Sydney Flower Market - amazing!

This morning, at 3.15am no less, I headed down the F3 to the Sydney Flower Market, WOW what an eye opener, I have never been before, and it was just amazing.

Flowers of every description and colour, I was a bit overwhelmed with the options at first, but luckily had Emma with me (part-time florist who is putting the flowers together for me), and she had a plan of attack, I had several photos of flower arrangements, and colours I liked, so we targetted the bouquets & cake topper first. Once we had found everything for them, we took the flowers back to the car (in the pouring rain!!)

Then we were back to pick flowers for decorations, we're having 2 urns on either side of the stairs for the ceremony, so those arrangements need a little bit of height, then we have a range of around 30 wine bottles, and 20 jars that we will scatter flowers throughout.

One thing I saw that I just had to have was white kale.

White Kale

We decided to change some of the decorations to include the kale, they're so stunning, even nicer than this pic, they were my favourite find today.

And we picked up some of my favourite, Cymbidium Orchids, they have been my inspiration all along re colour scheme etc, and I'm so happy I was able to get some to have in the bouquet.

Cymbidium Orchids

Other flowers we selected were

White Fresias

White Daphne

Cream roses

Blushing Bride

We also got a few bunches of natives and grasses, and some lovely green wheat, to use in the bottles/jars,

I would have loved to have hydrangeas & peonies, however neither were available.

All the flowers are with Emma, she'll keep them in her special fridge, then put the arrangements together on Friday, deliver them to the hall on Saturday morning, then bring the 2 bouquets and button holes to our house on Saturday afternoon before we head off.

I think I could easily become addicted to the Sydney Flower Market, the bargain prices we paid for just beautiful flowers was amazing.  The cost, including Emma's labour, will come in at about 1/3rd of what we were quoted from 3 local florists!  Huge saving.

Well it's almost midnight, and having got up this morning at 2.30am I'm a tad knackered.  Happy to report I have just finished the last of the 100m of bunting!!!!!  I shall post on that tomorrow hopefully. We also met with the photographer today at the hall, and drove to the photo location options, very happy with the plan of attack!

D for Dye Day

Today was d-day for dyeing, shoe dyeing that is.

Having searched far and wide for a pair of green heels that weren't skyscrapers, I purchased a pair of white satin heels online, with a view to getting them dyed locally.

Little did I know how difficult it would be to find someone who could dye them for me!  Sydney was the common recommendation when I was asking round - hairdresser, drycleaner etc. There was one other option in Newcastle, but at $130, I thought it was a bit excessive.

I went googling and found a few forums discussing dyeing satin ballet slippers, I thought that surely it wouldn't be too hard to dye my heels.

I also want to dye some of my calico bunting, so picked up various green dyes on one of my trips to Spotlight.

I had my final dress fitting on Saturday, wearing my shoes. So today I set to dyeing the heels.

I used the Dylon Amazon colour first, the colour on the packet looked pretty close to what I was after, but once the first coat had dried I realised it was way too pale and too olive.

Dylon amazon green

Shoe 1, Coat 1 of Dylon Amazon Green

1 coat on both of Dylon Amazon Green

So once dried, I went over them with a coat of Jacquards iDye Kelly Green

Jacquards iDye Kelly Green

And woohoo, perfect, I still have another coat to do once they dry, probably finish them off in the morning so totally dry.  I'll post pics of the final product after that, I think I should probably get a sealant for them to.

Left Kelly, Right Amazon

Both Kelly - coat 1

Just ignore the mess on the towel!

1 coat to go, then sealant

So far, very happy with the result  :)  And with the leftover dye from each packet I'm hand painting/dyeing some of the bunting flags.

DIY Decorations - Bunting - part 1

It's been a little while coming (see earlier posts!) but on the weekend I finally made a start on my massive DIY Bunting task!

We have worked out that we will need approx 150m of bunting to do all the decorating we want:

• 2 x 2 strands looping from sides of hall up to a chain hanging high from ceiling at each end of hall, width of hall is 10m, so allowing 15m per stand to include the 'loop' - 15m x 4 = 60m
• 1 x strand looping behind/above bar - 10m should cover it
• 1 x strand looping above cake tressle table - 5m
• 1 x strand looping above soup station - 5m
• 1 x strand looping above kids area - 10m 
• 1 x strand looping above entrance - 5m
• 1 mega strand looping around verandah, below the fairy lights - 40m
• leaves 15m just in case it looks to bare!!

The triangles/flags I'm using are 20cm wide, however once sewn together and turned right side out they're about 17cm wide, so going to have 5 flags per metre with gaps of 2.5cm between each flag. 

So 5 flags per metre x 150m = 750 flags (oops DIY project out of control a tad!!)

