Our Day by Design

I had a lovely 4 days in London last weekend with my sister Ashleigh, her fiance Patrick and my new nephew Enzo. I was able to visit them in hospital on Friday and help them bring Enzo home which was wonderful to be part of and I got to be chief photographer for the day! My Mum & Dad came down for Saturday & Sunday so I was able to go and stay with them on Saturday night to give the new family some peace and I also made the trip out to Kent to visit my friend Angela, her husband Dave and their baby Jack. There will be a further post to follow, but until I get a chance to write it, and get mummy's permission to post some pictures, here are the fabulous balloons {if I do say so myself} that I got for baby Enzo. How cool is the blue zebra! Can you tell I'm easily amused by helium balloons!

I made baby boy & baby girl cards for all the people that were having babies! I made 2 of each hoping that would cover the 3 arrivals {which I did so now I have a girl one spare!} I sent one to Angela once Jack had arrived, and gave one to Lucy when Emily arrived, but didn't want to share them until Ashleigh had her baby and she had seen her card too. I originally got the idea from this card from Hero Arts , which is where I found the Baby Girl & Baby Boy clear stamp sets I used, as I really liked the announcement bit you fill in. As you can see I just changed the colours and type of ribbon, used cute baby buttons instead of the pearls, added they baby girl / baby boy stamp to the top then I filled in the sections and added the actual babies names at the top. For Jack & Emily's cards, I stamped their first & middle name onto the blank white section at the top, but unfortunately I didn't think to take a picture when they were completed. For Enzo's card...

...no official weigh-in; I'm down in London visiting my sister, her fiance and my new baby nephew!

My nephew has now arrived! Can you tell I'm just a little bit excited! My sister Ashleigh had a baby boy called Enzo at 3.12am this morning, weighing 6lb 14oz & 53cm long. I'm so so so happy and delighted for her and her fiance Patrick and can't wait to visit the new family and see how they are all doing. Congratulations Mummy and Daddy! I'm flying down to London after work tonight for a long weekend until Monday which is going to be lovely and Granny & Grandad are also coming down on Saturday to see the new arrival. I should get to see mummy & baby tomorrow. I'm also going to pop out to Kent at some point to see my friend Angela & her new baby Jack, who is almost 8 weeks old already! So its going to be a full weekend of babies & family. p.s I'm so glad my 101st post could be about the new arrival!

Woo hoo, I have reached my 100th post! I cant believe I have managed to keep up writing this blog for so long, I have no doubt that part of it is because of all the lovely comments I get, thank you everyone. I also really enjoy it and hope you will all continue to do so too! We still have 193 days until the wedding so maybe enough time for 100 more! For my 100th post, I leave you with images of the Storefront for Art and Architecture in NYC and Saipua's new shop in Brooklyn, which I first seen on Peonies and Polaroids , both completely unrelated to weddings! Storefront for Art and Architecture (Image from here ) Saipua's Store (Image from here ) p.s I really hope my 101st or 102nd post is going to be about my new niece or nephew!

Today I posted off the deposit to confirm our date with the make-up company. They are called EyeCandy and they were originally recommended by the hairdressers where I am getting my hair done {well hopefully, really need to book it!} and I have read some good reports about them. They also use MAC make-up which I use and really like which was another reason I liked the sound of them. (Image from here ) I don't wear a lot of make-up generally and since I totally want to be pampered on my wedding day and want to make sure I'm wearing enough for the photos, I wanted to get it done professionally. They are a mobile company, based in Edinburgh, who can either come to my parents house where we are all getting ready or go to the hairdressers since they have a good relationship with them and there is plenty of space. Which is a good thing since 6 of us {me, mum and 4 out of my 5 bridesmaids} will be getting their make-up done {I had left it up to them to decide whether they wanted it do...

At work the other day me and my colleagues were discussing weddings {my friend at work is getting married in 2 weeks so this is a regular occurrence just now} and my boss, whose 5 year wedding anniversary was on Friday, was telling us how him and his wife had kept to the traditional anniversary gifts every year. This year, since the gift was wood, he had got her a wooden penguin from dcuk, The Duck Company , and he was given a wooden cocktail muddler. I thought it was a great idea and something we would love to do in the future, although given that we aren't even married yet, it will be quite a while until we have to worry about it! I dug out my birthdays + anniversaries book from Paperchase which lists each anniversary to see what they are {UK ones anyway}: 1st - Paper 2nd - Cotton 3rd - Leather 4th - Fruit & Flowers 5th - Wood 6th - Sugar/Iron 7th - Wool 8th - Bronze 9th - Copper/Pottery 10th - Tin 11th - Steel 12th - Silk & Linen 13th - Lace 14th - Ivory 15th - Crystal ...

