Wedding Wednesday - part 4

Cakes! ... (other wedding related posts here)


Neither Sunshine nor I are big fans of wedding cake - especially the traditional fruit cake and marzipan sort. Most weddings I've been to I've found the cake was the 'least eaten' thing ... So instead, we did what Sunshine's sister had done at her wedding - asked our friends to bring us a cake in lieu of a wedding present! And MAN did we have cake!

As you can see, we had at least 15 different cakes, including gluten-free ones and even a vegan one. I had been collecting vintage cake stands for the last year or so, so lay them out on a long table, simply decorated in the front with some coloured paper doilies on string. I also made each cake a little label-on-a-stick. Very easy, just printed the names out on some coloured card, then cut round in a vaguely oval shape with my scallop-edged craft scissors. The sticks are those little stirrers you get in coffee shops.

At the end we picked one of the lovely cakes (made by Lynn and Jon, which had incidentally been assembled that morning at a camp site!) and stuck in a couple of peg doll cake toppers that my new sister-in-law Lucy had made especially (she even made them to look like us - aren't they just lovely!?!).

We also laid out some boiled sweets and my mum/sis/aunt made a stack of little cupcakes (haven't got good photos of those) and also you can just about see on some of the cake photos, Sunshine's parents brought us some lovely nutty petit-four kind of things from Dubai. And I have to say, it all went down a treat.... The table of cakes lay untouched - till after we had had dinner, and after we had cut our cake - and then it was like a swarm attacking the table! There was hardly anything left at the end of the night :) ...

So there you have it, our wedding sweeties ... more stuff to come next week ...

This is home ...

My entry for the "This is home ..." project

Wedding Wednesday - part 3

More wedding details ... table settings! ... (parts 1 & 2, and other wedding related posts)

So this is what the table settings looked like. A centerpiece of a vintage jug filled with flowers; a milk bottle table number; and a jam jar filled with some battery operated fairy-lights. Also, at each place setting, a hand made place card.

The flowers: As we were having the wedding in a gorgeous country garden, we didn't want professional expensive flower arrangements - we wanted it to feel like you'd picked some flowers for your kitchen table (also, helped with cost!). Sourcing the flowers (as I was doing this myself rather than through a florist) became quite a chore ... won't go into the details but suffice to say, best man Dom was a life-saver ... I spent the Thursday night before the wedding, (after having had a large family dinner), in the best man's garden with one of those caving head lights strapped to my forehead; equipped with a pair of garden shears, and some buckets; cutting hydrangeas and crocosmias till almost midnight. Earlier that day I had bought out all of the Broadmead Marks and Spencer's stock of gerberas and larkspurs in the wedding colours.

We transported the lot to the venue on Friday in buckets and set my lovely mum on the job of flower arranging. Remember the vintage jugs I had been collecting over the last 6 months? Well my mum then sat down with all the flowers and jugs (and lovely helper Nic) and made up some smashing centerpieces ... Thank you Ammu! For some strange reason though, mum seems to have disappeared in the photo - that's my Aunt in the pink fleece ...

I also bought a stack of florists' cellophane flower bags and printed out some translucent sticky labels to stick on them. Towards the end of the wedding evening I sent my sister and some willing helpers off to take the centerpieces and pack them up in the the cello bags as wedding favours for whoever wanted them!

Table numbers: I had in my mind that I wanted to use some old milk bottles for something - but not sure what; or where I was going to find them. Then one day earlier in the year, I saw my neighbour disposing of a whole box of them. I ran over and asked if I could have them and he said "Sure!" ... wondering why on earth I was so excited about some dirty milk bottles ;)

I then found a font I liked (it's the same font as on the "Wedding" sign that I painted); opened it in Adobe Illustrator; got it to the right size; and vectorised it. Then sent that file off with Sunshine as they have a vinyl cutter at his work. I had both some red and some white sticky-backed vinyl cut as the combination worked much better than each colour individually. Then it was matter of cleaning and drying the bottles and carefully sticking down my vinyl so it was all aligned nicely. (Edit: someone asked me where I got my vinyl from - the answer? Scrapstore!)

