Bespoke Invitations

Ok, so been doing more wedding planning recently and was really struggling to find invitations that a) matched my vision and b) matched by budget too!

However I came across the most wonderful website at bespokeweddings.net

and have fallen in love with the invitations that designer, Paul, created to my own brief.

I got a free, no obligation consultation where all I had to do was write a short paragraph about what was inspiring my wedding style and he got back to me with four of the most perfect invitations I have ever seen (and trust me I have seen many invites!)

We are definitely going to be using them for our invitations - now I just have to find a venue (!) and get our amazing invites ordered :-)

xxx

Summer clothes for Lily

I am so excited about this summer - it will be Lily's first summer and as she will be six months in June she will be the right age for all of the adorable summer clothes around! I can't wait to see her crawling about and exploring in these cute dresses! The birdcage print is by Vertbaudet and is just so funky, and the broderie anglaise by Next is tres chic - won't lily look adorable in her new outfits?!

xxx

I Love Next!

Im loving the new Next Spring/Summer range and can't wait to treat myself to some of their pieces.

I have an obsession with checked or boyfriend style shirts at the moment (luckily so does Scott so there are plenty in the house for me to steal!) Im also loving the light denim jeans and the feminine but casual striped cardigan in the bottom picture.

I'll be pairing my light denim jeans with a long white vest, a boyfriend shirt and my gladiator sandals - cute, relaxed but still fashionable!

xxx

Valentine's Day - Spreading the Love

In honour of Valentine's Day I thought I would share with you two of my favourite romantic poems:

I cannot promise You - Mark Twain

I cannot promise you a life of sunshine

I cannot promise riches, wealth or gold;

I cannot promise you and easy pathway,

That leads away from change or growing old.

But I can promise all my heart's devotion;

A smile to chase away your tears of sorry,

And a hand to hold in yours through each tomorrow.

Extract from Bei Hennef - DH Lawrence

You are the call and I am the answer,

You are the wish and I the fulfilment,

You are the night and I the day,

What else? It is perfect enough.

It is perfectly complete, you and I.

Have a blissful day - I know I will :-)

xxx

Nappies!

So originally we had planned to use reusable nappies, however the effort involved in drying them without using a tumble dryer made them pretty impractical - particularly as in our place there isn't much drying space!

Instead we are using disposables and have tried and tested a few different brands so here is a review:

The WORST nappy award, unfortunately, goes to 'Tesco'. We tried their newborn nappies for just three days as they were so bad we couldn't bear to subject Lily's poor bottom to them for any longer! They were leaky and badly shaped and resulted in six, yes SIX baby-gros and sleepsuits being thrown into the bin as they were ruined by the stains!

No Stars for 'Tesco' i'm afraid!

Just slightly better than the 'Tesco' nappies were the 'Huggies' newborn ones - we had fewer leaks with those but they were so badly shaped that they cut into our poor baby's thighs and left red marks on her legs. Ridiculous really, seeing as Lily was right at the starting weight for the nappy - let alone at the maximum weight and doesn't have chubby legs either!

1* for 'Huggies'

'Pampers' and 'Asda' are joint second. They were both reasonably well fitting and didn't leave marks on her thighs. However she has grown out of the newborn size a lot sooner than she has reached the supposed weight limit for the nappies. 'Pampers' claim that the nappies will fit until the baby is 11lbs, yet Lily-Rose is only 8lb 12oz and they are too small. Of course this means that half a packet has gone to waste! Exactly the same thing has happened with the 'Asda Little Angels' nappies. Also both styles, but particularly the 'Asda' range were very bulky underneath her little clothes.

2* for 'Pampers' and 'Asda'

By far the best nappies we have used for Lily-Rose have been the 'Sainsburys - Little Ones' range. Both the newborn and the Size 1 nappies have fitted Lily perfectly, we haven't had one leak and they aren't too bulky under her clothes - true perfection in a nappy! Then of course there is the price, just £3.74 for 24 nappies is a true bargain when they are of such good quality!