I've been given my first blog award & been tagged! I'm very excited to get this award from the lovely Marie at Wife in the City so thank you Marie, its wonderful to know others are reading my little blog. So on to the 10 random things: 1. It took me 9 and a half years from leaving school / starting uni to become an Architect! I passed my final exam in March. 2. I love reading and always like to read a little before I go to sleep every night; my current favourites are the Twilight series but I do also love Harry Potter; I cant wait for the New Moon film in November! 3. I'm still debating whether to fully change my name when I get married; I definitely will for general purposes but may keep my old name for work. 4. I absolutely love to travel to new places / countries; looking forward to our honeymoon to Sri Lanka & the Maldives. 5. I cant wait to be an auntie although I think it makes me sound old! 6. I love both X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing and as usual, ITV ...

...another 1.5lbs lost! Current Weight [19.09.09] - 10st 1lb Total Loss = 33.5lbs Yippee, im so happy I managed to take off some that I put on last week, so now just 1lb to go to get to my 10st goal! {Only 1.5lb to get to 2 and a half stone lost!}

As I mentioned here , it was my sister Ashleigh's birthday on Sunday. I also made her a card which she finally got today {1 week after I posted it due to postal strikes!} so I can now share it. Im still really enjoying making cards and I like being able to give people an individual and more personal card. Everyone seems to have really liked them so far too. p.s Still no baby either! Its now 8 days late so must be too comfy!

I ordered more samples of card & envelopes from PDA as well as some vellum envelopes from Ideal Envelopes . They all arrived really quickly back on the 4th of September and I love the vellum ones! The ones from PDA are a bit nicer just because of the way they close but they are more expensive so will need to think about it if we do decide to go with them. I did order another plain square one to check the size as well. L-R: Ideal Envelopes - Vellum; PDA Envelopes & Card I also ordered a gatefold card sample in the same purple that we are using for the main invitations, as an option for the evening invites, as well as PDA's swatch pack which is brilliant as it has 1 piece of every type of card they stock which would make it really easy to compare types and colours without having to order loads of bigger bits. L-R: PDA Swatch Pack; PDA Colourplan Swatch - Col25 Amethyst {our colour} So I think I'm going to start doing mock-ups of the invites this weekend then I really r...

Its only 200 days until the wedding today! (Image from the knot ) From tomorrow it will be down to 100 & something days which sounds a lot sooner than 200!

As I had talked about before , losing weight has meant that my engagement ring was far too big and falling off! I couldn't cope with the stupid plastic ring snuggie any longer so we went to the jewellers where Graham bought the ring on Saturday. I got my ring and then my fingers measured and I have opted to go for a size K ring, down 2 sizes from the original M that I had {despite the assistant saying I should go down to a J which I felt would be far too tight in the summer!} So I left my ring there and it should take 5-10 days to re-size. It feels so weird without it, my finger feels naked so I'm hoping it wont take too long! I'm hoping they clean it at the same time too! We also had a look at their wedding rings again and I took some options I had drawn as well as a picture of what I liked which I had created from an image of another ring in Photoshop {I'm pretty sure the assistant thought I was a bit odd but never mind!}. Putting my AutoCAD skills to good use! {Note...

As you know, my sister Ashleigh is pregnant. She was due last Wednesday {9th September} and there is no sign of my niece or nephew yet! Hopefully there will be some news soon; I'm so excited about being an auntie and cant wait to meet the new arrival when I go down next Thursday. I'm sure mummy {& daddy} to be cant wait either! Mum & Dad are going to see them this Friday and I know they are hoping they will be grandparents by then! It was also Ashleigh's birthday yesterday so at least she got to enjoy her day. I made her a card but don't want to share it until she receives it {stupid postal strikes in London!}

...2lbs gained! {aaaaaaagh!} Current Weight [12.09.09] - 10st 2.5lb Total Loss = 32lbs Not so good over the last 2 weeks but I have been out loads for drinks & food so I did expect to put some back on! {Its only my 2nd gain in the 34 weeks I have been following WW so I'm not doing too bad!} So now I have 2.5lbs to go to get to my 10st goal and 3lbs to get to 2 and a half stone lost! I still have 3 and a half weeks until i am getting measured for my dress {8th Oct} so hopefully I can get to 10st by then!

