A few more DIY projects..........

My Aunt's dad restores sewing machines and he'd set this one aside for me as a wedding present from my two younger sisters.  However, i've been using it already and think it's quite sentimental that the order of services were bound using it.  The machine is 100 years old this year and was made in a factory in Scotland (which at the time was the biggest producer of sewing machines in the world!).  The Singer company has a website where you can type in the sewing machines serial number and it tells you all about it's production date etc.  I wonder who originally owned this machine?  It must have made alot of items of clothing and cushion covers and aprons etc, a piece of history..........

This is my mum doing another repetitive job!  I had to turn the handle for her :)

This is all the favours that mum and I made, we bought the jars and lids months ago and cut the toppers out of the scrap bridesmaid dress material and some other fabric that we bought in John Lewis.  We also made all the jams ourselves and only had one disaster where a pot slipped out my hand (with no lid on) and jam went everywhere! oops!

A close up of our personalised labels complete with the phrase 'David and Abby's wedding, 7th of August 2010'.

I won a bargain on e-bay, a chunky solid pine dining table and four chairs complete with cushions.  We sanded back the table and Dad re-waxed and buffed it :)

A cute photo to finish.....David always has his head in a book except this one is a kids book about dinasours :)

More wedding prep!

David helping Dad construct the photo-booth that will be at our reception.  It will be medically themed and contain props and posters :)

David posting our precious invitations, a great moment!! Just have to wait for all the RSVP's now :)

hand made block letters x x x

So these are the blocks that we made to go along the front of the top table.  My mum, fiance and I painted these blocks with two layers of different coloured paint, sanded them to make them look rustic and then I hand painted these letters on......cool hey :)

And the wedding planning continues.......

So there are less than 150 days to go until the wedding! Everyone tells me it will fly by but at the moment it feels like time is slowing down and I just can't wait for the summer..  The international invitations have been sent out and the rest will be sent out at the beginning of May (have mini party!) Then the next phase of planning (i.e. table plans etc) will swing into action :)

I decided to create a massive sign which will slip over the current sign outside our reception entrance.  However, once i started this little project, i realised it would take much longer than previously anticipated! Had to cut out a template for all the letters, pin them onto coloured fabric, cut that out, size up the background fabric, pin the letters onto this, stitch all the letters on with sewing machine, phew! I stuck at it though and am pleased with the final result (although i wont be getting an A* for craftsmanship!).

And here's Dad putting together a mock up of our centre pieces, i love them!  There's going to be cute little butterflies nestling on a couple of the apples :) Very rustic (and cheap to make)

Wedding prep scrapbook x x x x

 

Here's Mum assembling the invitations, the final stage in a very very long process!  I thought these would never get finished but all that's left to do is stick a photo of David and I in there and write the guests names, I think we're going to have a little party when they go down to the postbox!

  

 These are the little 3" figures that are going on the front of our order of services.  A little brown boy and a little beige girl with a mini diamante on her left hand, cute :) They were all cut out on Auntie Gillies 'Slice machine', perfect!

 

And finally, painting the numbers that will make up part of the centre pieces, I love doing all the little crafty bits for the wedding, my old bedroom is now the wedding storage room.

I love the brown, pink and green combination :)

I've decided to create a 'mini album' to chart the journey from now until our wedding day which is 199 days away, woop woop! It will include photos of the wedding dress fitting (although these photos wont go in until the wedding itself, obviously).  It will have photos from rehearsals, appointments with the florist, making the bridesmaid dresses, stitching the ring cushion etc etc, so excited x

This is a layout I put together from the christmas holidays.  I've used a few of the bargains I got in the sale and an antelope sticker from a set I bought at paperchase for only £1 :) Also love the little pearls.

This is a simple layout that shows one of the cutest things David has said to me, so romantic :)  I love you baby x x x x

Norway scrapbook with my January sale bargains!

A view from up the T.V tower, we could see across the whole of Stavanger and out into the fjord.  There was plenty of wind chill!

 

The mini letters were 10p for a big sheet with hundreds of letters on it! An absolute bargain and perfect for mini books :)  Need to add the journalling when I've got a quiet moment.

 

  

The tabs are by October Afternoon and are really easy and effective to use, love them :)  Pulpit rock is a three hour hike up steep and slippery rocks but it gives stunning views out over the fjord and you can dangle your legs over the edge because the rock is as flat as a table :)

 

 

 

 

This photo was taken at dusk hence the poor lighting.  It's of the four Canadian girls who did a semester of nursing placement in Norway and wanted a picture in front of the towns famous three swords monument.

My December ...........

Went for a frosty festive walk in the local forest, I love living near the countryside :)

 

Quite pleased with the framing of this photo :)

Making gingerbread men with my little sister for christmas eve :)

At the end of November I went on a mini break to Norway to visit one of my bridesmaids, we had a great time hanging out, as usual!  She's Canadian and spent four months out there on a nursing placement.

We went on a boat trip up one of the fjords and were treated to some fresh mountain water straight off a waterfall, cool! When I've caught up on my Norway (and the rest of December!) scrapbooking, I'll post all the pages/layouts up here :)

Battersea and Ben Hur!

David had planned a suprise for me and I knew several months before that we were going somewhere exciting! I had no idea what I was about to be treated to but when we arrived at the O2 he told me we were going to watch the world premier of Ben Hur live and it was incredible!!  The chariot race was amazing and the music and number of actors made for a spectacular show, I had a great night, thanks gorgeous :)

 

The O2 arena is amazing and we had great seats.  I used the tickets packet at the top of the page and some of my thickers to creat the title.  The journalling card is by October Afternoon and is framed by Making Memories paint and some bling.

 

We celebrated bonfire night at Battersea Park where the theme was love.  All the fireworks exploded in time with the music and the songs included 'Kings of Leon' and 'Westlife'.  It was so cool.  We also had sparklers and after the display, went to Tooting Common to release a wish lantern :)  A great evening.

I love this tree paper by 'Crate Paper' and have been waiting to use this this 'firework' embellishment for ages!

My new recipe book...............

Thinking ahead to married life i know it will be important to have a good supply of recipes for dinner parties, when family come round or just for a nice night in. And of course i had to have a handmade scrapbook one for all my favourite recipes that i'm going to gather over the next few months :)

(sorry about the poor lighting on the photo but i was at uni today and it's getting dark so early in the evening now!)

I've got chapter cover pages for all food areas such as seafood, meat, starters, desserts and bread, well excited!! Alot of the papers are from October afternoon and i used lots of my new 'thickers' so i'm really pleased with how it all looks :)

I really wanted to do a layout yesterday but had no new photo's to scrapbook so i dug out this one from months ago.  I made David a massive poster with a little story on it and substituted some of the words with chocolate bars, for example 'I love it when you wispa in my ear'.

Here's a very autumnal layout and i love the background paper which is from the Nutmeg range by Cosmo Cricket, there stuff is so cool!!!  The little photo in the bottom left corner is a message i wrote in the condensation of Davids window and reads 'I love David more than scrapbooking'.

Looking forward to fireworks in London tomorrow but will sadly miss the x-factor (which is where You Tube comes in handy :)