engagement #4

Ok so this is a game, but after all the hours put into it I decided the much talked about twister quilt (which is actually and sadly not quilted) deserved a post all of it’s own!

Here it is in all it’s glory, cute and patchworky and fun!To make I googled pictures of the original twister game and made it larger (8 circles x 8 circles) so lots of people could play together, I’m sure around 20 could play at once.
For the quilt front I used sheeting - it was the only material whose width was long enough. For the circles I once again headed to spotlight’s sale rack and came away with these fun prints (some at only $2 a metre!!) I cut out circles with a 21cm diameter and used visafix to adhere them to the quilt top (although this step isn’t necessary & some I just tacked on roughly). Then I zig zagged around them to secure.For the quilt back I used the leftover fabric and pieced together large 30 x 30 cm squares (easy!). I then had to put a white boarder around them because in my excitement and rush I forgot to add in some seam allowances. The idea is that the quilt is reversible and M and I can use either side for many picnics to come. I also quickly and roughly sewed the back and front wrong sides together before sewing on the binding on to secure them together.
And I even made my own binding, which is the first time I have ever done this & I may be hooked!! A few chats with Fairlight who gave me some tips and encouragement and this youtube video and I decided to give it ago – I’m so happy with how it turned out, so much nicer than store bought binding!
Because it is meant to be a picnic quilt and used outdoors I also added some tags which were placed into the ground with tent pegs and helped the mat not to scrunch up under foot.For the spinner I scanned the fabrics and photoshopped them into a simple a design which I simply printed and then taped onto thick cardstock. For the spinner we borrowed one from another game and drilled a whole through the cardstock to attach it to the board. – it took all of about 15 mins.
I didn’t get to play myself on the day (I did play the night before with cousins) but plenty of our guests adults (including my parents) and kids alike had fun getting twisted in knots! Here is Aunty Mandy and Aaron and Jesse having a go:
One of our guests even commented on what a great idea it was and how it could even become a family heirloom and how our grandchildren could even bring out the famous twister quilt one day (when it’s possibly even more scrappy) and play– oh how that just makes my heart sing!!

engagement #3

The Games & Entertainment.

Who doesn’t love party games? When brainstorming ideas for our party we knew we wanted to create an afternoon that was fun for our guests as it was for us and had lots to keep them occupied (as well as catering for our littlest guests too).

We set up an area for boules and dad, cut some mdf and timber scraps to make some signs, which we painted in chalkboard paint (similar to the signs I made at my 21st).

Morgan also made a quiz of us and our relationship history which got the guests mingling and lead into our speeches. Oh my Morgan's speech was so gorgeous! he absolutely hates public speaking but he pulled off the best speech I have ever heard him make! We made it so that at least a few of the guests would know each answer with the idea that guests had to chat amongst themselves to exchange answers. It got quite a few laughs, particularly questions number 8 which Morgan will never live down that he wrote 'picadi' instead of 'barcadi' , something I didn’t pick up – yeah we are totally not big drinkers ;)
He put so much effort into it, making one of his amazing excel spreadsheets with places for scoring and columns which added up and it was great to see him enjoy creating something for the day. I wanted to make them pretty and print them out on graph paper, but unfortunately M was right and they were too flimsy and hard to print, so we compromised and I incorporated our little m+k=<3 logo at the top - there's some good marriage practice right there ;) For our last question we asked our guests to write down their favourite M + K memory (if they had one) and they were such fun to read and reminisce over. One of my favourites was our friend Tim who said something to the effect of “When I asked Morgan to check out the new girl at school for me to see if she liked me and then he went and married her instead!”

We also left large buckets of jumbo chalk on the driveway for our littlest guests & they turned the driveway into a work of art & seemed to have a lot of fun and some covered in chalk!! Welcome to hopscotch city! Created by sweet little Isabel and her brother Ben. I played along with the kids for awhile, which resulted in lots of giggles - some of those hopscotches were pretty hard & I was just no good at it!

I also love how the kids covered the driveway in m<3 k!
This is me with sweet and crazy Ebonie and her artwork.

engagement #2

The Food.