4* go to 'Sainsburys'

xxx

Swaddling Blanket

Lily-Rose is six weeks old now but when she was newborn the best way to get her to sleep was with the use of a swaddle.

Unfortunately we didn't think to buy a fancy swaddling blanket before she was born so when it came to bedtime she was wrapped in a plain cot blanket, which, to be honest is not a good look (she looked like a little wriggling maggot... albeit a beautiful one!)...

Which is why I now have an obsession with the beautiful swaddling blankets that I have been seeing EVERYWHERE now they have my attention!

And aren't these ones beauties... I want another baby now so I can justify the expense :-)

This one above is from www.handmadefootprince.com and is utterly adorable.

Other fun and pretty designs that I love are over on www.landofnod.com - in particular the 'Swaddle it Bee' blanket with its funky animal patterns :-)

xxx

New Life, New Start and New Blog!

Hello :-)

My goodness it has been such a long time since I have posted anything up here! I do have an excuse though as in the time I've been gone something very special has happened...

Our little girl Lily-Rose was born on the 4th January 2010!

I'll be posting up our home birth story soon so keep those peepers tuned :-)

I am absolutely loving being a mummy - it really is special (hard work and tiring but very special all the same!) and Scott is the most amazing dad - Lily is such a daddy's girl already!

xxx

Stationary Inspiration

Credits: D. Jones Photography, Wedding bee, Rochelle Mort, Blooms by Martha Andrews, Michelle Photography, Cake Stands by Raise the Cake, Linda Chaja, Erin Hearts Court, La Partie Events

Wedding Stationary

I think that the wedding stationary you have at a wedding is really important. For a start its the first glimpse of your wedding that prospective guests receive and it is also one of the easiest ways to infuse your personality and style into your big day. I put this board together to show my mum the sort of thing we are looking at for our handmade wedding stationary.

Because the stationary is so important to me I'm more than willing to spend a lot of time getting it just perfect - which helps when there are so many paper ideas that we want to incorporate into our wedding day.

We are looking at using a combination of thick cream papers and brown parcel-type paper for all of our wedding stationary and will be combining these materials with lots of personal touches such as quotes from our favorite movies, books and songs, handwriting and calligraphing all of the stationary and including lots of little extra special touches.

These extra special touches will include a personalized wedding crossword or word puzzle at each place setting, an information booklet including all local accommodation, taxi, sights and gift list information, a hand drawn map and directions insert and a wedding itinerary for our weekend guests. 

Inspiration Board - Simple and Fun summer wedding

Credits: Meg Baisden Photography, Erin Hearts Court, Heather Kincaid, Dia Rao

For me this board epitomizes the type of wedding we want. What could be nicer than a summers day wedding, all of our friends and family together in a beautiful house - BBQ and buffet in the garden… the sweet smell of summer flowers in the air… popping the corks from bottles of sparkling home-made lemonade… lemon drizzle cake on cream plates… children playing hula hoop and ball games on the grass… candles being lit all around as the sun goes down… touches of bright against a creamy white background… DIY touches to be found everywhere… Simple… Fun… Sweet… Beautiful…. ‘Us’… xxx

Sorry!

Hey sorry i've been so neglectful of posting in the past couple of weeks, 

had a lot on my mind and unfortunately having nappy brain and blogging don't really go hand in hand! I'll be making it up to you though with some great posts in the next few days.

Love alex

xxx

Grey wedding fashion

Credits: Studio Foto

Scott has always had a thing for grey suits and this was the one thing he ‘insisted’ upon for our wedding day - that he wanted to wear a grey three-piece suit and have his groomsmen in grey suits aswell. This was fine by me as i’m not too keen on black suits for weddings anyway and we certainly aren’t tux kind of people! 

Then when looking at all the different bridesmaid dresses out there I realized that I wanted my gorgeous girls in something a little bit different from the boring pink or burgundy dresses on sale everywhere - my first thought was LBDs but I have changed my mind… so in comes the LGD (little grey dress of course!).

