Two weeks in a row!

It would've been so nice to get outside to take this outfit shot, it would've been even nicer to have been outside, needing sunglasses. But no, it's blowing a gale and I'm staying firming inside.

I love Rachel Bilson's style (got a bit of a girl crush going on) so I had to join in this week - got to be a quick post though... lots to get through today!


Pop over to see Megan and Nora, the Inspiration Monday hosts. Next week it's Gigi Hadid* in super skinny jeans.

*who?

6am - An early start - it was still flippin' dark outside - to bake some chocolate brownies for a clothes swap I'd organised. I'd completely forgotten all about it until about 10am Friday night. Talk about a panic!

7am - I had one batch of brownies on the cooling tray an another in the oven.

8am - Whilst I was rushing around getting ready. Tink was curled into a neat little ball, occasionally she'd look up at me and blink before returning to her snooze.

9am - I noticed this little fella under my truck as I was loading up, I moved him to a plant. By the time I got home, he'd gone so I'm hoping he made it.


10am - Set up and ready for the swap to begin.

11am - Feeling a little eleven o'clockish, I was on kitchen duty.

12pm - The Clothes Swap was starting to wind down, it was an OK turnout, not as busy as usual but we raised £128 which isn't far off what we normally raise so I'm happy with that.

1pm - The clothes swap finished, we had Krispy Kremes left. I resisted on account of my brownie breakfast but they smelled so good.


2pm - Arrived home to find several wedding RSVPs waiting for me. The best haul yet and the song requests are getting good! Some of my friends are yet to reply because they can't decide on a song, one saying 'this is harder than a pub quiz!'

3pm - After completing some designs I've been working on this week, I realised I hadn't had lunch. Houmous all the way.

4pm - Some wedding admin, made all the more enjoyable by the doodles of my bridesmaid.

5pm - A pot of tea, some menu planning and a Tesco grocery order. The recipe is Bloody Mary Beef, sounds good eh?


6pm - Relaxed for a while watching E4 before heading back upstairs to my office to do some work before supper.

7pm - Andy cooked us Smokey BBQ Fajitas

8pm - Watching TV with the cats.

9pm - Still watching TV - I needed a night of doing very little. We've started to watch Take Me Out. I have no idea why.


10pm - A cheeky glass of red before bed.

Thanks to Jane and Louisa for setting the dates for A Photo An Hour, pop over to their blogs and see what they got up to.

Once the venues where booked my next big task (after finding the dress!) was to get the wedding invitations sorted. I knew I'd be designing them myself, I saw no sense in asking someone else to design them for us, especially as I had a pretty good idea about how I wanted them to look. And as my friend once told me, 'why have a dog and bark yourself?'


I had them printed by Moo. I opted for the Luxe option (meaning I could have a red stripe to the edge) for the invitation and RSVP / song request card and ordered the square business cards for our gift list information. Meanwhile, I found brown envelopes to send them out in and small red envelopes for the RSVPs on Amazon, along with some shiny gold hearts. I printed several pages of stripes to cut out and use as the bands to hold everything together.

I enlisted the help of my Mum and Sister-in-law to put them together and we sat around one afternoon chatting, drinking tea and stuffing envelopes, all the while talking about the wedding.


For the RSVP envelopes we used an address stamp from The English Stamp Company, my SIL had them done in no time at all.

That evening I set about hand writing all the addresses - printing them onto sticky address labels would've been so much simpler but I wanted them to be done by hand - so I only have myself to blame for the hand cramp. It was worth the effort though.

To seal the envelopes I used a small damp sponge - no on needs to lick that many envelopes in one sitting - and I can't recommend this method highly enough.


I was so excited to start receiving the RSVPs, although our first reply was a decline on account of them being on holiday, but since then we've had 3 more replies and all can attend.

People are coming...

Shiz just got real!

It's been ages since I took part in an Inspiration Monday. Once I stopped I fell out of the habit but when I saw this week's inspiration picture, I knew it would be easy to recreate with items already in my wardrobe.

The inspiration this week is Kate Hudson in a casual outfit, although my take is slightly less glam in flat boots, no designer handbag.

