down in the fairy garden

I didn't make many Christmas gifts this year - it was too crazy a season for that. But when I picked up these cute (and on sale) tutus from Cotton On Kids for my cousins little girls, I was bought back to one of my own childhood Christmas'. The year my crafty Aunt created these beautiful fairy costumes for each of the younger nieces - blue for Matilda, apricot for Sarah and baby pink for the baby at the time - me. I remember loving that fairy costume so much that I knew I just had to make some monogrammed fairy wands and crowns to send to Keara and Imogen too! It was such a cheap and easy project. I already had the wands (I got mine from the local art shop) and most of the trimmings on hand. Inspired by these beautiful crowns made by blogger Nie Nie I used some vintage book pages and song books I had on hand and went to town with all the trimmings. I loved the way they turned out!!!

Of course my little models are thousands of kilometeres away living the expat life in Dubai right now but I had Mr A help snap some pictures of me modelling the pretties so you can all see.  

oh and sorry for the photo dump ... MY Santa bought me a 50mm Nikkor lens for Christmas!! It has changed my world - love love it!

showering marlo

The fun thing about working in the event industry and being surrounded by such fun and lovely products is that you can throw the funnest (and prettiest) little work parties, using lots of yummy showroom pieces for FREE.

A few weeks ago Jacqui (the stylist I assist) and myself got to organize a little goodbye baby shower for our Wedding Stylist Marlo who has just left to go on maternity leave.
We decided to throw an afternoon tea send off in our showroom. And we (but prob more me) may have got a little excited about the whole thing - you can't make corporate events look this cute you know!!

The above image is the story board and sketch I put together for our afternoon tea table spread and below are some pictures of how it actually turned out. Unfortunately I forgot my camera that day and had to use one of the other girls point and shoot, but you get the general idea. 

we even made the bunnies put on their bow ties for the occasion - too fun, huh!

PSSST: my two sweet cousins are now blogging - yay! You can find their blogs here and here.
I'm really excited particularly as I have been bugging this one to blog for ages. You see, she is living a really interesting life in Dubai right now and we really miss her and her two littles! And you may just be inspired (or get really hungry) by Rach's and her man James cooking!
They are new to this wonderful online community - so won't you stop on by and show some love?

summer toes

this is where you'll find me on Sunday afternoons ...

barefoot and daggy (and not pregnant!) in the garage stripping layers of paint of an antique cupboard I saved from the side of the road a few months before our wedding - in absolute pouring rain too :)

It feels so good to get stuck into it now and get rid of a thick layer of mission brown paint...

then fluro green ...

then a yellow stained white.
noice!

Once this cupboard is restored it will go in our spare room/studio craft room to store (hopefully) all my fabrics and craft supplies.

I have plans to paint it a fun colour, but am having a hard time deciding what colour exactly...

any suggestions?

I have no real inspiration or starting point for that room yet - I think I may need to spread my resene paint colours over the floor in that room and see if anything grabs me.

in the meantime here some inspiration images of cute painted furniture:

source

 

 

Can't wait to hear your ideas :)

we've been published!!!!!!!

we've been published...
well our amazing wedding photographer Christine has.
Check out our engagement session in this new inspiring book of handmade lovelies.
It is so weird seeing your face published in a book! Especially a book so up my alley ... handmade creative goodies - umm yes please!!
You can grab your copy of 'Handmade Living - a designer collection' from here.

We are eagerly awaiting out copy which Christine is blessing us with - I can't wait to see it in person!
will do a little review then.

All images are Miss Christine's.

ps. Thanks for all your sweet comments on my last post. It is so good to be back and posting. I thought after a seven long months I might have lost a few followers... but thanks for sticking around - you guys make me feel so loved :) 

super gorgeous girls

We now have a full bridal party & can I just say that my bridesmaids are amazing and fun and oh so cute! They have even made themselves a private facebook group (which I am not privy to) to "To bring us all closer together in preparation for the big day!" aaww
I wanted to think of a fun way to ask these girls to have a special part in our day so I made them each a little card out of some lovely Heather Bailey scrapbooking paper and ribbon.
It was such a great idea because not only did I get to sit down and play with pretty paper but I got to really think why I wanted these girls to be my bridesmaids and what they mean to me (& M).
And it was fun to look at their faces as they read over the card and then came to the word 'bridesmaid' - in fact one of them even started crying :)

so would you like to meet them?

sarah.