 My maids all have very different skin tones and hair colours and body shapes so a fairly neutral colour like grey will suit everyone and I just fell in love with the gorgeous Melissa Sweet dresses. 

For the flower-girls I will be sticking to white but having grey sashes to tie in with the older girls. 

And of course I won’t be getting married without a pair of laboutins on my feet - and these silver/grey ones fit the bill entirely- so glamourous its no wonder they are called ‘Hollywood’!

xxx

DIY Touches

Credits: Meg Baisden Photography, Suthi Picotte, Kawartha Photography

I made up this board to showcase some of the DIY touches that I will be adding to our wedding (when it finally gets here!). Our budget might be low, but our creativity is certainly high and with my imagination (and hubby-to-be’s practicality) we hope to pull it off… it’s not like we don’t have enough time to plan either :-p

Most of our wedding will have a DIY touch incorporated in some way - from our invitations which we are hand-designing ourselves to our food, cake, flowers and favours. 

All of our flowers will be hand-done, incorporating a mixture of pure white and colourful arrangements in glass vases, jars and other miscellaneous holders. We’ve already got our friends and family collecting empty jam jars and vases for us to use!

DIY food touches will include lots of home-made cakes, cupcakes, pies and biscuits, mini personalized jars of honey and jam for our guests to take away and lots of donated items for our buffet! Along with all of our stationary we will be designing and printing our own labels for favours, water bottles and my personal favourite - our personalised matchboxes. Admittedly they aren’t an original idea but we will be having those printed on one side with our names and date of wedding and on the other the definition of marriage and the quote ‘the perfect match’. 

xxx

Wedding Flowers

Credits: Sedona Bride

When we first started looking at planning our wedding my original plan was to go with all white flowers but after a lot of thinking, and digging through the internet and bloggers archives I realized that I just couldn't visualize our wedding being white! 

I crave colour all of the time - my favourites are the bright ones - Red, Orange, Turquoise... And although I could put together lots of weddings that featured solely white colours I soon realized that those boards that I was diligently putting together weren't our wedding, they just weren't 'Us'. So i've scrapped that plan and now have settled on having a rather un-schemed colour scheme (if there is such a thing!) 

We are going to have a mixture of bright, fun, summery colours in arrangements that are loose and handmade. Like most of our wedding we will be DIY-ing the flowers so they will be in simple arrangements, loosely displayed in various glass vases, mason jars, jam jars and other eclectic holders.

Scott likes the idea of putting some flowers in metal buckets or baskets, which I think would look great (just as long as they were done 'right'). Even for my bouquet (which I am going to go for solely white and creamy flowers) will be loose, hand-tied and probably filled with peonies, roses and greenery.

The ideal look for our wedding flowers would be 'wild and rustic' but with a touch of care that shows how much work has gone into making them look gorgeous!

xxx

Feature on stylemepretty.com!

Credits: Jeff & Julia Woods, Jose Villa

How amazingly happy did it make me to log into my computer today, open up Stylemepretty.com (my favourite wedding blog) only to see that one of my own inspiration boards had been featured! 

Abby (the blog creator) had this to say about my work:

"Alexandria has the greatest sense of style, full of whimsy and charm, and really takes the time to articulate her vision. I've loved reading her blog and always look forward to what she's going to do next. Definitely worth a trip over to the Style Circle to read what this Style Guru is saying!"

Talk about praise! And not to blow my own trumpet here (but) I am pretty proud of the stuff that I put together and get so much enjoyment out of it all - the new Style Circle has certainly changed the way I put things together - it makes everything so much easier than copying and pasting into paint and there are so many beautiful images to choose from! 

