Hi ladies,

Sorry about the lack of posts but my dad is in hospital at the moment. I will be back with posting just as soon as he's okay.

Flower choices

Ahhh, Friday. And for me, Fridays are the start of my weekends because I've just managed to wangle Fridays off. People, I tell you, never underestimate the power of good dressing and confidence - they can pay off and get you Fridays off! (This word of the day sponsored by Faux Fuchsia - my hero).

So Fridays are going to become my "doing things for THE WEDDING" day. I'm currently putting off finishing the bunting until I finish my coffee and update my little blog here.

I do have two other things on the agenda today:

• have a play around with flowers to see how I want to arrange my bouquet (plus the bridesmaids' ones, too).
• FINISH THE INVITES! (eek, this one is a priority! But I'll tell you all about that in another post).

I've saved soooo many photos and links in my browser of beautiful flowers. This is one of my particular favourites, although it really doesn't relate to my wedding at all:

From Green and Bloom via Amour Amour. I just realised these florists are in Brissy - my budget may be changing!

I adore the simplicity of the lavender, and the gorgeous vintage touch of the crochet. May have to steal that....or go see Green and Bloom.

Green and Bloom, also. How gorgeous is that?

This is the inspiration for mine. Wonder if I can wrap it in crochet? From Jennifer Oliphant's blog, but I'm not sure who did the flowers. Anyone know?

How beautiful and colourful is this bouquet? I would LOVE something like that if I were having a colourful wedding (which we very nearly did). How good would they look with this wedding (which I blogged about earlier)? Pic from Tealily photography, florist unknown.

Has anything inspired your search for the perfect flowers?

Asos deals

Pssss: Asos is having a sale! And until the end of the 22nd (England time, so hurry up!), they've got an extra 10% off.

I went nuts. Seriously. My shopping bag looked like I'd only left one or two things on the shelves at Asos headquarters.

I calmed down and only bought the following:

(Link). In navy.

(Link). In red.

This, because I love all things with bows. (Link)

This skirt for work. (Link).

This dress for...well, I'm not sure, but it was cute. (Link)

I have a bit of a nautical theme going on there!

What have you bought off Asos lately? Hopefully you've taken advantage of the sale.

Veils - to have and to hold, or just annoying?

Has anyone else dealt with some kind of resistance from family members/friends/passers-by about their choices for their wedding? No? Well then you're one of the lucky ones!

I've discussed this with some of my married friends (Hi J and C, you know you can "follow" me, rather than stalking the blog? I kinda work out where you get the details from :) ). We've come to a consensus that the wedding planning process isn't complete without some kind of resistance from someone.

The biggest resistance I've come across has been about my choice of veil, that is, no veil.

"But it's not a wedding without a veil!"

"When will you get to wear a veil if you don't wear it for your wedding?"

"But your veil will be an heirloom one day!"

etc etc etc.

I decided it wasn't worth the fight on this one, and gave in. And when I say caved, I fell hook, line, and sinker into the wonderful world of veils.

Who knew there weren't just the plain, poofy ones? Probably a lot of people, but I didn't. I didn't even know that a headpiece or headband could be used INSTEAD of a veil, let alone with one. I've found there are five different things you can wear on your head.

Birdcage veils

Hello, beautiful. This is a gorgeous birdcage veil I had my eye on. (Source)

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This one is stunning! (Source)

Traditional veils - to blusher, or not to blusher?

(Source)

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Mantilla veils

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Headband - anyone who knows me would say I've cornered the market on these!

(Source)

That's a headband and birdcage in one! What's not to love?? (Source)

I want this one just for everyday wear. Stunning! (Source)

Very flapper-ish. (Source)

Ohhh Jennifer Behr. If only I could afford you! (Source)

More Jennifer Behr. (Source)

Another Jennifer Behr. (Source) Ps: thanks to Keschey from the Vogue forums who turned me onto Jennifer Behr.