I still had lots of wedding invites left so got my helpers to make up a few more Tweeters which then got stuck on some barbecue sticks and plopped into each bottle. Ah! A photo of my mum ... from the top left, anti-clockwise, my sis, my grandma, and mum! (there was a lot more birdie helpers - this is only the ones whose photos I have).

Place Cards: This again was an idea that evolved over time ... I had initially found the vintage Garden Plants book in a charity shop for 20p(!). With the wedding being in a flower garden, I knew I wanted to use it for the wedding - but not sure how ... Eventually they ended up as place cards! You can pretty much see how I sliced the pages and folded them up to make little stand up flowers (I didn't have enough to cover all the guests so had to make a few colour photocopies too).

I then used a craft punch to cut out the red circles on which I wrote the guest's name with a white pen. I also did a few cards with yellow butterflies (another craft punch) to make sure the caterers knew who had special gluten-free diets (and a purple butterfly for our one and only garlic-free guest).

Last but not least Fairy lights: We didn't manage to get any photos of me making them, but let me describe it (you can see them on the top photo). I sourced some battery operated LED fairy-lights that would fit inside jam jars that I had been collecting for years (I always have a stash for all sorts of use). Then cut out some fabric circles to fit over the lids and glued them down with some PVA to look like homemade jam jars. As it was getting dark, we went round the wedding marque to each table; popped the lids open; switched the fairy-lights on and popped the lids back on ... for some twinkles into the evening :)

There you go ... next week - cake!

Wedding Wednesday - part 2

The story continues ... (part 1 here)


I had been dreaming about a bright sunny wedding ever since we booked our gorgeous venue. But all of the Friday before as we were prepping; and all of the wedding moring; it rained ... But, about half an hour before the ceremony was due to start, it cleared, and an executive decision was made that we were going to have it outside :)

This meant that I got to walk down the "aisle" - through the flower garden - to one of Sunshine and my favourite songs, by our favourite Bristol artist - "On my knees" by Phil King. Happy me!

Although we and the "Best Posse" managed to keep dry in the beautiful wooden gazebo that the ceremony was held in, by the time we got to our vows, the guests had to get umbrellas out! I found this HUGELY distracting and worrying ("Argh! Our guests are getting wet!!!"); but they themselves seemed to be enjoying it just fine ;)

Speaking of vows, as you can see on the photo; rather than have a ring pillow to hold our rings, I tied them onto a lovely mossy branch I had collected on one of our many walks in the woods. The lady in the floral dress is Anna, who helped us make our rings - so we asked her to be ring-bearer.

As it was raining, I know that quite a few of the guests couldn't quite make out what our vows were. So here, for prosperity they are (we both started with "I made this ring for you", because we did!):

Sunshine's vows to Me

"I made this ring for you, and with this ring, I give you my promise,
that from this day forward, we shall be as one.
I promise to be there for you, when you need me.
To listen to you, to respect you and be faithful to you.
To laugh with you, to cry with you and to confide in you.
To trust you, to comfort you and to support you.
All that I have, I share with you.
May we dance together, through all of life.
May you always feel loved, for indeed you are.

With this ring, I am honoured to call you my best friend and my wife."

My vows to Sunshine

"I made this ring for you, and with this ring, I give you my promise,
that I will stand by your side forevermore
I promise to love you; to honour, and support you,
To trust you and to confide in you.
I promise to listen to all your thoughts, your hopes and fears,
And to dream with you, of all our beautiful dreams, together.
You are more than I could have ever asked for in my life
and for that I promise to always be thankful.
Let us dance together through all of life.

With this ring, I am privileged to call you my husband, my Sunshine."

Aawwwww... aren't we soppy ;)

Now, since weren't actually going anywhere after the ceremony (ie 'leaving the church'), we hadn't initially planned on having any confetti. But somehow by the wedding day, bio-degradable dried flower petal confetti had been ordered. It was so last minute that we hadn't even got a container for it (ended up using a waste paper basket from the venue!), and I still don't really have any idea how it got distributed - but some confetti fairies went to work and we ended up quite drenched!

