the garden than flowers! This is the first of my bridal bouquets about to be launched in my shop and on a new website coming soon (I’ll reveal more about that in the near future.) If you are a bride-or-groom-to-be and might be interested in handmade flowers for your big day then please contact me…

Xx

Well apart from it being Friday, it’s a special Folksy Friday today as I’m also using it to do my Folksy Finds Handmade Love. All of today’s picks are chosen with the theme ‘made for you’ as I love my husband to bits and in our first year of marriage I always try to make an effort and create him things that are personal to both of us, especially after his Folksy proposal! As it’s a leap year today’s picks are all wedding and engagement related as I wonder how many ladies will take this opportunity to propose:

Made with Love x – Personalised notebook (these notebooks have played such a big part in our life and engagement that it’s at the top of the list)

Old black hen vintage – Floral and lace wedding book (this could make a great guest book but in my opinion an even better wedding planning book, why not use it to think up some proposal ideas ladies?!)

The leaf press – Personalised wedding journal (every bride needs a wedding book, mine was actually the proposal and is bursting at the seams now)

Joy Nevada - Personalised salt and pepper shakers (I can just imagine the proposal – will you pass the salt please darling…)

xx Bags of love - Shabby chic personalised engagement picture (After my own engagement I would encourage anybody to use handmade items in their proposal, and you can keep it forever)

Ink and stylus - The dressing room (this is such a gorgeous and romantic style of illustration)

Zygotegifts – Valentines card (Although unfortunately some of our hearts were misplaced on the day we had some of the 30 newspaper hearts hanging from our pom poms, and BB even made it to our wedding to see them for herself)

Morning Mr Magpie - Cutout heart necklace (This is beautiful and similar to the necklace I commissioned Sal to make to match my bridal earrings)

Artisan silver – Valentines silver necklace (Traceyann made all of my bridesmaids necklaces and personalised them)

Dottie designs - Personalised guest book (If I hadn’t made a message tree canvas for our ‘guest book’ I would have def got a book from Dottie)

Quernus crafts - Love mouse couple (These are too cute for words, they look like a couple who are announcing their engagement!)

Beadazzle designs – Wedding kiss guest book (Love the fun nature of this, and the fact that no 2 are the same)

Imogen’s Imagination - Ivory small fascinator (Sophie made all mine and my bridesmaids’ hats and fascinators, and this one was worn at my hen do)

Atelier 22 - Wedding/engagement card (Love screen printing and the vibrancy of this is perfect for anybody)

Geneva silver – Eco Bridal Bouquet (I made felt flowers for our wedding but these paper ones are fab)

Wall envy art – Personalised wedding vintage book page (Beautiful personalised momento)

By Poppy with love – ‘I DO’print (Beautifully simple, and reminds me of my own ‘I do’ moment last year)

Artyadz - The best is yet to come print (This one’s for my fantastic husband, we’ve had such much bad luck in our first year of marriage but I truly believe the best is yet to come!)

I’m off to reminisce and look at our wedding photos now

Xx

Yay, I am so happy and relieved to have finally finished my sketchbookproject 2012! I must admit it didn’t take me long after sending off last years to forget how stressful and hard it is to work to a deadline for something that will be viewed by others and tour 3 continents this time. This is the first 32 page ‘picture book’ I have done as a continuous story,  but generally I’m pleased with what I’ve achieved, especially given the trauma of the past couple of months. There are a few pages which I rushed for the sake of finishing and I’m not too happy with but as I keep telling my husband perfection doesn’t exist. Here are a few more pages to keep you going until the grand reveal of the finished story…

Xx

I’ve now been a married lady for nearly 4 months so it’s got to be time to start the mini tutorials on the handmade wedding bits I promised a few weeks ago. The first one is bunting, not wanting to teach a grandma how to suck eggs but I’m going to keep it relatively simple and easy. If I can make 50 metres for our wedding in a few evenings then anybody can fit a bit of bunting time in their lives.

1. My fave part – choose the colour scheme and fabrics, for our wedding we chose charcoal and aqua but you can use as many or little colours as you like, and it’s also a good way to use up scraps or left over bits of fabric.

2. Choose a size and then cut out a template, this can be done from recycled cardboard or paper. Think about where you are hanging your bunting; you can do small bunting for cots or large bunting for hanging in rooms or outside. I used triangles but can can use rectangles or other shapes if you prefer. Another example of fab bunting, which has been seen at a small pram size to larger than life at Camp Besitval is from the fab Ruby Shoes Rocks.

3. Cut out lots or a few triangles depending on your appetite for a challenge or overall length in mind, remember you will need to double your triangles if you want similar bunting to the ones shown, alternatively you could save yourself some time and just use single triangles (skip to step 7.)

4. Choose 2 triangles and put them together with right sides facing each other (they don’t have to be matching fabric, in fact I think they look more quirky if they’re different.) If you want to at this stage you can applique onto some of the triangles before sewing together – for our wedding I added our initials or letters to spell out words such as love – there is a fab picture of us and my parents with bunting above us that says love!