Congratulations Abby on creating such a great resource for brides-to-be, and everyone else out there who loves a little inspiration!

xxx 

Bird and Owl themed baby shower

Credits: country living (2), ohdeedoh (2), Our baby shower (2), etsy (2), Country living (2), martha Stewart (2)

As you know from previous posts Scott and I have been thinking about adding a few bird-themed details to our wedding - little things like including birds in our stationary and having bird cake-toppers. Whilst on the web I came across loads of lovely ideas that could be used for a baby shower as well and what better theme could we have for our very own little 'Robin'?

The soft colours of Tiffany Blue, light yellow and pale pink are also the sorts of colours we will be going for in our nursery too - hopefully we will be able to reuse some of our baby shower decorations in there and vice-versa!

The Lemon souffle looks so yummy and served in mini white ramekins, decorated with lemon peel it looks almost too good to eat - as do the little bluebird cupcakes!

The cake is great fun - i love the colours, the whimsicality of the design and the cute little owls on top - its just too sweet! The nappy cake is a traditional baby shower decoration, but this one has mixed it up a bit and ties in perfectly with the theme as its decorated with birdhouses and mini birds - so cute!

Now i've just got to hope that my girlie mates see this and decide to go with a bird theme for our baby shower :-p

xxx

Nursery Inspiration Board

Credits: Vintage modern nursery (2), Pottery barn (2), I-do Australia (2), google images (4)

As you all know me and Scott are expecting our first baby on January 6th (not long now!) and so I have been thinking lots about how to decorate our little one's nursery.

Im loving the idea of having a modern and fun take on a woodland/bird theme - with tree and bird murals on the wall and lots of cute accessories like the gorgeous owl cushion. By mixing it up a bit with the fun polka dot pattern it will be a more modern version of the theme. This sort of nursery will be quite long lasting too - we won't have to redecorate for quite a few years because its a versatile scheme.

Scott and I are expecting baby to be a girl (although it isn't 100%) so have been looking at a turquoise, white and pale pink colour scheme but this idea could easily be adapted to suit a little boy as well - just with a tweak of the colours :-)

xxx

Homemade Summer Wedding

More Information: image by Martha Stewart weddings, image by martha Stewart weddings

How much am I still loving Style Me Pretty's Style Circle?

This board is another of my attempts at recreating the feel that Scott and I want for our wedding day.

The inspiration for this board came from the amazing Martha Stewart cake (which I have posted on the blog before) and the colours and fun whimsy it provides. Our wedding, if everything goes according to plan and budget (!) will be filled with lots of little homemade touches - particularly where the stationary and decoration of our venue is concerned.

I have fallen in love with the idea of having paper lanterns and tissue paper pom-poms hanging through the trees, interspersed with hanging glass jars holding flickering candles as the sun sets *swoon*

The handmade guestbook is a fun and original idea, a bit more interesting than the average guest book and a lot more fun!

And of course the blackboard at the bottom sums it all up 'Live, Laugh, Love' - it's what every day and every wedding should be about!

xxx

Recipe Three - Chicken and Apple

Chicken and Apple Puree

1 cooked and chopped boneless chicken breast

2 cooked and chopped dessert apples or 6 heaped tablespoons of apple sauce (no added sugar)

Puree the two ingredients together, adding a small amount of unsweetened apple juice if the consistency is too thick.

This recipe is great for a day when you and daddy are eating chicken - you can make baby's food at the same time :-) 

xxx

Woodland Accessories

I'm loving these woodland inspired pieces from australian company www.kidsgiftlist.com/au.

The height chart is a fun and interactive piece of room decor and the squirrels... well you gotta love the squirrels! 

xxx

Budget Art

Woop! I won my Ebay bid on three plain white artists canvases. I'm hoping to create something like the picture above with them :-) I'll probably leave the base white or paint it cream (rather than blue) and will be making the owls/birds and other animals out of patterned scrap paper. Hopefully they will turn out okay and fingers crossed they will make the perfect addition to the baby's room. I was originally planning to paste the birds and animals straight onto the wall but figured it would be more practical to put them onto canvas - much easier to change later on!

xxx