AND, if we weren't going to have confetti, as per the original plan, we surely had to have something else that would allow our guests to be 'celebratisious' with us, no? Oh yes, in honour of our leaving-ceremony song "WooWoo" by Joe Marsala and the Chicagoans (very old swing track), I handmade 150 little flags! They went down really well and you can see them floating about in most of the wedding photos.

They are really easy to make - I made a template that I then printed out on thin card. I then cut the flag shapes, and sat down with some cheap bamboo barbeque skewers and a glue gun, and a few hours later - ta da! Flags! If you want to make some flags for yourself, download my template here.

Next week - table settings!

Knees on bees ...

Update on these.
Edit: The Knees have a new website! Well done girls!!!

Wedding Wednesday - part 1

Phew ... what a manic few weeks its been! We're just back from visiting my family in Malaysia - and I can safely say that we're going to be mostly here for the foreseeable future ...

Now that I've actually had a bit of time to go through all the photos we've had back from our "official" photographer (friend Burning Dan); and lots of other people - they're still slowly arriving in the post; I thought I might start trying to dig through and find photos to show you all the crafting and other details of the wedding that I got up to. So, for the next few however-many-Wednesdays it takes, I'm going to do just that, right here ...

Today I start with the pompom project.

Initially I had planned to make lots of bunting to criss-cross the wedding marquee; but I found it difficult to source fabric that I liked, and at an affordable price. As a test I tried making one of the Martha Stewart pompoms that seemed to be all over the blogs last year. It turned out to be extremely easy to do and so I set about sourcing enough tissue paper in colours that I wanted to make at least 50 of them! 1 is easy; 50 is a bit more demanding ... It took me a whole day and a half of solid work to fold and tie them up; and I took them to the venue in that state. Then, the day before the wedding friends and family chipped in the "Pompom Fluffing and Hanging Game". It was a lot of work ... thank you so very much to all my diligent little elves ;)

And this is what it looked like all hung up:

Two other little details I thought I'd share are the hand painted "Wedding" signs I made from junk wood planks and acrylic paint; to be hung on the way to the venue (at the top of this post); and the paper doily place cards I made for all the family reserved seats. I colour printed out individual names on transparent inkjet sticky labels, and stuck them to small paper heart doilies. These were then taped to the chairs. Unfortunately it rained - and the doilies didn't hold up too well; and alas, these are the only photos I have of them ...

So there you have it - the first few details you would have seen if you had been at the wedding. Tune in next Wednesday for part 2!

Photos galore

My (our?) current favourite photo from the wedding ;)

As the blog will be quiet again for a bit while we are away at my parents, I thought I'd leave my readers with a bit to look at while we are away ...

Firstly, remember my invite? I was a little unsure how it was going to be received as its not your typical wedding invite, is it? Anyways, I also asked people to send me pictures of their "Tweeters" once they made them up - and what a good idea that was :)

Here is a link to a gallery of Tweeters - Sunshine's dad especially (about a-third down the page, from Dubai) really got into it and his selection is wonderful ...

And if you're up for more; here are some actual wedding pictures (lots on facebook so you will need an account for that): Will also keep updating here as more photos get put on the internetz :)

Nic Rogers Flickr

Simon and Anika Flickr

Julie Facebook

Mel & Jo Facebook

Mithi's dad (on Tiara's account) Facebook

Nic Hannam (claims to be other people's!) Facebook

Uncle Chris (on Lucy's account) Facebook

Xtina (5 photos within a larger 2009 folder) Facebook

Milla Flickr

David & Jodie Facebook

The Kathys Picasa

Adele & Mark J Picasa

Oh yes, and we've already been blogged about :

Milla & Adele

Hello world!

Photo by Simon & Anika

Greetings all! I give to you Mr & Mrs Sunshine ...

We are back from our exquistely lovely Cornish mini-honeymoon; and from the photos that have been slowly filtering back; the wedding was a fairly good (if I do say so myself) party despite the rain ;)

Now to get the house in order; spend the next week recovering; and doing all the other little things we need to deal with before we go off again to visit my parents in Malaysia next week.