So far I've cut out around 100 flags, and sewn up around 60, so you could say I'm a way off being finished!!

Luckily I'm really enjoying it, finding it relaxing (thank god!).

These are my creations so far, in various stages of completion!

The calico was my first try, luckily it worked, so I moved onto some of the fancier material, these are ready for binding

These are now all sewn up into flags, to be bound together

This mornings inside out flags, waiting to be turned right way out then bound, a bit of red to break up the green/cream

I have sourced material from a number of places:

• Op Shops - sheets, shirts
• Garage Sales - sheets, shirts, curtains
• Big W/Target/Kmart - discount baskets of fitted sheets, flat sheets
• Spotlight - sticking to the budget options

We have a long weekend coming up in a few days, looking forward to getting through a couple of hundred metres worth of flags!!  Wish me luck!

DIY Decorations

With our big day just 10 weeks away today (eek), my to-do list is getting done, altho I still have a few DIY projects to get done.

I blogged earlier about the DIY Bunting I'll attempt, I invested in a new sewing machine (on sale at Spotlight, usually $249, got it for $149!), and next weekend I have blocked out Sunday to get bunting!

I have 5 metres of calico to practice with, and if it goes ok I will dye some of them different shades of green, and pick up some patterned material to use also.

My next DIY project will be Martha Stewart's Tissue Paper Pom Poms, the tutorial on Martha's website looks very easy (have I just mozzed myself??)

Martha Stewart Tissue Paper Pom Poms (photo source)

So I have just ordered about 300 sheets of tissue paper on Ebay, in 4 shades of green, and 2 shades of white.  Hopefully they will arrive this week, and I can knock them off next weekend also.

After next Sunday (23rd May) I will hopefully have photos of metres & metres of bunting, and a pile of pom-poms, wish me luck!!!!!!  :-)

Temporarily Aborted Bunting DIY

I was all set for a DIY project over the long Easter Weekend, with bunting well in my sights, to use as decorations in the hall.

The aim - bunting decos for our wedding (photo source)

At Christmas my Mum gave me her old sewing machine (a Pinnock, late 1970's vintage, she was a dressmaker while home with us kids), as she had replaced hers, and as they were moving home from Qld to Vic, they stopped with us mid trip home, and lightened their load by giving me the sewing machine.

Pinnock Sewing Machine, similar to the one I've been given

I haven't sewn (apart from hand sewing hems, buttons) for quite a while (probably not since school, closing in on 20 years ago!), so I knew it was going to be a challenge, but I was up for it!

On Saturday I headed to Spotlight, after much perusing of some gorgeous fabric I thought I'd be sensible and just buy some calico to start with to make sure I could still sew, and not ruin expensive fabric.  I could also dye the calico different greens if it worked out, and use that swapped in with different pattern fabric.

Armed with 5 metres of Calico, on Monday I set up the machine, and kit of threads, scissors, unpickers, etc on the dining table.  I got the machine all threaded up no problem, switched it on, and the light works yay, I put the first strip of test calico in place ready to go, press down on the pedal and the motor starts whirring, but no action.

Uhoh, I try again, no luck, I wind in and out the tension thingo on the end, no luck.  So I call Mum, and wouldn't you know it, she actually replaced the machine with a new one 10 years ago, and this one hasn't been used since!  Excellent!

So now I have to either put it in for a service, and given it's age it could be pricey, or look at buying a new/used machine.

Extremely frustrating as I had set the day aside for my DIY project, and really fallen for the idea of using bunting as decorations for the hall.

So my DIY project is on hold, until I can get this old girl working or replace her with a newbie!  Frustration factor of 10+++!

Decorations - Ebay haul so far!

To try and cut some corners in our budget, I am scouring Ebay for decorations, which we can use in the Hall. I had sourced quotes from all of the local decorators, 6 in total, and the quotes, bar 1, were scary.

My theory is instead of paying thousands of dollars to hire items, I can buy them cheaper, use them on the day/night, then sell them afterwards.

So far my haul is:

100 x Rice Paper Lanterns (white) - $126 ($150 to hire)
150m x Fairy Lights (warm white) - $283 ($300 to hire)
2 x Candelabras - $40 ($50 to hire)
1 x Bird Cage Wishing Well/Card Holder - $66 ($40 to hire)
100 x Willow Green Organza Chair Sashes - $139.99 ($2.00 each to hire)

So on these 5 items alone the costs compare as:

Ebay - $654.99
Decorator (average quote over 6 quotes) - $740

Plus I can resell mine after the day, say if I sell them for 1/2 price of what I paid for them, that makes the cost $327.49!  Savings yay

Birdcage Wishing Well/Card Holder

Fairy Lights

Willow Green Organza Chair Sash

I've also bought:

1 x Bridal Cake Knife & Server set - $25
50 x personalised wine charms for gifts - $75

1 x Guestbook - $25

4 x White Bali flags - $25

All were much lower prices that I found through other online stores or 'real stores'.

Cake Knife & Server

Guestbook

Bali Flags - to use on either side of the gate to the Hall

I'll be back with more savings :)

Wedding Cake - the plan

After much back & forth, many (expensive) quotes, we've decided to go a bit left of centre with our wedding cake.

Instead of a traditional 3 tier cake, we're going to have a cake table.

We're asking our mums, sisters, aunt, to make one of our favourite cakes each (won't give anything away, as they've been asking if they can help with the catering side), we're going to put them on a tressle table, sitting on different level cake stands, and on the tallest stand we'll have a 1 tier 'wedding cake'.

This is the sort of layout we'll be aiming at (photo source)

At this stage, the cakes will be:

Lemon Meringue
Pavlova
Chocolate Ripple
Tiramisu
Mango/Passionfruit Cake

Then a 1 tier white icing covered cake, maybe a mudcake, still deciding, topped with fresh flowers, in our green & white theme.

We'll have knifes and servers for each cake, and our guests can help themselves.

Going to scour the opshops for dessert spoons, forks and small plates, rather than disposable, then we can keep them all for future parties.

Forgot to add, also scouring the opshops for large glass containers for lollies to include on the table, and will be heading out to the Hunter Valley Chocolate Shop and the British Sweet Shop at Hunter Valley Gardens, to see what bulk buy deals they offer, to fill the containers :)

They're In The Mail!

Yes that's right, the invitations are in the mail!  Woohoo, job done!

As per earlier posts re a failed DIY project, (and my hopeful post before starting it), we were very fortunate to have a friend of Mr Mel's offer to print our invitations free, as an engagement present.

So once I'd finished fiddling with the design and layout, I emailed it off to Mr Mel's friend, a week later I received our lovely invitations by courier.

Our Invitation!

Since then I have been putting together a RSVP card and an information pack to go with the invitation.

The information pack has a double sided card which lists:

- map to venue from main street of town - directions for people staying in town and in the vineyards
- list of restaurants we recommend, in town & in the vineyards, with an idea as to cost, and their phone numbers - we have eaten at them all so safe to recommend :)
- list of accommodation we recommend, in town & in the vineyard, with phone numbers - we inspected as many as we could, and checked online for the others
- things to do and see in the area
- an invite to breakfast at our house on the Sunday morning

Map & Things To Do

Accommodation & Restaurants

So I spent the next week or so (from about 11pm - 1am most nights!) printing onto then hand cutting the cards for the RSVP, Accom & Map info, it took a hell of alot longer than I expected, but the end result was worth it I think!

I bought a box of 100% recycled brown envelopes from Officeworks, and addressed each with green pen, I also wrote everyones names on the invitations with the green pen, my penmanship isn't great, but it will do!

So they were packed, sealed, stamped and posted yesterday, yay, another thing checked off the list!  I made a minor mistake tho, on the invites I asked for RSVP by 24 June, yet on the actual RSVP card I wrote 17 June, not a biggie and if it's 1 or the other it doesn't really matter.

We also put on the RSVP card that kick-off time is 2.30pm sharp because we want to get some family photos & some of the entertainment is only available in daylight hours  :)  heehee little do they know..........

To Bunt Or Not To Bunt

To Bunt Or Not To Bunt that is one of the questions I'm asking myself.

Our venue is quite large and so far I'm thinking of decorating it with white chinese lanterns, 3 different round sizes, along with fairy lights.

I'm meeting with a lady this weekend who is going to help with the decorations, I'm buying/renting/supplying everything, she'll put it all together for me.

Because it's a surprise wedding I can't rope in friends & family, and because we don't get access until the Friday afternoon, which happens to be when all of my family are arriving from Vic, and I'll be shuttling between home & Newcastle Airport, I was struggling to work out how I was going to manage to decorate everything.

Over the past 3 weeks, my hairdresser, our accountant and a lady at Curves have all suggested I call the same lady to come help, so I did, and we're meeting up this weekend.

One of the things I've been tossing up is bunting, I've been touring around the web quite a bit getting inspiration for decorations, and quite a few photos of bunting, and I'm loving them.

(photo source)

(photo source)

I'm still trying to work out if I have the time and skill to give it a go, but having asked the question at Simple Savings, the girls have filled me with confidence, even pointing me in the direction of a tutorial.

