Guest Post!

I had a guest post today over at Polka Dot Weddings where I shared some of my advice on organising a lolly buffet for your wedding or event. Check it out here!

No. 75 - Enter A Craft or Cooking Competition

This is something I have been wanting to do for a while but have not been confident enough to do. Finally I decided to just suck it up and enter something into the Gold Coast Show Homecrafts Competition.

I chose to compete in the Needlecraft section in section 36 - A sleeveless vest for a toddler or infant.

Pattern: Sleeveless Top with Cables by Drops Design

Needles: 4mm straights

Wool: Holiday 8 ply in Navy

Start/Finish Date: 3.8.11 - 23.8.11

I am really happy with how this turned out. It was actually pretty fast to knit up and would have taken be less time if I didn't stop for a week and a bit between knitting the front piece and knitting the back piece.

Corey asked me what I am going to do with it after the show. I can't decide whether to give it to someone as a gift or whether to keep it for the futures. I think it would look super cute one day on our future son with a white collared shirt underneath. I think I might have to keep it!

Daily Style - Farmers Market Morning

This weekend was relatively quiet. We had our nephews first birthday on Saturday then spent Saturday night at my aunties house. Sunday we got up early to go to the farmers markets with my parents then just stopped into a few shops and hung around home for the afternoon. This is the first time I have worn this dress because when I bought it it was a little big. It has taken me a few months to finally do the alterations on it.

Dress: Kitty's Vintage Kitsch

Boots: Rubi Shoes (on their last legs)

Belt: H&M

I am so glad I finally got around to altering this dress. I altered a few other things while I was at it too. Now I have some brand new things to wear! It has satisfied my urge to go shopping for a little while which is good because we need to save as much as possible for the wedding. Only 2.5 months to go!

Quick & Easy Mickey Mouse Cupcakes

Saturday was our nephew Phoenix's 1st birthday party and I was asked to make some cupcakes to bring along. I used my usual sprinkle cupcake recipe and decided I wanted to decorate them to suit the theme which was baby Mickey Mouse.

I used black polka dot cupcakes cases and some red butter cream icing. For the ears I used dark chocolate melts. They are not super Mickey Mouse but they still fit the theme and were super quick and easy to make. They just go to show you don't have to spend hours in the kitchen to make cute cupcakes!

And isn't the birthday cake that Corey's sister made adorable! It was lactose free as well because little Phoenix is lactose intolerant but if she hadn't told us we wouldn't have known. It tasted amazing! I can't wait till I have kids so I can go crazy making themed cakes. It is going to be awesome!!!

101 in 1001 - 1 Year Left!

19Today is the beginning of my last year of my 101 in 1001. I can't believe I wrote this list nearly 2 years ago. When I wrote it I never thought I would keep going with it for this long but I have and I am glad I have. I thought it would be fun to see what I have accomplished in the past 636 days.

Tasks Accomplished

1 - Be More Active

2 - Give Blood

3 - Go To The Dentist For A Check Up

4 - Get Prescription Sunglasses

6 - Move Our Of Home

8 - Be More Confident

11 - Get Engaged

12 - Take A Multi Vitamin Everyday For A Month

16 - Graduate Uni

17 - Get A Full Time Job In Events

19 - Watch the whole 1st season of True Blood

22 - Read the entire Sookie Stackhouse series

23 - See A Musical

24 - Go To Paris

25 - See Snow in real life

26 - Have a snowball fight

27 - Make snow angels

28 - Go to Italy

29 - Get a new passport

30 - Go to London

32 - Buy a new car

35 - Learn to sew knit fabrics

36 - Sew a pair of pants/shorts

39 - Make a quilt

41 - Learn how to make ice cream

45 - Make a fondant decorated cake

46 - Hold a dinner party

48 - Make bread from scratch

49 - Make Corey breakfast in bed

50 - Develop my personal style

52 - Be happy with my hair

53 - Spend a day op shopping

54 - Learn to braid my hair

55 - Paint my nails every day for 2 weeks

56 - Learn how to curl my hair with rollers

57 - Take photos of my outfits everyday for a month and put them on my blog

58 - Buy a real vintage dress

60 - Buy a tripod

62 - Buy photoshop

67 - Complete a 1000 piece puzzle

68 - Do the 30 day letter challenge

69 - Spend a whole weekend without the internet

71 - Buy a clear umbrella

73 - Roast marshmallows over a proper fire

80 - Have a colour coordinated Christmas tree

81 - Get professional photos taken with Corey

84 - Go to the science museum

86 - Have a proper picnic with Corey

88 - Go to a Gold Coast Blaze game

93 - Go to Wintersun

94 - Go to Greazefest

96 - Start a journal

97 - Learn to crochet

98 - Try stamp carving

99 - Try embroidery

101 - Make 10 items from my Ravelry queue

So that is everything I have completed so far! It is a lot more than I realised. I have worked out that if I complete 1 item every 8 days I will be all done by this time next year. I really hope I can finish everything but there are a few things on my list that I am a bit concerned about so they might not get done. We'll see!