Flowers/hair clips:

Real touch gardenia. (Source)

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Yep, you guessed it, it's Jennifer Behr. (Source)

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Can you tell I spend a little too much time on Etsy?

So what am I having? Well I decided on:

and

What do you think? Think it will go with my dress (had to put a link because G is being sneaky and snooping around. Say hi to G, everyone. No peeking, G!).

What are you guys having for your wedding? Veil, or no veil?

DIY - also known as Boy, Do I Yell (the b is silent)

Has anyone been hit by the DIY bug for their wedding, yet? I have. I've been belted, repeatedly, by that thing! I think I've been inspired by the Vogue forums and Weddingbee - there are some very talented ladies out there!

"Sure, making 70 odd napkins because I want to be different is TOTALLY easy whilst writing school reports, making lessons, and you know, teaching".

"I can TOTALLY make my own mantilla veil.....Yes, I know I sewed my grade 8 sewing project to my school skirt, but how hard could it be?"

"G, I know your angle grinder is really bad, but could you just whip us up some rustic looking wooden signs for the ceremony? Why? To show people where to go! Yes, I know there will be people showing where to go but I WANT SIGNS!" (there may have been foot stomping here).

You get the picture. Obviously, these projects have all been put in the too hard basket with only 93 days left until THE WEDDING (that's how we're referring to it these days). There has been a lot of yelling about this, hence the title of this post. I honestly thought I could do everything for the wedding. By taking complete control over all decorative things, I thought I would have a handle on EXACTLY how I wanted THE WEDDING to look. Boy, was I wrong! Not only did it not give me a handle, it actually created exorbitant costs, headaches, disagreements (I still think wooden signs would be nice), but also a feeling that I wasn't living up to the expectation. Who's expectation? Well, everyone's but mostly mine.

I don't know about you guys, but I felt under siege from every man and his dog about THE WEDDING. So it's not a legitimate wedding if I wear blue shoes under my dress? I HAVE to invite the cousins who I haven't seen in 15 years? G and I will have green babies if I have silk flowers in my bouquet?!?! I'd better have real flowers then!

I felt like I had to make everyone happy with OUR wedding. This meant I put unreasonable expectations on what I thought THE WEDDING should be like. If you want to stress out about these details, go right ahead - it's your wedding. You should have the choice about what you want to stress about, though, as it's your, and your wedding alone (except for maybe your husband to be; he should probably get some kind of say).

So, I'm now approaching DIY projects in a different way - to put my stamp on the wedding, rather than to make it the most memorable day in everyone else's lives.

I've been making bunting flags to festify (yes, that's a word) our ceremony location (read: hide the ugly wooden fence), as well as our lolly buffet.

"What's bunting?" I hear you ask (as did most of my friends, my entire family, and G). Bunting is the line of flags you see flapping in the breeze at carnivals and fairs (or the Ekka in Brissy's case. For those of you everywhere else, the Ekka is Brisbane's Royal Show/Exhibition, hence Ekka. Off topic: Does anyone else love the Ekka as much as I do? I'll be there with bells on, swine flu or no swine flu!). As my sister put it: it's like the flags you see above the pool when you're doing backstroke to stop you from running into the wall. Thanks, K.

Image from Woman's Day website here

Overall, I'm pretty impressed how easy it is. The hardest part of the whole ordeal has been choosing the different types of fabric. I thought I'd share my steps and say that if I can do it, I'm sure all of you can.

Miss J's Easy-Peasy Bunting

You will need:

• fabric - depending on the width of the material you get, and the amount of bunting you want. I bought 2m of two different types of material, and 1m of two different types (so all up 6m of material). I've made about 150 triangles of 15cm wide x 20cm tall, and still have plenty of material left over in case of accidents/emergencies (with two crazy cats in the house, there are always emergencies).
• bias binding - at least 1/2 inch, but it's easier with wider binding. You can make it out of your material, but do yourself a favour and buy it - it's much easier!
• iron on adhesive - to make it really easy for yourself! This will mean you don't have to do any sewing, or will make it easier when sewing through a machine.
• pinking shears - to make it even easier! If you cut the edges of your flags with pinking shears, they won't fray and they'll have a lovely wavy edge. I didn't bother with these as my material doesn't fray (and new pinking shears would have set me back $50 from my local Spotlight). Ps: Fray away (or whatever it's called) that you paint on to stop material from fraying will work instead.
• paper - to make templates
• pins - to pin your templates to your material
• and the obvious: thread and needles, or thread and sewing machine.