This jacket first made an appearance in October 2012 when I first met Sophie and Caroline. It's been a staple in my wardrobe ever since. It's pretty lightweight but warm and has good sized pockets - big enough to hold my purse and phone and pop out bagless.



I'd made myself a promise at the beginning of 2015 that I wouldn't buy anymore scarves, but this is so soft and snuggly, not to mention only £9.00 in the sale, I couldn't resist. It's also more of a snood, so I'm letting myself off on a sneaky technicality.

Pop on over to Two Birds Boutique to see how others have styled this look. Next week's Inspiration Monday is Rachel Bilson, can I manage two weeks in a row?

Did you have a good weekend? Mine consisted of some patchwork, some reading and some actual work - I'm designing a logo that you'll be able to see online pretty soon!

(Let's just gloss over the fact that I should've posted this at the beginning of February 'k? Cool.)

I often look back over blog posts and see what I was doing a year ago, two years ago... February always seems to be a month when I try to be frugal. Frugal March doesn't have quite the same ring to it does it? Being frugal while trying to plan a wedding is laughable. Necessary spending is allowed but at what point do 72 tealight holders become a necessity? I'd hazard a guess at never...

Still, I like to revisit experiments on this here blog and I see no reason why February this year shouldn't be frugal too (wedding aside).

In Feb 2012 I styled up my most recent purchases in three different ways and I really enjoyed it - see part 1 / 2 / 3 / 4.  So as well as cutting out any unnecessary spending this month, I'll also be revisiting this little wardrobe challenge.


Four of the 10 items I styled back then remain in my wardrobe - (above l - r) the Zara jeans, the Dorothy Perkins boots, the pink Custard Designs bag and the Very riding boots. I don't wear / use any of these on a regular basis anymore so I think it'll be fun to style them up again. First off I'll try to recreate these outfits and then I'll find new ways to wear them.

Do you ever look back over old blog posts?  Do they inspire or make you cringe? Make you wish you still owed an item of clothing or make you dump something in a charity bag? I'd love to know.

Finding a wedding dress in my home town of Ipswich has been such a lovely experience. There are more shops than I realised and more choice than I anticipated. I only visited three of the shops as it was in the third that I found my dress.

The first boutique I visited was Just A Day Bridal. My Mum was busy so I ventured in alone, wondering if they thought I was some sad loner, trying on dresses for kicks. I was warmly welcomed and invited to peruse the rails to select dresses I wanted to try. I had so much fun - rails of lace, satin, chiffon, beading and ribbon where at my disposal. I've been told that some brides feel overwhelmed by this but I loved it.

The very first dress I tried was this Lou Lou tea length dress, it swished and swayed beautifully. I wish I'd been allowed to take photos, if only to be able to show you here! I also tried something slinky with a cowl back, something with a pretty lace peplum and - just for shits and giggles - a pale pink pouffy strapless number, covered in flowers with the biggest skirt you've ever seen.


Next up I wandered into Grace and Lace, I hadn't made an appointment but they where very welcoming and having given them a budget and the stipulation that I didn't want strapless (which cuts down your options let me tell you) they happily selected dresses for me. It was here I found my biggest surprise, I was given a lace dress with a train (something I hadn't envisioned having) in a fishtail style. On the hanger I looked at it and thought 'yuck', but it was stunning. The shape gave me curves and the neckline gave me the illusion of boobs. Actual boobs! And even though I say so myself, my rear looked pretty damn hot in it too.



This is a perfect example of a picture not doing a dress justice - the fact that it doesn't fit the model very well doesn't help but the dress itself is so much nicer in the flesh. Moral of the story - when buying a wedding dress keep an open mind and try on everything.

I should say at this point I was thoroughly hooked and wanted to visit all the shops, every where.

I then waited a few days and, with Mum by my side, visited The Suffolk Bridal Company. I'd read about people putting on a dress and 'knowing it was the one' and as much as I'd like some of the dresses I'd tried I was intrigued to see if I would experience such a moment. I also wanted to share this experience with my Mum, I had no problem going it alone but this is a mother / daughter experience that shouldn't be missed.