My Maid of Honour

my amazing, sweet and beautiful cousin.

Miss Mac # 1 (but only cause shes the oldest - or so we have to keep telling her ;)

So many fun childhood memories, so many similar interests.

& so many laughs and good chats when we get together.

I love her fiercely!

plus she's so cute - she was SO super excited when I asked her and after screaming and hugging she went out and brought a 'bridesmaid handbook' and has been reading it ever since. She's also already starting to plan the hens and kitchen tea party and been in contact with dress makers too.

Paige.

Morgan's gorgeous sister.
so loving. so supportive. so helpful. so sweet. so caring. so fun to be around + to laugh with.
& SO glad I get her as my sister-in-law :)
She's also wedding-blog obsessed too and has been sharing lovely things she knows I will just adore.
and she's a frequent reader of my blog - hi lovely!!
and no she doesn't usually wear masks but I just adore this photo of her :) 

Leesa. 

my dearest friend since junior high school.
in 2007 we got her to the chapel to marry her prince + now it's her turn.
Leese is also the creative eye behind all our engagement photoshoot photos
& many of the photos at our engagement party.
she's creative, funny and super fun to be around too!!

 Corinne
I have been blessed to have known this funny and spunky girl for around 15 years!!
she is beautiful inside. outside and upside down.
not only does she makes our hairs look pretty
but she is also a great friend (to us both)
and we share such fun memories together as well as many little letters we have sent to each other over the years - oh my they are so funny to read over!

aren't they beautiful?

paper scraps.

Hurray - we finally finished writing all our thank you notes for our lovely engagement presents.
& wow we did seem to be writing forever!!We had quite a few scraps left over from the guest book (and all pre cut too!) so we used them to make our 'scrappy-thank yous.
It was as simple as cutting and folding some white cardstock (which was on hand from when we made the invites), some thank you's printed off on my new love - graph paper and a roll of double sided tape.& inside each card we incorporated our m+k theme..
& thank you to Mr M for helping me glue, stick, writing the envelopes and for writing the majority of these cards while I helped dictate - yes my left handed fiance has neater handwriting than me!
& also for that night where we couldn't breathe because we just laughed and laughed over how to word them when we got stuck on "thank you for the towels...!"
your just the best!

sweet birthday package.

It’s true, I love to shop for gifts, I also love to buy gifts and then wrap them all up.

But even more than that…
I love to make birthday gifts for special people in my life.So that’s just what I did for one of our dear friends Rinny who just had her birthday (and also just got a new macbook!!) I jumped at the chance to make her a lovely little laptop cozy (similar to mine).Then I had fun wrapping it all up :)!

Oh yes, and I am still quite obsessed with brown paper packages, paper doilys and pegs ;)

engagement #6

The Guestbook.
I am so glad we decided to put a guest book together. Not only did it give our guests something fun to do during the party, but we got some really neat responses and they were so fun to sit down at breakfast the next morning and read together. I am planning to scrapbook them together in an album with our engagement photos and photos from the party.To set up it was as easy as hanging twine between two palm trees, supplying some pens (provided in jam jars of course), a vase full of pegs, a vase full of scrap booking paper which I cut into small squares and some instructions. We also used the string to display some of our favourites images from our engagement photo shoot.
The papers and photos looked so pretty all hanging up they were the last decorations to come down too!!Here are some of our favourites:

“Grandma and Grandpa (the original young lovers) are so happy to see you continuing on our family tradition. Lots of babies for God and country please
xxx love ooo”

“Make sure your couch is longer than 6ft so I can sleep on it”

"Still learning about wisdom... but so far this is what I know.. don't stop talking :)"
"Dear Ktbear & Morgan hmm a word of wisdom what can I say? be grateful for every act of kindness. Remember to say thank you"
“Katie I love you and Morgan love ebonie”
From my parents: