Sunday Morning

Mr Lawrence taking it easy on Sunday morning :)

looks like a powder puff ...and often smells like a powder puff

wake me up at lunchtime .... no sooner

at least he'd cleaned his feet before putting then on the sofa

we all know that feeling of waking up after a nap and not feeling fabulous ....

or maybe he was just planning his revenge ....

The Long Embrace

 

photo by Darren Brown for The Long Embrace

I was thinking that doing this little wedding post 2 weeks before St Valentine's Day was a little premature and then I remembered hearing that most girls have their wedding all planned out from the age of 3.   I say most, because as some of you already know our wedding involved elopment, accosting strangers in the high street to be witnesses and a wedding feast of baked spud at the Gretna Green visitor centre surrounded by several coachloads of pensioners.   I realise that is not the norm. 

The norm is to throw a beautiful, fabulous party :)   And people need to know about this great event and all that will occur on this day of revelry  which is where handmade wedding stationers  The Long Embrace , run by my lovely friend Cathy, come in.  Based in Northern Ireland they offer a full range of stationery including: day and evening invitations, orders of service covers, menus, place cards, table plans, thank you cards, and save the date cards.

I love the elegance of the two designs I've featured here - and think they'd look great with a vintage style affair.  

photo by Darren Brown for The Long Embrace

dress by Amy Jo Tatum 

photo from Style Me Pretty

visit The Long Embrace website   
and join the Facebook group

Flowers, Enchanted Books, New Things and Thank Yous!

I've no need to write anything in this post - it's all in the title :)  As it's Friday I've thought I better update here with new things before everything gets buried under next weeks list!   btw - I haven't forgotten that I need to post more chateau pics from the last year.. just need to go through Aaron's photo's as most of mine turned out fuzzy (the perils of not using a flash ..)

So, it's Friday and as the world outside is white and a little grey I taken to cheering myself with some weekly flowers.  Tulips are my flower of choice at the mo - probably because they ARE spring - last week was pink ones and this week is smoky lilac pink (I know - the pic looks pink but trust me they are a very unusual colour indeed!)


They match my latest Etsy fab find perfectly!   This gorgeous little felted book (by Beautiful Place on Etsy) arrived in my postbox this week - it's so cute!  it's called Dreaming of a Fairy Garden and the colours match a mood board I'm putting together for some new garlands and birds.

 I love love love this enchanted grotto of a shop - I want another book .. and maybe a mossy egg from the enchanted forest!!  

visit Beautiful Place

In my own etsy shop this week I added some earrings

 and a little heart because it's nearly Valentine's Day :)

 

and last but not least thank you to Danielle for a nice feature on her simple.little.joys blog and Joanne aka gr8jewellery who featured one of my little mirrors on her blog's Monday mood board - cheers girls xx

Have a super weekend :D

I Love This Idea!

Gift Egg Box (4 design type)

Aren't these so cute!!  Perfect for party favours or simply a quirky gift box -  I wish I made a product that would fit these ...is it wrong to find cute packaging ideas and to design around it ??

I found them at  Lemontree77 shop on Etsy whilst  I was browsing before purchasing this totally fab vintage masking tape !  gorgeous!!!!

A Little Affair of the Heart ♥

This is my first mirrored garland for 2010 "A Very European Affair"
It's got lots of black velvet and pale pale grey organza, vintage 1940's millinery flowers which are just the right side of shabby chic (I love the little dangly glass chip stamens!). Bellflower beads in white glass and matt black acrylic,filigree, and a couple of dainty vintage class buttons

It also has a large antique copper floral engraved heart locket which I've decorated with a black glass paisley/floral cabochon. Large enough for a lock of hair or a little folded love note :)

This week, like most of Europe, we've had heaps of snow, local schools have shut etc. I hate driving down the mountain in these conditions so don't intend to make any non emergency journeys for a few days. That includes the trip down to the village post office (which sadly, since xmas, is only open part-time now, all part of the governments dastardly plan to privatise the postal service ) so I'll only be shipping orders on Saturday morning this week. Hopefully the weather will settle back to normal in a few days :)

A Very European Affair garland is available to purchase here

Just Dandy in an Estonian Magazine!

Those little birds never miss a photo opportunity!!  It seems that once they fly the nest they seek fame and fortune ...... there was the one that went to Turkey to live with Heli

photo by Heli Sengezer

and then the one that went to Italy to live with Frances and reinvented himself larger than life and showed that tiny human just who was boss.....

photo by Frances J Melhop

And now one of the Estonian brigade  has shimmied his way onto the pages of an Estonian magazine!  The cheek of it!! 

He's there courtesy of his lovely owner Leina (from XbyLeinaNeima ) and her tutorial for a beautiful fairytale lantern windchime for Kodukiri  magazine, which translates roughly as Home (I'm going to have to start looking around for some vintage cutlery )   Dandy looks very happy and so am I - thank you so much Leina for such a sweet surprise!!

Please check out Leina's and MarianneS' Craftwerk website where they are running a fabulous challenge for all you crafty types!

♥♥♥ Best Wishes for 2010 ♥♥♥

Happy New Year!!

It feels good to get back to business after the holidays. I had a lovely December, only working a little on some customer orders and just chilling out (I little too much when the temperatures plummeted to -11)

I went home again, this time my sister was flying in from Canada to surprise my parents.

We had a week of catch-up, laughs, shopping and a little sightseeing. Travellers beware of the ninja sheep training camp in the Mourne mountains ....a lucky escape ....

So Christmas was very quiet, just lots of food and wine and happiness. And now it's another year. I'm not making any specific new year resolutions for 2010 but I've chosen the word 'effort' as my word of the year. I figured if I just remember to make a little more effort in every aspect of life then it'll combine to make a big difference :) Plus it's nice and vague ... no fear of failure heehee!

Last year I made a resolution to close lots of my online networking accounts - and I did, but I've been caught in the Facebook net and after a false start last summer, I've decided to properly embrace my Facebook Fan Page (that sounds so horribly egotistical, I wish they were called something else!!) It still looks very sad and lonely but I'm hoping that will all change as we get into the year.  So if you'd like to get updates on my new work, blog posts etc.  all via Facebook, you can 'become a fan' here

Good luck for 2010!!