Real Life

What miserable weather! Rain rain go away! Nothing for it but to pull your wellies on and puddle suit and take a dinosaur for a walk!

Here are our top five rainy day activities and not a colouring book in sight!

1. Grab your waterproofs and hunt for the biggest puddle in your neighhbourhood and jump in it!

2. Try to find a secret shelter from the rain! Is there a tunnel, underpass or spot under the trees near you? Who knows what you’ll find! P.S. I find cafes make rather good shelters (and rather good cakes come to think of it!)

3. Make mud pies, yum!

4. Grab a brolly and sing in the rain – incy wincy spider or rain rain go away should do it

5. Go on a wiggly worm hunt!

Blog life

I’m running a small giveaway on Facebook to try to drum up more page likes, will let you know how it goes next week!

I have some lovely review posts and a blog competition coming up soon which I’m really excited about.

Inspiration

I have returned to crochet, I can only dream of making something as good as this crochet tweed iPad case by Gemma Garner, it’s so blooming perfect I could cry, but seeing it inspired me to pick up my hook again!

And if this isn’t the gosh darned nicest big girl’s room I have ever seen don’t know what is! I am thinking of a bedroom re-do for Joss so this is my inspiration!

- See more at: http://mumsdays.com/#sthash.I1YtfFDQ.dpuf

I was delighted to review a canvas from The Canvas Prints as this was to be the first canvas we’ve ever owned! We have a lot of art on the walls at home but I really like mixing up textures so a canvas was a way of adding a different scale and texture to our current displays.

I sent this photo of Joss holding Daddy’s hand to The Canvas Prints, it’s a fave of mine and was taken after a special family meal.

Less than a week later an exciting parcel arrived!

The Canvas Prints Review

I had been fretting a bit about being new to canvas as I really had no idea whether or not the canvas stretching process would distort the image, or how appropriate for canvas the photo I had chosen was. I looked at the FAQs on the website and felt reassured, the image was the right pixel size and was good quality.

The canvas was beautifully wrapped for the post and if sending as a gift I’d have no worries about postal damage as the bubble wrap and box were a great fit.

The canvas is sturdy, the print detail is exactly what I hoped for, it looks really nice on the wall and the corner wrapping is really crisp and smooth and the final seal well executed. I was pleasantly surprised to see a hook for hanging as I know other brands don’t do this!

I chose a picture wrap where the photo is continuously wrapped around the frame, I think it looks great on the wall like this, but they also do colour wraps where you choose the edging too.

The range and options available gave me food for thought, I like the idea of these split canvases and displays too

Our introduction to canvas is a big hit and I would definately consider buying more!

Disclaimer: I received a free canvas to review, all views are my own.

We just celebrated three years of marriage and I had a good old reminisce about it by poring over our photos.

I haven’t really blogged about our day but used to love looking at 100 Layer Cake and Rock n Roll Bride so it seems appropriate to copy (ahem, take inspiration from their style spreads)!

Here’s our lemon and lime theme wedding!

The flowers

I obsessed about craspedia flowers in the year run up to the big day, they’re my fave flower in my fave colour and so once I found a florist that could source them I planned the whole day around them and devoted a page of my wedding planner for craspedia inspiration!

My bouquet had temarisou, craspedia and white chrysanthemums with lime centres

The decoration

I made our invites and a few other touches like the postbox and the wishing tree and then ran out of time so we didn’t have the giant pompoms or bunting I wanted but otherwise it felt like there were lots of personal touches!

We had vibrant floating candle centre pieces and bright yellow sashes on the chairs

The insert invites appealed to my stationery obsession!

The cake

Handmade by my lovely and super talented cousin I wanted something delicate and lacy, the brooch and ribbon now adorn our wedding photo album. It was a rich and yummy fruit cake, one of my fave memories was taking a break from honeymoon packing to look at our cards and eat more cake the following day!

The dress

The first I tried on and I just knew it was the one, I tried just five dresses and this one, Meryl by Romantica was everything I hoped for, light silk, beaded lace detailing, swags and with a Grecian drape to it; I loved how lightweight it was for a summer wedding

The car

A lovely vintage ride!

The bride

I had my makeup done by my fave artist from my local MAC counter in rich plum tones and hair by Helen Church who did these fab sculpted curls. The tiara detail matched the loops of silk on my dress and I wore my favourite Chanel perfume. My garter was made from vintage silk and pearls and is now stored in a Laduree box from our honeymoon it was my old and new and my Mam sewed a tiny blue stitch into my dress lining for something blue, I borrowed a little button from a friend that was stitched onto my bouquet handle.

The groom

He wore a hire suit, no top and tails, it would have been too formal, he had a craspedia button hole and I gave him some new cufflinks too

The big day

We married at the church I was Christened in and Joss was later Christened in too, I was so very nervous that I had to catch myself and really focus on the service! Walking out hand in hand with my new husband felt like a dream and I couldn’t stop grinning; after a few photos we headed to Saltwell Towers for afternoon tea followed by a wedding breakfast, the sun shone and it was a magical day.

We partied into the night and got some lovely night shots too!

The story wouldn’t be complete without our wedding album, keeping to theme I had one photo enlarged and we chose a vintage frame from Re in our wedding colour to display our favourite photo.

And finally…

Joss came along and my dress was chopped into a gown fit for an eight month old princess, nerve wracking to see it chopped up but totally the right thing to do, this heirloom gown will stay in the family for generations to come!

Blogging these pics was a small thing that made me smile a lot!