And as such the blog will be a bit quiet for a bit more, but hopefully I will be back with lots of wedding crafty bits in the next couple of months. As I did pretty much everything myself, I didn't really have time to catalogue eveything - such a shame - but I am hoping that other people did, and between all the photos people have taken, I can try and give you a sense of how the wedding went ...

Toodle pip for now ...

9 days and counting!!!!!

Oh! Its been over two weeks since I wrote last ... sorry! But as you can imagine, the wedding planning/making has really stepped up speed now ... with only 9 more days to go! Whoopeee!

I did thought manage to go to London last week and visit the D&AD NewBlood exhibition. Here's our college stand - And congrats to Becki for winning a Best New Blood award!


Am really glad I went - as it gave me a sense of what I need to achieve for next year. The Coningsby show is on at the moment till Friday ... I was very much hoping to go, but I'm not going to make it ... considering how much wedding stuff is still left to do ...

Wedding planning is coming along smoothly - with lots of wedding crafts which I will blog lots about AFTER the wedding! Cheerio folks!

UWE Illustration '09 graduating class

As promised, this years graduating class ... The show at college is on till this Thursday the 25th; and then they are exhibiting twice in London: with UWE graphic design at D&AD New Blood (Olympia National Hall 29 June - 1 July), and their own little London show at the Coningsby Gallery (PV 6 July; show till 10 July). DON'T MISS IT!

I've tried my best to get everyone's internet presence - but I'm still missing a few that I'm chasing up and will update as soon as I know; and a few of them have a rather sparse presence (empty blog) at the moment - but give them a couple of months for the all the shows and things to be over, and I'm sure content will arrive in droves ...

ps, my favs in bold ;)

SAM BETTS - blog
SAM BEVINGTON - website
BEN BRAY - blog
CHRISTINE BOUNSALL - blog
LOUISE BURROWS - blog
MARCUS BUTT - website blog
ARTHUR BUXTON - blog
JENNA CAMBELL - blog
LUCY DRISCOLL - blog
SARAH GRICE - blog
JESSIE HARLIN - blog
BECKI HARPER - blog
AMY HARDY - blog
TOM HUNT - website
RYAN HODGE - blog
SALLY HOLT - blog
BILLY LAU - blog
ASHLEY LE QUERE - blog
KATE CRAGOE MAYFIELD - blog
ZANNY MELLOR - website
NINA MIDGELEY - blog
MADALENA MONIZ - blog
JAKE OTTON - blog
FRIDTJOF LEIVESTAD OLSEN - website
JAMES PETER DAVIS - blog
MARY ROUNCEFIELD - website
RICHARD SANDERSON - website
MARTIN SHEPHERD
ADAM SMITH
BEN SMITH
LYDIA STARKEY - website
HOLLY STOVES - blog
SARA THIELKER - website

33 Days to go!

Oh, my ... I have really been neglecting this blog lately, haven't I? Very very sorry - but since the end of hand-ins I've dived straight back into wedding planning ... yes, just over a month to go before I become Mrs Sunshine - and I can't wait!

In the last few weeks I have been:

Writing lists and filling calendars - and ticking things off ...


Starting on some table arranging - oh yes, colour coded guests!


Collecting lots of glassware (well, I've been charity shop hopping for the last 6 months actually).


Dabbling in some wedding crafts (no, there will be no blue fluffy things at the wedding - I was just practising making some of these, and blue tissue paper was all that I had on hand at the time).


All this amongst trying to give the house a good spring cleaning, and many other to-do list things ... everytime I get something done, it appears more things pop-up on my list - at least I'm really enjoying it :)

The rest of this week will be handing in my dissertation proposal form for next year; writing my graduate development programme 500 word evaluation of the year; helping the 3rd years set up their degree show; and then on Friday working the private view of the show as a student ambassador. And that'll be officially it for college this year. Hopefully I'll put up a list of this years graduates here sometime next week like I did last year. In the meantime enjoy your summer everyone!

Tagged at the right time ...

