Summer wedding number three

I haven't been to a wedding in three years and then this summer I've been to three!

The latest one was for Katharine and Johnny. Katharine is the daughter of my Mum's best friend Susan. Susan had a very bad stroke two years ago and very nearly died. She still can't walk and has lost the use of one side of her body but she made it there yesterday so it was an extra special day. We were all very proud of her. Katharine made a lovely speech during the toasts, telling her Mum how proud she was of her for coming this far - she had the whole room in tears!

Katharine looked beautiful as all brides do, she was wearing a beautiful 1920's style dress which was made by her new husbands mother. She is a costume designer for the BBC so is used to designing period costumes.

It was a very simple wedding which was exactly what Katharine wanted. The venue was the Mercure St Paul's hotel which is where Paul and I spent our first wedding anniversary. The hotel joins onto the Winter Gardens so there was a brilliant backdrop of all the tropical plants outside.

The cake and flowers were very simple and elegant, all in shades of green which I thought was unusual but worked really well in the jungly setting.

The evening reception was lovely, the wine was flowing and the food was delicious. Especially the starter which was a soup which no one could work out the flavour of! We thought it was leek and potato but also found bits of bacon in the bottom so no one was sure!

This is me with my folks:

And me and Paul:

And this is the present I made for the happy couple:

With my trade mark label:

We're off to the South of France today to see my Grandad (and his new dog - expect lots of pictures!) so our own puppy dog is feeling very sorry for herself. She'll be spending the week at her Grandma's getting spoiled rotten so I don't know what she's got to be sad about really - I think she's just playing the guilt card for extra cuddles!

This is exactly what it looks like: Bum on back of settee, body sprawled along the arm. Cue sad eyes. Perfect. You'll never leave me again.

The Lavender Wedding

I'll start by saying: I AM NEVER, EVER, DRINKING AGAIN!!! Far too much champagne and table wine. At least I'm a happy drunk, it just makes me giggle a lot so thankfully, no embarrassing behaviour... at least not until we got back to Paul's parents and I fell asleep (mid conversation) on their settee. Paul had to carry me to bed (and I'm pretty sure he whacked my head against the door frame on his way as I've got a banging head ache today and can't think of any other possible explanation for it!)

The wedding was beautiful, everyone was really happy and the bride was most pleased with her bunting and my little painting. I even got given a gorgeous bouquet as a thank you!

Everyone seemed to have a lovely time and it was nice for me and Paul to be back at the church where we got married (two years ago later this month). I do love a good wedding and can't wait for the next one at the end of this month!

Me and my P in his parents back garden before the wedding.

The bride and groom.

The bouquet and some detail on the dress.

The hair.

The head table and my Lavender bunting.

A house full of wedding cake

3 Tiers....

200 Cupcakes....

And 1 sulky puppy...

Remember the "Lavender" bunting I was busy sewing the other day? Well, the Lavender wedding has finally arrived... tomorrow morning, I'll be setting up the hall - hanging bunting, decorating tables, arranging cakes.... I can't wait!

My friend asked me over a year ago if I would help organise her wedding, I was feeling a bit blue and unsure what to do with myself after my own wedding so it was a great thing for me to start thinking about!

Today she came round with all of her cakes, 2 high chairs and her guest book for me to take down to the hall tomorrow. 

Seeing the guest book gave me an idea. Instead of just leaving a note, I wanted to do something a bit more personal, so I pulled out my sketchbook and started doodling.

First I just did a couple of weddingy sketches, a couple of bride and groom scribbles. Then I did one of them running for a plane with her suitcase bulging.... Then I thought, they are going on safari for their honeymoon so how about I chuck a lion in there as well? Oh, how about her suitcase has burst open and all her clothes have fallen out but they are too happy to notice? 

And this is what I came up with...

Her bikini top has got hooked over the lions ear!

Cute, yes?

I've attached it with photo corners so that she can take it out and frame it if she wants to. I really enjoy doing these little drawings, I did a couple for my bridesmaids (they were fairies and wearing their bridesmaid dreses) when I got married and one for a friends baby but have not done one since. I think it's nice to have something to remind you of a particular day - I think they make great cards or gifts.

Off now to practice my hair do for tomorrow - my hair is so long these days it takes forever to do! I'm thinking of doing lots of twisty loops all to one side and maybe a few curls hanging down.

Anyway, more on the wedding tomorrow! Everyone pray for nice weather for the lovely bride please?

Handmade bunting... my favourite thing to do

One of my favourite thing to do (and I have no idea why!) is to hand sew bunting! Metres and metres of the stuff! I love the Country Fete look when it is strewn all over the place. There is something really therapeutic about sitting in front of the telly with lots of squares or triangles and making them into lovely decorations to hang around the house or to decorate a wedding, christening or birthday party.

When I got married, we had a proper traditional English wedding in this church....

With this view....

So I decided that I wanted to have a real village fete style to my reception. 

I wanted lovely wild flowers like lavender, rosemary, hydrangea, freesia, sweet peas, roses. Not in proper arrangements, just simply put in old glass jars and vases and scattered with no pattern all around the room. I did the same with candles in lots of different coloured glass containers. My local charity shop loved me - I absolutely cleaned them out of their glass ware!

I wanted butterflies - on everything! I hand punched butterfly confetti using an old book of love poems, I had little feather butterflies in my bouquet (which I designed myself), butterflies on the invitations (which Paul and I designed, printed and hand tied with pink ribbon ourselves!) in the church, in the flowers, on the buttoneires. I designed my own cake, complete with butterflies! I even got up early on the morning of the wedding to make little butterfly hair grips for my hair!

And to complete the look, I wanted handmade bunting to go around all of the tables. I spent months. Seriously. Months. Hand sewing 100 metres of bunting! But, it was so worth it! The end look was amazing. I was so pleased when I saw the finished hall with all of my hundreds of hours of designing,  sewing, printing, punching, arranging.... the whole thing was beautiful. Because everything was handmade, our wedding hardly cost us anything but we got so many comments about how nice all the decorations were and a lot of people said it was the nicest wedding they'd been to!

More recently, I designed some personalised bunting for my gorgeous little Nephew Charlie for his christening which was on Valentines Day. I decided to go with a heart theme and appliqued a heart to the square on either end and then I did little hanging fabric hearts to hang on the ends. I appliqued his name and zig-zagged all around the edges in lovely red thread. I also bought some little red heart buttons for some extra detail but in the end I thought it looked better without. I got loads of comments on this one at the christening.

I've been thinking about my Etsy store a lot lately, I haven't put anything in it for a long time, I kind of gave up! But I'm thinking (as per the list) that I'll give it a second chance - this time selling stuff I really enjoy making - like my bunting and confetti. I think I will also add a shop page to my blog so people can buy straight from me if they want to. I really love doing the personalised bunting. My friend is getting married this summer (her new name is going to be Lavender - isn't that gorgeous?) so I think I'm going to do one for her in all different shades of lavender and hang some little hand tied lavender bouquets on either end.

So, to get myself back into practice, I was thinking I might do a little giveaway on here! Watch this space for details!