Choose your fabrics. I picked four different patterned materials that will form 5 different patterns (I've cut the striped material both ways, so there are triangles with the stripes going across, and some with stripes running down the material).

Make yourself a template to help cut out your shapes. I chose triangles because I think it looks neater, but you could do semi-circles, rectangles, dodecahedra (if someone does this, I'll need to see photos!) - whatever takes your fancy. I found that the templates were easier in paper rather than cardboard, because it was easier to pin paper to the fabric.

Cut out hundreds and hundreds of shapes. LITERALLY. I conned my mum and sister to come help - we made it fun with coffee, champagne and cheese. I STILL haven't finished cutting out all the shapes. Cut the edges of your flags with pinking shears to stop frays. I didn't do this step, so there are no photos of that.

Arrange your flags in order on the floor before you start sewing/pinning/sticking. This way you can see if the patterns look nice together, or whether they need to go in a different order. This did actually make a difference!

Lay your bias binding out, and cut to size. I still haven't worked out how long mine will need to be. Fold the end of the bias in, then fold in half. This will ensure that your bias won't fray, and will look neat and finished. Tuck your iron-on adhesive strips in now, too. Stitch only the folded part. This will make the next step easier.




This is the trickiest part: tuck your triangles into the folded bias, so that there is bias on both the front and the back of the triangle. Leave a little bit of bias free, as it will be how you tie your bunting to make it flap in the wind. It should look as if it's been tucked into a little pocket. Repeat until you have a decent length of bunting.



Iron your triangles into the bias so the adhesive sticks (or so the bias is completely folded over).
Sew either a zigzag stitch, or a straight stitch along the bias to ensure the flags are sturdy. NO PICTURE OF THIS YET, AS I HAVEN'T GOT TO THIS STAGE. If only work wouldn't keep getting in the way of my creative endeavours!

Sit back and admire your handiwork (this works best with a glass of wine/beer).

What are you all DIYing?

Regime change

Hello. It's time for a regime change. While the girl human (also known as Mother) has a half day of work, I am in charge.

This is me. I am Lilly. At the end of a long work day, I like food, cuddles, and attacking the boy human (also known as Father, or G as Mother calls him on here).

This is me rocking a tie. I love masculine oriented fashion, don't you? I had just returned home from the coalface. I find a soothing sleep helps me forget the day. I'm a model, don't you know? I've been used on numerous websites. I'm hoping to break into television.

I love sleeping on my chair outside. That's my towel. No-one else can sit on that towel.

I have a little sister called Poppy. She's annoying. This is her:

She's not really so little. She's only 18 months old and she's bigger than me - she weighs 5 kilos already! It's because she lives on carbs and doesn't watch her weight like I do. Can't you see?

I'm trying to get away from her. Notice how we've destroyed the brush screening on Mother and Father's fence. I'm trying to rip it off so they can replace it. Brush is SOO last year, don't you agree? Bamboo fencing is so RIGHT NOW.

Poppy always sneaks up on me. See:

I didn't even know she was there! She's trying to encroach on my beautiful lilac blanket. She has a green one but she always gets it dirty. How gorgeous do I look on the purple?

Yawn. I'm getting a bit tired. I might go and have a cat nap before the humans get home and want to pat me. I must get my beauty rest to look my best. I'm sure I will talk to you all again soon since Mother is rather busy with all the wedding and lesson planning.

I'm off to sleep in Mother's closet. Perhaps I may borrow some of her clothes....or maybe not. She's not as much into labels as I am.