Heartstrings and Other Things

After the mammoth delivery of quality custom handmade wedding decor from my mum, the pressure is off me somewhat as I realise there's not too much for me to do.

The legendary bunting

I have had some decorations knocking about for a while, and now seems as good a time as any to share them.

I had to have hearts on a string:

I also had to have a sprinkling of tiny spheres:
 

There's more to do, but I'm not so stressed about it all.

*gulp*

Pastels

Pastels.

They're not exactly my go-to shades. But lately, I've come to see that I can use them.

In baking if not in crafting. Actually, I did try here to use lilacs - that was really difficult. And more recently I tried to use them to make a card for a friend to give to her mum.

For the card I also used something else I don't love: flowersoft. I was pretty brutal with it though, so I think (hope!) it's stayed in place.

Anyone out there got a least favourite colour/shadeset? Wanna share how you get over it?

Wedding Flowers

This week I've been busy on the beginnings of bouquets for my bridesmaids.

Here's a little peek of something I've made so far:

And here's a peek of some of the flowers my mum has made:

I'm still trying to pin down all my ideas for my own bouquet. They're all still flying around in my head. If you have a tip, an idea, or a link to a bouquet that made you go 'ooooh', please let me know!

Happily Ever After: Wedding Card Special

While I was happy to have gone to my first wedding EVER as a guest a couple of weeks ago* some of my friends are boasting about having five, six, seven or even eight weddings to go to this year.

*It's true! Always the bridesmaid, never just a guest. What can I do about that? You might think it's handy to never have had to choose my own outfit, but I was itching to:

Anyway... one of my friends asked me to make her a batch of congratulations cards for all the lovers out there. I duly obliged, having weddings on the brain and all. She told me a little bit about each couple and I tried to interpret that and turn it into a card. I found this immensely fun. Some of my creations:

Mostly keeping it quite simple, aren't I? I can't let myself go with cards like I do these days with a scrapbook page. I'm itching to make another layout, but have to focus this week on making flowers. Sneak peek coming soon!

Punky Scraps Challenge 20: 5,4,3,2,1...

Challenge number 20 is up at Punky Scraps: to create a page using the following:

5 photos
4 alphas
3 patterned papers
2 colours of mists/pain
1 stamp
and also incorporate the colour blue.

My layout for this challenge looks like this:

Five photos - yes! I've been collecting these over the years and so badly wanted to use them on a page but am scared these days of using too many photos on a page. Perfect timing the challenge! Four alphas - yes, if you count either a different colour (white and black Thickers) or my own handwriting. Three patterned papers - yes: the background and two little flags on the right. Two colours - well, I used a blue home-made paint mist (and it worked!) and some white gesso. One stamp - that's the little star imprint in the gesso.

Oh, and blue - well, yes :-). The little piece of ephemera is actually a part of the most awesome event leaflet I've ever seen. It's a few pages full of really old circus-style adverts for events going on at one of our favourite local venues, aptly named (for this layout) 'Magic Mirrors'. It's where we go dancing - it has a proper wooden dance floor and a glass dome in the ceiling that splits sunlight into rainbows on the inside - no need for a glitterball in the summer when it's still light at 10.30pm.

My home-made paint spray. Proud!

I actually used a Scrapbook Challenges sketch for this one: number 256, which looks like this:

Go and get Punky at Punky Scraps by joining in the challenge. You know you want to!