More birthday cards, I have lots of birthdays in September and its also my sisters tomorrow! These ones are for two of my friends, one from school and another who i used to work with who is going to be 30. They are both having their birthday nights out tonight so I'm going to go to one for a bit then go and meet the others later on, starting with the 30th where I will also get to catch up with some old colleagues. I wanted to try out some backgrounds on these stamps and two Happy Birthday stamps and the candle stamps that I got recently. I really like the watermark ink background on the pink card but also think the circles came out lovely in grey on the white one. Loving my corner rounder too!

I had a great time at my friend Stacey's Murder Mystery Hen Night on Saturday. I met them early on so we could spend the day by the pool, jacuzzi, sauna & steam room which was lovely and relaxing and having lunch. Everyone else arrived in the afternoon then we retreated to our rooms to get ready for the evening ahead. A couple of weeks before we had all received our invites to join Stacey, or Claudia Shifty, the world famous model, as she was to be known that evening, on her hen night on board the "Jealous Bride", a luxury cruise liner. The liner was owned by Lady Catherine Eterre who was to be our hostess for the evening. We were all given characters and suggestions on what to wear. I was to be "Paula Ranovercliff", the famous long distance runner. The costume suggestions was just running gear & a tracksuit which I didn't think was that great, especially since I knew we would be hitting a club later on. So I wore a dress to go out in and accessorise...

Although I haven't really thought too much about the flowers yet {or spoken to any florists}, we will definitely be using some purple flowers within our arrangements. Possibly some tulips, to tie in with the spring & Easter timing, and of course, some orchids, since they are my favourite flower. Originally I thought I wanted to have a white orchid shower bouquet, and thought it would contrast with the bridesmaids, but once I had chosen my dress that wasn't really going to go with the style or colour of it. So now I'm leaning towards a more colourful bouquet and really like the one below that I found on Style Me Pretty a while ago. (Images from here )

365 days ago, we were in NYC, when a guy asked a girl to marry him ! I cant believe we have been engaged for a year, it has gone so fast! We knew we couldn't actually mark the occasion tonight as I'm going to the hen night of a friend from work; we are going to the spa, having a murder mystery dinner before heading out to a club then staying overnight, which all sounds fab. So instead, we think we will go for a nice lunch tomorrow {dependant on the hangover of course!}. p.s I wish I was back in NYC in that lovely sunshine; it has rained non-stop for 2 days in Edinburgh!

...no official weigh-in; I'm off enjoying myself at my friends hen night!

The last month has gone so fast, now we have only 7 months to go! We have done a few more things in the last month including deciding on the bridesmaids dresses, confirming that the pianist is available at our church on our date and sent the rest of the save the date cards. I have also started thinking more about the invites. I got a new stamp for them, ordered some samples of patterned paper & vellum envelopes as well as some different samples of card for the evening invites. Next, I plan on doing some mock-ups! ps. 6 weeks until we go to the Cotswolds & 3 months till Florida!

OK, so while my weight loss is fabulous and I'm very excited that I'm almost down to my goal weight, and I do feel so much better for it, there has been a teeny tiny down side. My lovely engagement ring, which I have almost been wearing every day for a year {3 days to 1 year engaged!}, is now way too big for me. Guess that happens when you have lost 34 pounds! I will get it properly fixed when we go shopping for our wedding rings but I needed something to stop it falling off for the time being. I had heard of Ring Snuggies before and discovered they stocked them at Claire's so had a look while I was shopping at the weekend. Luckily they had them and one is kind of the right size to stop my ring from moving about, yippee! Ring Snuggies (Image from here ) Although they are great and do exactly what they need too {they would also be great for people who have larger knuckles}, I have to say they are a bit uncomfortable and its definitely only a temporary measure as they are qu...

Continuing my latest obsession of making my own cards, it was my aunts 50th birthday yesterday and here are two cards that I made for her. The first one was for me to give her and the other card below I made for my mum. She had got my aunt afternoon tea at the Dorchester Hotel in London for her birthday and wanted to give her a card with the info in it since there wasn't a present to open. I think they both turned out quite well again, since I had no plan or sketch to start with. In the last couple of weeks I have ordered loads more stamps to use on cards for upcoming birthdays & weddings.