A Visit Up North ♥

This weekend we went up to the venue with Ed's sister and boyfriend, and went 'Glamping' while we were there. We stayed in these wooden Octolodges, which were really cute and cosy. It was all heated with plug sockets and a T.V., only downside was the toilet and shower block was a walk down a hill but that's what it's all about. Ed was walking down to it with me in his PJ's and decided it would be more fun to get to them by falling and sliding down the hill! I turned round and he was covered in mud, so the one positive about that, it gave us a right laugh. 

Here was a view from the lodge at about 8am. It was stunning with mist off the hills, and snow on the mountains, you forget that sights like this exist in England!

This was the view in the day. This is about 20 miles away from our venue.

If we ever go up to Kendal I always make sure I have a quick mooch in the charity shops, they seem to have bags more goodies than we do. I just go in with an open mind and see what I come out with. With the help of Ed's sister, we found this gorgeous vintage hand mirror, with an ivory sequined back. I'm not sure how old it is, but it's quite heavy and I think it is brass. I just thought it would look gorgeous as a little vintage prop somewhere in the room, and the design of it is very wedding like. A whole £2.00 it cost! Definite bargain.(Sorry for the rubbish pictures, I was in a rush!)

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I've been after two vintage suitcases for the wedding. One for the table plan (I'll explain how when I do it!) and one to put any cards we receive in. I've looked on Ebay and they are all around £50.00, or too far away to pick up, and they are so popular now as a shabby chic home accessory. We walked into this charity shop and there it was. Perfect. Dark brown, rectangular, tatty, with somebody's initals on. It's also great because I found it in Kendal, so just another little sentimental point to it. I had the whole shop trying to help me get into the thing though, it was so tightly shut no one could open it! I just thought I would risk it and have it anyway for £15.00. 

When I got home we sprayed some WD40 on the clasps and it popped open like magic. It's in decent condition inside, but it'll look great when it's newly lined with floral fabric etc! Just one more to find now.

Tilly xXx

My Little Ebay Finds ♥

Being a DIY bride, I must spend hours upon hours sifting through Ebay. Pages and pages of items from sugar flowers to dresses. This blog should probably be called confessions of the Ebay bride, but hey ho! I thought I would just share with you a few items I have found that I am considering for the wedding, how much they are, and what I plan to do with them. I'll also pop the links below each image, so if you are planning your own celebration, you could get them yourself =) These are in no particular order, just whatever I pick out.

These organza bags are a total bargain, it's 50 for £1.79 or 100 for £3.19. I am torn between the nude colour and the pink. As well as favours which may possibly be teeny pots of home-made jam, I am going to have these organza bags dotted randomly on tables filled with mini eggs! It is Easter Good Friday on our wedding day, so I thought we have to involve it somewhere. This just means there's a subtle hint of Easter, mini eggs are nice pastel colours, so I could put five bags on each table, and then fill a bowl of mini eggs on the buffet table. The total cost would probably be less than a tenner for a pretty little Easter hint.

Update - I bought 50 nude bags for £1.79, wehey!

Organza Bags

This is some floral vintage style fabric I have found. It comes in a fat quarter bundle for £7.50 with £1.75 postage. These would be ideal for the top covers for the jam favours, and also to make some bunting. The fabric on the far right has the exact colours of my little sister's bridesmaid dress too! So I shall get two lots of these because I think they will look so pretty all around the tables on the jam lids, tied with some brown twine! I have already got the twine too, 4 rolls from the 99p store!

Vintage Fabric Bundle

These are the teeny Jam jars I keep waffling on about. They are so cute! You know the type when you go down for breakfast at a hotel, and they have these with Jam and marmalade? I think with them being small they add a bit of quirkyness to the favours, and with a nice sticker saying 'Spread the Love' on the front, perhaps with the date of our wedding, they will be super duper. The only slight issue is...I've never made Jam before! Where there's a Till, there's a way!

These are 100 Jam jars for £53.00, which I don't think is too bad really. I excited to see them filled with Jam, with their little floral hats on!

Mini Jam Jars

Cake. Cake, cake cake. I have a mini panic attack when I think about the cake. Scouting around online, cakes are round about £300.00 for a 3 tier cake. It's daylight robbery, I know a lot of intricate work goes into them, but it only gets eaten! I have been thinking about buying a cake base, just sponge already iced in 3 or 4 tiers, and decorate it myself. Risky I know, considering you can only really get it 14 days before, and I could mess it up, but we will see! I think it's worth a go, plus it will be personalised, even if it's crap.