I tried several dresses here, they had the biggest selection of dresses by far and the ladies were lovely. They made us a cup of tea as it was a pretty miserable day and my Mum and I had turned up looking rather bedraggled thanks to the rain (and I'd just come from the hairdressers!). I loved the first two I tried on, they were the closest to the sort of thing I'd had in mind so we put those to one side as 'possibles'.


The shoulder detail was so pretty on this Pronovias dress - lace covered in small, delicate chiffon flowers, with pearls and tiny diamante bead embellishments.


This dress was so lovely, the back was lace from the shoulders to the waist with tiny buttons up the back and it had a small sweeping train.

Then I tried on the final dress. I'd picked it off the rail because I liked the neckline and wanted to see how it looked on me. It blew all the other dresses well and truly out of the water. I'd fallen in love with it before I'd even seen my reflection in the mirror, I felt amazing. I looked at Mum and whispered, as I was incapable of normal speech, 'this is the one', then I cried. And then Mum cried. And then the lady in the shop cried.

Wearing jeans felt all kinds of ordinary after that.

I really wanted to get my patchwork quilt finished before March (because I started it on March 1st 2014 and wanted to finish within a year). But I'm not going to. This was made all to obvious to me when I placed it over the top of a king size quilt and saw how much more I need to do. I'm about half way there and that's taken me 11 months, albeit with some lengthy gaps when life got too busy to stitch.


It's not a great photo, I had to stand on a chair in the doorway, holding my camera above my head to get it all in. Apologies for Socks choosing that particular moment to wash his, erm, tail.

I've estimated that I need another 225 hexi flowers to complete the job. I can manage about 4 in an evening but this can leave me sore fingered so I couldn't (and wouldn't have the time) to do it every day. If I could manage every day it would still be 56 days to completion. I'm kinda disappointed but I'm enjoying it and I want to continue to do so. Perhaps a king size quilt was a little ambitious for a first project but I'm a 'go big or go home' kinda gal.

If I'm honest I am looking forward to picking up my knitting sticks again or doing some cross stitch, I have been resisting as I've been trying to focus on one project at a time but I think it could be time for a change. That said, I'm contemplating an 18 month deadline. Gotta love a deadline...






What projects do you have on the go?

Andy and I didn't give a lot of thought to why we wanted our wedding to be a certain way, we just both seemed to agree on what we did (and didn't) want and carried on from there. Reading Janet's post on why her and her fella are getting fake married made me stop and think about wedding traditions and their origins. So I did me some Googling...

Our day will consist of a small family ceremony followed by a big party and we're not upholding many traditions. The important thing for us is to be married, to have made a lifelong commitment to each other. Traditions, many of which are thoroughly outdated, just weren't important to us.

I will not be 'given away'

This stems from a time when a daughter was considered the property of her father. To be given away was the transfer of ownership (usually for a price) from father to groom. The guests where there to witness the transaction.

I hadn't realised until I read Janet's post, but I've subconsciously avoided asking 'to be given away'. I asked my Dad to walk me down the aisle (not that there is an aisle as such, but y'know). If I can get a little sentimental for a moment, there is nothing in this world that could part me from my Dad, he couldn't give me away if he tried.

I'm not wearing a veil

The veil originally symbolized the bride's virginity, innocence, and modesty.
source

Yeah, I won't be needing one of those.

We're not cutting the cake

The wedding cake has always been replete with symbolism, and the tradition of breaking the cake over the bride’s head dates back to the Ancient Romans. Customs evolve with the times, and today the ceremonial cutting of the wedding cake has become one of the classic elements of the wedding reception. In addition to providing a great photo opportunity, it is symbolic as the first task the newlyweds execute together.
source

We're not in the least bit worried about missing this 'great photo opportunity', especially as it is now common for the bride and groom to smoosh the cake into each others face instead of feeding one and other. Nope, our cake will be cut and served without any interference from Andy and I, it'll be served with tea or coffee and remain all very civilised. Think me dull if you must but I don't want cake face, I just want cake.