Yes, the menu deserves a post all of it's own!
It was scrumptious - oh my Morgan's mum and his Aunty Mandy did such an amazing job catering for over 100 guests! (with help from my mum, M's cousins Aaron and Jesse and sister Paige too).
For mains we served a Chicken Ceaser salad and Lamb salad
- Recipe here (seriously this is a super yummy salad).
Which were served in noodle boxes left over from another party :)
For Drinks we had red punch, champagne, a tea and coffee bar and homemade lemonade (found here) - an easy recipe and an absolute Morgan favourite. Morgan's cousin's Jesse and Aaron did an awesome job juicing ALL the lemons, making the sugar syrup and putting it all together - I seriously didn't have to do a thing! To serve I used one of Morgan's mums large cookie jars, a soup ladle and made a cute label - using the graph paper to keep with our m+k=<3 theme.
We used this cupcake toppers tutorial & instead secured the flags onto our straws (such a fun and cheap idea).We then placed them on the drinks table in jam jars (we collected so many!) and placed pens and nearby asking guests to label their flag.
frame reads: "Is that mine? write your name on your straw to keep track of your drink throughout the afternoon".
Here are Morgan and mine (we drank from jam jars):
Some of the guests came up with quite fun and quirky things to write on their straws. There was a few 'bridesmaids' and my brother's which read 'Stuart - awesome groomsman!'
For our cake we made over 200 cupcakes. Which M's mum, my mum and myself made a few days before the event. M's cousin Jesse turned out to be a champion cupcake icer (and SUCH a help!) and M's sister Paige made the icing (around 7 batches!!) while Jesse and I iced away.It took around 5 hours & the kitchen table was filled with cupcakes and the total supply of containers from two households!! The icing was actually very quick and easy and most of the time was used waiting for the sugar, water and gelatine to come to room temperature. As you can imagine by the 7th batch of icing we were total pros and had it down pat with everyone knowing their roles!
I once again borrowed Niki’s circle cutter and photoshopped and cut little cupcake toppers to match our invites – they looked very cute when served.
Our other dessert option was fruit platters and M’s mums home made pies. I’m sad to say I don’t have photos of either - the berry and peach pies were so scrumptious and country looking and Aunty Mandy used small cookie cutters to cut some watermelon and rockmelon stars and love hearts, which were placed on top of the fruit platter – too cute!
I also made some cute labels and placed on some jars which we filled with lollies and placed in strategic places around the garden.
And there was a plan to decorate strawberries with milk and white chocolate, but there was a shortage up in qld due to the weather – how sad!
still there was definitely plenty of yummies to go around!!
And I may have just had more than one serving of a few items - just maybe ;)

engagement #1

So our engagement party was SO much fun!!
We were seriously on a high for.... AGES! (Can u tell I still am?!)
We enjoyed preparing and cooking (with LOTS of help!!), the party itself, opening our presents, playing with our presents (we decided to try some of the electrical presents as many only had a 1 year warranty which will expire before we actually tie the knot!), packing away and sorting presents, reading our cards and notes and memories left by guests, laughing over photos and reminiscing :)
There is just too much to show in one post, so I'll start with our invites which set the theme for the party:

simple
a little country
picnic style
a red & orange colour theme
and a M+K= <3 theme (which many of our guests cleverly used too!)

We also used these free down loadable polka dot mailing labels in orange on the envelopes.
cute huh?!

engaged + lots of pictures!

One of my lovely friends (and bridesmaid) Leesa was sweet enough to take some engagement photos of me and Morgan.
We got to spend the night before visiting with them in their little home lovingly nicknamed 'The Shoebox' because it is so small, playing articulate, trying on wedding dresses (for another photo shoot), enjoying dinner together and her husband Sam was sweet enough to sleep on the couch so I could sleep in their bed with Leese, thanks Sam :)
We then spent the day up in beautiful Newcastle at the old baths (doesn't it remind you of pictures of Greece?), at the fair (which just happened to be in town), the park and downtown Newcastle.
of course I love them all and their not even properly edited yet :)

Yup I am tall, but at 6'2" tall M wins
& it's tippy toes for me to reach those smackable lips :)