5. Sew down the 2 longest (angled) sides.

6. Turn the sewn triangles inside out and iron (it’s best to choose cotton or fabrics that will iron easily.)

7. Choose your ribbon or bias binding and cut to required length, don’t forget to add some extra for fixing/tying it in place.

8. Fold ribbon etc in half and iron.

9. Sew down the edge of the ribbon with the top of the fabric triangles inside, make sure you leave enough space before the triangles to allow you to hang or tie your bunting at either end.

10. Do just that – hang your bunting, then stand back and admire

Bunting is perfect for cheering up any home, shop, environment or event especially weddings and comes in all shapes and sizes so why not take advantage of doing it yourself and experiment from mini bunting for cots and even prams to big bunting in the garden or street parties. If you don’t fancy giving it a go yourself then why not contact me and I can make it for you! I’m already making some as an alternative to tinsel this Christmas and love a good wedding or party.

Happy bunting

Xx

You have no idea how excited we are to see the fab and artistic yet natural photos from the very talented Lance James Photography. So much so that I just had to share the link to our wedding photo preview with you. Apart from being a great reminder of the most amazing day of our lives it’s also fantastic to see some professional shots of all the effort that has gone into the handmade and creative elements of the big day, including the fab paper hearts by B at Zygotegifts and many fascinators including my own from Imogen’s Imagination. I did feel a little lost without my own camera to capture mine and other people’s creative input. I don’t want to give too much away as I will be blogging about each handmade element as the weeks go on but here is a taster of what is to come.

Xx

Well hello, we’re back! The madness of planning for a handmade wedding is now over and worth every second. After 6 months of what feels like non-stop making to finally see it all come together on the most amazing day of our lives not only brought a smile to ours (and hopefully everyone else’s) faces but was a big relief. A massive thank you goes out to all our friends and family for their contributions and help, and the venue’s patience with my sometimes crazy and challenging ideas, it would have not been possible without them.

One thing I learnt from my time as an engaged lady was how much I enjoyed making and creating and challenging myself and my ideas, so who knows I may even add a wider variety of items (from my new-found experience) to my shop so if there are any requests or feedback please let me know.

As there were so many handmade parts to our wedding it will probably take me until our 1 year anniversary to blog about it all but I’m going to give it a go and blog about a different part each week so watch this space.

Xx

A quick blog from me today as we are on our honeymoon in Malaysia having the most amazing time and reminiscing already about our fab wedding day – thanks to all those who made it so special. Time goes so quickly when having fun, and we can’t believe we have been husband and wife for a week already.  So, for those who have been following our handmade wedding progress here are a few preview photos of the big day, and the handmade dressed I designed, whilst we eagerly await the professional ones from fantastic Lance.

Xx

Anyone who knows me will know how much I hate having my photo taken, and will always be the one armed with the camera to avoid the possibility of being caught in front of the lens, so the biggest thanks goes to Lance our wedding photographer who did our pre-wedding photo shoot a couple of weeks ago at our gorgeous Yorkshire wedding venue, Coniston Hotel. Lance made us feel so relaxed, which really shows from the photos and because of his lively, enthusiastic and friendly personality we were so comfortable we sometimes forgot that he was even there.

Anyone following my blog will know how much time and effort has gone into personalising our wedding and making sure we hand make as much as possible (including our wedding favours featured in the above photos) and buying from local and independent people for everything else.  Our photos refelect our personalities as individuals and as a couple perfectly – well done Lance on learning so much about us in such a short space of time, with the help of one of the most difficult questionnaires I’ve had to fill in (only because it’s quite difficult to describe our personalities etc to someone new.) All credit for making each photo-shoot unique and tailored to the subject

We cannot wait until the big day, now less than a month away, and the apprehension we had about the photos have all disappeared to be replaced with sheer excitement – we know that we will have some amazing memories captured in our photos thanks to a very talented photographer!

Xx

To most people deciding to make 50m of bunting 5 weeks before our handmade wedding would be over-ambitious but this thought did not cross my mind until about 20m in! Here’s how my bunting journey began…

• I can’t resist fabric shopping and now I’ve found a couple of fab websites  I can do it from the comfort of my own home when my sewing machine is looking lonely and ready for a challenge!! Somehow my browser ended up taking me to my fabric house and fabric rehab and the fun began (luckily I already knew my colour scheme or I would have been bankrupt!!)
• With fabric chosen, the post arrived a few days later and then it was time to cut 280 triangles – I’d already done the first 10m a couple of weeks ago to test at the venue for size etc so only another 40m to go with 35 double sided triangles per 10m run.
• With a large pile of fabric triangles in front of me the next task was to sew them together to make my bunting double sided.
• Several hours (and bunts) later they were done and it was time to cut my ribbon into 10m strips before folding in half and sewing triangles into it.
• Many more hours later and my bunting was complete, taking 1.5 days total to do, and much relief when the last stitch was sewn!

The problem now is that I could quite happily make more, and am considering selling some in my Folksy shop (after the wedding of course!) if only as an excuse to do more fabric shopping.

So, after making 100 wedding favours, invites, menus, order of service, pompoms, bunting and 300 flowers what other challenge can I set myself with just over 4 weeks to go??

Xx