We're not having a first dance

The first dance was originally (perhaps dating as far back as the 17th century) a tradition at balls that were held by wealthy families. It was custom for the guests of honor or the hosts to have the first dance of the evening. Once the first dance had been completed, everyone was invited to shake their corsets and powdered wigs on the dance floor. As it is with so many wedding traditions, this social norm of old was eventually translated to weddings.
source

I'll be the first to admit that I have enjoyed a large number of those first dance wedding videos on YouTube. Some are awesome. Some are awful. If you're confident and can dance - knock yourselves out - but Andy and I? Nope. We will have a drunken boogie at some point no doubt, but turning awkwardly in tiny circles with a crowd of people looking at us is not our idea of fun.

The venue we've booked for our reception has the option of a bubble machine for the first dance. I nearly cried laughing.

I'm not throwing the bouquet

In 14th Century England it was considered good luck to tear a piece from the brides dress or grab yourself a bloom from her bouquet, the having of which was believed to transfer some of her good luck to you. Throwing the bouquet became a bit of a decoy so the bride could leg it and save her dress.

I knew I wouldn't be doing this. I've always loathed this part of the evening. Having been single at many of the weddings I've attended I always thought this to be rather undignified, I'd hide myself from view until it was over. I simply had no interest in scrabbling around with other single ladies to win the bouquet and thus the chance of being the next down the aisle. There is more to being a woman than being a wife, and not all single women are desperate to find a husband and get married.

No Garter

The garter from the bride comes from the ancient custom of witnesses at the marriage bed* (to make sure the couple consummated the marriage); the witnesses would bring it forth as a sign of the witnessing. It became such a violation of privacy** that eventually the bride would have the groom throw it to prove consummation. This is one of the oldest customs surviving wedding rituals.
source

*WTF!
**No kidding.
I'd never even thought about whether or not I'd wear a garter. The only thing I've though about putting under my wedding dress is a pedometer. I'd be rather interested to see how far I walk on the day... is that odd?

Of course, I've enjoyed watching my friends cut their wedding cakes, I've smiled at the sight of my friends in their veils and enjoyed watching the first dance at many weddings but they're just not for us. If all this talk of what we're not doing makes us sound rather dull I don't care, we have a full day planned that is very 'us'. And I can't wait.

What traditions would/wouldn't you or did/didn't you have? I'd love to know.

Well duh!

This nugget of wisdom has changed the way I think about running. You'd think I would've worked this out for myself before now, but nope - it took this pin for the penny to drop.

One thing I knew I wanted was a long sleeve top with thumb holes. I can't stand having cold hands at the best of times and it seems to make running unbearable. I also needed an extra pair of running tights (why don't they just call them leggings?), running in the wet and mud teamed with trying to run more regularly means I needed back up.

I'd seen Fabletics advertised on Facebook (every so often one sneaky little ad gets into my subconscious and does it's thing) so I checked out their website and less than ten minutes later had signed up and ordered an outfit consisting of leggings, top and beanie. With an introductory half price offer I got the lot for £36.00 which I thought was very reasonable.

For my first run in this little lot it was cold, there was snow on the ground, so they were really put through their paces. The leggings are nice and thick and have a deep waistband which I find really comfy. The top is larger than expected but has my prerequisite thumb holes and is long enough for some good bum coverage. As it's quite thin I can wear a fleece over the top that I bought eons ago - it's lightweight but super warm.


The hat is larger than expected but kept my head toasty without getting hot. Being able to pull it down over my ears stopped my ear buds from falling out, which they have been known to do more than once - extra bonus.

Overall I like everything and am pleased with the quality.

From this point on I can get an outfit every month from £44.00, if I want to skip an month I just log on between the 1st - 5th of the month to skip it. I've popped a note in my diary to remind me in case I don't want anything, it also means I have time to review my purchases and earn points for each one. 1,000 points gets you a free outfit - I know they cover the cost of it in the other outfits I'll buy but it'll seem free when the time comes and that's exciting.

It's easy to skip a month, I've already skipped February as I've only just received my first outfit but I've looked at the other outfits and they look pretty good.

In my last post about running Elise commented that she gets 'suddenly psyched up for the gym' when she gets new kit and I think there is something to that. Not only do I love wearing new purchases but I'm dreading my run less now that I have some more suitable clothing. Am I running faster? No. Is it any easier? Nope. But I'm more comfortable and that goes a long way to making it more enjoyable.

Where do you get your workout gear?