These pretty sugar flowers are £3.99 for 100, and I could either dot them all over randomly, or do a pretty trail up the tiers. Ill have to design before I stick!

Sugar Flowers

That's enough jibberish for now, but at least you can see what I have been looking at. What do you think? Have you got any Ebay items to recommend? 

Tilly xXx

I am back ♥

Oh Hey! Long time no blog! What a few weeks it has been. Ed and I went to Cyprus for our holiday last week, I am missing it already! It was so lovely and hot, and all the guests we talked to seemed to be going to a wedding over there, or booking a wedding. We were thinking after all this talk, are we doing the right thing staying in the UK to tie the knot? After a 5 hour non - stop pool chat along with a few other hotel guests, and much thinking, I honestly think we are doing right by what we are doing. I know that all our guests can come, well more so than if it was in Cyprus, I can tailor the room to exactly how I want it, and if it rains then we will just have to have some romantic rainy pictures. 

Here we are over there. It's all about the giraffe sunnies!

If you have read the previous posts, you may know that I ordered my little sisters bridesmaid dress. Well it came, and my Mom took that big tacky bow off straight away and it made the world of difference. Where the bright pink ribbon is, I think we are going to cover it with a slightly duskier/lighter pink just to tone it down a little. I'm also going to try and get an underskirt to flare it out a little. It's a really cute dress though, different with a vintage feel which is what I really like on it. 

Here she is with it on, it's just the right size to grow into over the next 19 months for her, and she is holding one of the little posies I have been making. It's not quite finished, but we just took the photo so we could get the full effect.

I spotted another wedding dress on the land of Ebay yesterday, which is a gorgeous lace and taffeta dress. I really love it, it's so elegant but still holds that vintage touch with the shoulders. I have broad shoulders so I thought this would work well to tone them down but others have the opinion that it may accentuate them, any ideas?

I do still love the dress I have put on here as 'the one', I just love how classy this is. 

The lace up back detail is stunning, and this looks so nice with a long veil. I also have a tattoo on my right shoulder, so this would also tone that down a little if I was going to cover it. That's another post in itself that I'll talk about at a later date. 

I hope everyone is well, next post coming very soon! Ooo and P.S. I gained 4lb on holiday, I went to weight watchers yesterday. I think it may have been more than that though because we moved house on Saturday and I must of dropped a couple then! I am really disheartened actually, because the people that joined around the same time as me who I was running alongside with weight loss, are now a few lbs ahead of me. I really need to try and get it off!

Tilly xXx

Making a little Posie Bouquet ♥

After yesterday's post, I was itching to get started on having a go at making a bouquet. I just really wanted to see what it would look like. I hadn't really got suitable brooches to put in it, so I just thought I'd see how it would turn out anyhow. My Mom and I popped down to Hobbycraft (a big craft store in the UK), and we found lots of goodies that could be turned into some pretty creations.

My Mom kindly treated me to all the bits and bobs to have a go with. I have been looking at real floral bouquets this morning, and they appear to be typically £50.00 or more! Daylight robbery yet again. I just can't justify it just to chuck them away. We got enough supplies to make two little Bridesmaid posies, and that came to just under £30.00 for two! I think they will be a nice keepsake for the girls if they wanted to keep them.

So to make them, we got: 

4 Bunches of artificial vintage coloured roses

3 Bunches of diamanté roses / sprigs

Floristry Tape and Floristry wire

Tools needed were scissors, and round nosed pliers if you are going to use brooches. Also, weight watchers chocolate brownie pudding top left - not optional =D

I began to assemble the flowers randomly so there were different colours mixed up. I then loosely wrapped one of the stem wires around all of the stems to keep them in place. It takes a bit of pushing and pulling to get them at the same level but it's worth it! 

I then added some diamanté roses and sprigs to complete it, just wrapping their wires around the base stems of the flowers. To secure, I just wrapped the floristry tape all around the stems to neaten it up. I have ribbon to wrap around the stem base, but it kept on gathering up as I wrapped it around. I'm now thinking of wrapping them in the thick brown vintage looking string - you know the stuff? And then adding the ribbon as a bow at the top. I'll show you once I have got the string.