My Mum gave me her old sewing machine at Christmas when she upgraded, and while I haven't sewn a stitch (apart from hand sewing socks, buttons & hems), in over 15 years, I don't think it'd be too much of a struggle to pick it up again!

This weekend I'm heading out wedding dress shopping, well at least to meet with a dressmaker hopefully, and will stop at some Op Shops on the way to see if any sheets or clothes made out of green & white material that would look nice in bunting form.

Not sure if it's a fool's folly to add another thing to the to-do list!  But we'll see anyway!

The Kindness Of Curvy Strangers

As you could probably imagine, in having a surprise wedding, I have limited my available helpers to myself & Mr Mel, and have spent the last few weeks calling & emailing a long list of suppliers to get quotes on everything we need.

Not being a local for long and not knowing many (well any apart from boss & neighbours) in town, I wasn't able to rely on recommendations etc.

I joined Curves 2 weeks ago in an effort to ditch some kgs leading into the big day.  On Monday, after my failed DIY invitation attempt, I mentioned that I was craft challenged, when some of the other ladies were discussing their craft projects.  They asked what I was trying to do and as soon as the word 'wedding' left my mouth, it was on for young and old!

Within 3 minutes I had been offered:

• Florist services - a daughter of one of the ladies is a stay at home mum, but is a florist by trade
• Decoration services - a friend of one of the ladies does part time function/wedding decorating
• Cake - daughter in law of one of the ladies is a stay at home mum, works in a bakery part-time, and obsessed with cakes

I was taken aback by their kindness and generosity, by my quick calculations based on another 5 minute chat yesterday morning, on those 3 items alone we'll be saving around $800 - $1,000! Alot can happen in our Curves circle!

The ladies are bringing in email addresses & phone numbers to our Curves session tomorrow, so I can liaise directly.

So yay to me for speaking up (ok kind of whinging!), and yay to the Curvey ladies, after their kind offers I can no longer call them strangers!

Needless to say I am going to add them to the list to receive our 'thank you' photo/postcard after our day!  :)

DIY Invitations - Game over!

After starting off all guns blazing in my DIY quest to make me some invitations, the first run ended in disaster.

After about an hour of painstaking cutting, and recutting to size, with a dinky little guillotene, I had all the parts ready to assemble my first test invitation.

All was going well(ish) until I attempted to adhere the vellum to the flower paper, the glue tape and liquid glue that the lady at Spotlight recommended went terribly wrong, first you could see the glue tape through the vellum, then when I tried the liquid glue you could see that, as well as it buckled and bubbled the paper.  Excellent!

Original invitation DIY goodies

As it was 2am Monday when I finally pulled the pin on it, and I had to be up for the gym at 5.45am, then work at 8am, I decided to sleep on it (after much muttering and swearing into my coffee).

Then this afternoon Mr Mel received a call from a friend, his brother-in-law is a printer, and Mr Mel's friend asked if we would like his brother-in-law to print invitations for us, as an engagement present (remember we're having a surprise wedding!).

So going well against my grain, I told Mr Mel to politely (nee desperately) accept the very generous and kind offer.

So tonight I have been designing a new invitation. Sticking with our green and cream theme, I have settled on:

New invite - partly DIY!

I'm still tweaking it, but it will be heading to Mr Mel's friends brother-in-law (yes a Ferris Bueller moment!) tomorrow for printing.

Our lovely original supplies won't go to waste though, I'm going to use them to do RSVP cards, maps, accommodation detail cards, to go with the invitations.  Not matchy matchy, but really does it matter?  Nope I don't think so :-)

DIY Invitations - I'm game!

After trawling through probably hundreds of wedding blogs and supplier sites looking at invites, I have decided to make our invitations myself, a DIY project, I'm game, I think!

We want to go with a mainly green and cream colour scheme, based mostly on my obsession with green, and the lovely cymbidium orchid we'll probably have as our flowers.

I ventured to Spotlight today and holy moly what a craft section, I've never done any sort of craft, so hadn't wandered the aisles of craft, ever, so it was a bit of info and sensory overload, sooooo many options!

So after visiting 2 Spotlight stores (50kms apart, yes I was committed to get it done today!), I ended up going with the options below:

DIY invitations in the making!

I'm thinking of using the dark green as the backer, then the flower paper with a 1cm border of dark green, then with vellum (like tracing paper), over it bar for a .5cm border, and printing on the vellum the details of the invitation.

Then I'll use the white and pale green for the RSVP cards, and the map/directions/accommodation/transport card.

Using a 100% recycled envelope, pale brown, not matchy matchy, but we like it :)

The whole stash of DIY supplies

So wish me luck, I'm sure it's probably crazy to have first crafty/DIY project as our wedding invitations, but here we go!