I was tagged yesterday by Lynne (Skully); and although I tend not to partake in these chain tagging things (and hence will probably not be tagging anyone forward), this one gave me the great excuse to talk about what I did yesterday ... so here goes!:

"8 things challenge"

1. Mention the name of the person who tagged you - Lovely Lynne at Autonomous Artisans.
2. Do the lists of 8. See below
3. Tag 8 bloggers of your choice. - Thinking about how I might get round this...
4. Let them know that they have been tagged!

8 Things I'm looking forward to:

1. July 18th 2009
2. Becoming Mrs Sunshine :)
3. Having my parents, sister, grandma, great aunt, and several aunts and uncles all together at the same place.
4. Seeing all our friends - especially the ones we haven't seen in a while and/or are coming from far far away.
5. Introducing them all to each other.
6. Being overexcited.
7. Getting to wear our rings.
8. It being sunny (fingers crossed!)

*** OK, so I guess it's a bit of a cheat to have ALL the things I'm looking forward to be effectively the same thing ...; but hey, I'm SO looking forward to it! ***

8 Things I Did Yesterday:

1. Visited the Jamaica Street Studios open studios.
2. Met one of my favourite local illustrators, Bjorn Rune Lie.
3. Bought a Norwegian children's book and some blue tree prints.
4. Pottered round the Bristol Design Festival.
5. Saw Sunshine's students degree show, "Future This".


6. Visited the Bristol Festival of Nature.
7. Saw some owls:



8. And got to cuddle the most adorably cute and docile skunk on the planet :)



*** Busy weekend in Bristol, ain't it? ***

8 Things I wish I could do:

1. Guarantee good weather for the 18th of July 2009
2. Have all the friends who can't come, for whatever reasons (and they're quite good reasons... but still); come to the wedding.
3. Get better faster at drawing/painting/illustrating.
4. Develop a self-consistent illustrating style /visual language.
5. Cook like my momma :)
6. Be able to take Sunshine away for a well deserved long holiday :)
7. Be as fit as I used to be when I was dancing 7 nights a week.
8. Dance around in our dining room .... no, wait, I CAN do that ;)

8 Shows I Watch:
Erm ... we have no telly, and so we don't really watch any shows ... instead I'm going to direct you to some things I think worth having a look at in the interfishynetwebs :)

1. TED talks.
2. The Do Lectures.
3. Pop-tech popcasts.
4. Makezine TV.
5. Craftzine podcasts.
6. Etsy Storque videos.
7. UCBerkeley youtube channel.
8. Stanford University youtube channel.

My 8 tagged bloggers are:

Again, I don't really want to tag people to do this, but this seems like a good excuse to re-direct my readers to some of our oh so lovely and talented friends (not all bloggers) ...
Course mates
1. Jen Jen
2. Charlie
3. Rich
4. Pearl
Other artsy friends
5. The Frase - Fab illustrator and swing dancer
6. The Bees Knees (Jo and Aila) - More fab dancers
7. Intrika (Ana and Frix) - Jugglers and mischief makers! Oh yes, they make great clothes too :)
8. Charlie Caper - magician, juggler, swing dancer. And an overall lovely fellow ...

That's alllllllllllllllllll ...

Woo!

Dancing doodles (inspired by these lovely talented friends of mine) done whilst trying to keep myself awake at the marathon - 9 hours! - presentation session yesterday ...

Good show though, everyone did really well and I'm looking forward to seeing how people's work progresses next year ... wayhay, bring on the summer!

Done!

Here's what I've been up to this semester - a children's book about a little girl who dances with her toys and imagines being in far off places. I think it still needs a lot of work - but I am happy with where I got to at this stage. Hopefully this will get a mawling by the tutors and can be 110% improved for Macmillan next April.

Dummy book:

And a couple of random spreads from it:

And here are the colour spreads I did - ended up doing 5 although usually they ask for only 4:

*Sorry for the photo quality - Can't get the white balance quite right - will try again with Sunshine's advice once he's home.

That's it for this term, and this academic year - apart from presentations tomorrow, and some paperwork that needs filling in for next year's dissertation; I'm mostly done with college till October ... phew! Just a wedding to organise and the rest of my life to plan out ...