This is a photo of it in daylight. I think it has turned out quite pretty, and I'm now thinking I may actually use this. I haven't fully assembled the other one, and that is one flower less than this so I might pop a brooch in it. I'm going to go back to Hobbycraft when I return off my holidays and grab the rest of these flowers, because I think I better get them before the Christmas stock starts invading. It will be great to have these done in advance, definitely one less thing to worry about. I've also got to figure out how to do the buttonholes, as they will have to match. I think Hobbycraft will have nothing left by the time I'm finished!

So there we go, a little bouquet for a fraction of the price, and something to keep forever. We're doin' the DIY!

Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear! 

Tilly xXx

Save the Date! ♥

Before we got engaged, I hadn't really thought of Save the Date cards, and when buying wedding magazines and surfing the net, it became more apparent they were pretty popular. The concept of them, is to send out a card with the date and perhaps the location of your wedding before the invitation, so guests can get it booked off work in plenty of time. I've seen some nice idea's for Save the Date cards.

Some people like to take a photo with themselves in, and send that out by itself, or a formal card like the invitation. Here are some examples.

The idea is to be short, sweet and one sided. I like the photograph concept, however for ours I wanted something that would give an idea of the theme of the wedding. The card below is more like what I seem to come across more regularly, as it's straight to the point.

So, after a little while messing around on Photoshop, I came up with a design that I quite like for ours. Also, I am going to send ours out as magnets, so our guests can stick them on the fridge, and not forget! They will be about Credit Card size and come with little envelopes. They are priced at 20 for £6.99, or £8.99 with envelopes if you require them. If you don't fancy your chances with Photoshop, there are also some pre-designed magnets, that you can personalise with your names and date. 

I've got to do a final count of the guest list before I know how many to order. Obviously it is one card per house hold, so I think it's going to be around 50, which is a little annoying with it being 20 per pack. Nevermind! The link to the Ebay seller for the magnets is HERE.

This is the first design I have done, I wanted something a little bit vintage and floral. I'm a little unsure about the font looking at it now though, I'm not sure if it's right for the theme. But, that's what it's all about, trial and error and I shall get there in the end.

I'm not actually sure on when to send these, I'm thinking around Christmas or just after in January, with just over a year to go so they don't get mixed up with the Christmas post. 

Thanks for reading, tomorrow is my first Weight Watchers weigh in, so a post on #OperationWeddingDress will be coming either tomorrow evening or Wednesday morning! I'm a little nervous, but I think I've lost at least a pound (out of my pocket), so I'm not sweating it too much. 

Tilly xXx

P.S. I've just done a quick Save the Date card with the use of my background, and I think I much prefer it. I'm thinking when I receive them, to stick a little pearl heart in one of the top corners to make it a little bit more pleasing to the eye. Reckon it's better than the first one?

X

Hello & Welcome! ♥

Hello There! Nice to meet you. My name is Tilly, and I am a 22 year old bride-to-be from England. You may remember me from such blogs as: tilldazzled.blogspot.com ! If not however, this is a completely different blog to that. Here I would like to share with you everything I encounter along the journey to my wedding day. It will not only help me pass the time, but could also help you with little pieces of inspiration. As you may have gathered from the title, I plan to 'DIY' most things for my wedding with the help of my family, so here I shall keep a record of it all.

A little introduction...

This is me and my fiancé Ed at the top of the Eiffel Tower about a minute after he got down on one knee! It was amazing, pouring down with rain but we didn't care. It was my 21st birthday and the best one I've ever had! It was planned because we went and had the ring designed and made together, which is also something really special as there isn't another one in the world! He is the love of my life and my childhood sweetheart, or first love if you wish. We met when I was 14 and he was 15 over MSN messenger through friends. We didn't meet in person for about a year, but webcam chatted every night and it very quickly became apparent that something special was blossoming.

To cut a very long lovely story short, we have been together for more or less 5 years, and have talked about getting wed for as long as we can remember. We have been engaged a year now, and have booked our venue, which I will talk about in an up and coming post. Our date most importantly is *drumroll please* :

Friday 18th April 2014.

It is currently 21 months away, which is a fair old time, but we aren't getting married near our hometown, so we have a lot to organise!

This is a current photo of us, so you know who is on the other end of the keyboard! :) 

I do plan at this stage to keep my blue hair for the wedding, but we shall see...

So there is a brief introduction for you, I look forward to sharing with you my escapades and journey along the way to being a Mrs. Please follow if you would like to, and I will certainly check out any of your blogs that you recommend! Thanks for reading and a new post up very soon!

Tilly xXx