No. 84 - Go To The Science Museum

I have been wanting to go to the Science Museum in Brisbane for quite some time but Corey didn't believe me that it would be fun. On Sunday I finally nagged him enough that he decided to take me and guess what, he loved it! I haven't been to the Science Museum since I was in primary school and I expected it to be bigger but nevertheless we spent a few hours there playing on everything. We were going to take Corey's nephews but they were out visiting their grandparents so we went by ourselves. We were the only adults there without kids but we made up for it by being kids ourselves. Here are some pics from our day.....

Corey's personal best

My personal best....i'm slow!

And that was our time at the Science Museum. Afterwards we went upstairs to the art gallery and had a wander around then headed into Queen Street for lunch. If you live in Brisbane or if you are visiting Brisbane I suggest you check out the Science Museum. It's so much fun!

Pingu

Last night we had family dinner for mum's birthday and I of course brought the cake. Mum is a loves penguins so with the thanks of a little internet searching and inspiration I made this cake.

I call him Pingu! Isn't he the cutest? We didn't want to cut into him so we made dad do it.

On the inside he is 3 chocolate cakes layered with vanilla buttercream. I used a recipe from the Crabapple Cupcake book which is fast becoming my go to book for cake recipes. They just always work out perfectly. The only thing I have found with them is they take a little longer to cook than the book says and they always make more than the book says but hey I am not complaining. A few extra cupcakes is nothing to complain about!

The outside icing is chocolate buttercream tinted black with fondant accents. The hat was a pain in the proverbial to make and it was cracking and stuff in the back so that wasn't the best but it still looked good. I am so glad that mum loved him cause he was fun to make.

My First Sew-A-Long

The New Vintage Lady is hosting a sew-a-long called the Plain Pattern Project. The rules are that you have to choose a pattern that you have never made before from your stash. The pattern has to be a basic plain pattern and you have to make 3 versions of that pattern. At least 1 version has to be close to the original pattern and then the next two you can customise and alter to your hearts content. And the greatest thing is that the deadline is December 31st 2011, so there is plenty of time to jump in and take part!

I have chosen a vintage blouse pattern from my stash, Butterick 2396. I couldn't actually find any pictures of anyone that has made this pattern before so I am interested to see how it turns out. It is a pretty basic blouse that buttons up down the back. I think there is a lot of room for customisation. I am going to be using view D which is the pink sleeveless scoop neck version.

If you would like to take part in the sew-a-long pop on over here and sign up!

Happy Birthday Mumsie!

Yesterday was my mumsies birthday. Dad works nights so we are holding off until Sunday to have birthday dinner and cake. But instead of making mum sit at home by herself on her birthday Corey and I invited her around for dinner. We ordered kfc (at mum's request not because we are too lazy to cook her dinner) and skyped my sister and of course I made some cupcakes.

Aren't they cute! My sister thinks they look like the little monsters from Sesame Street. I think the orange one could be Zoe from Sesame Street if you took off the feelers. Anyway, I used another recipe from Crabapple Cupcake book. One of my 101 in 1001 is to make all the recipes in this book so that is why it keeps popping up. So far I have made 7 out of 37.

I would share the recipe but these are so simple. They are basically just a standard vanilla cupcake with some rose water added in. The recipe uses 1 teaspoon of rosewater and 2 teaspoons of vanilla. They turn out delicious! Corey even said they were my best cupcakes ever! We are having family dinner Sunday and I will be baking a cake so more baking pics to come.

Table Numbers & A Sign

Okay so the last two things we made over the weekend were our tables numbers and a sign for our lolly buffet. Just quickly because a few people have asked all these signs and tables numbers and our noodleboxes were made using cardstock which I bought from Sarbe Invitations + Paper. If you live on the Gold Coast I recommend you check this shop out. It is amazing!!! The font that I have been using is a free download from Da Font called Champagne & Limousines. The lovebirds graphic was made for me by the lovely Claudia from Petite Marie.

So onto the table numbers. I know we didn't really have to make these but I really wanted table numbers that suited our theme and not just the ones that the venue supplied. The frames came from Ikea and were $2 each. I can't remember what they are called but they are always there. These were super easy to make and took Corey and I about 10 minutes.

Now these has got to be my favourite thing that we made over the weekend. This is the sign for our lolly buffet table. Isn't it super cute! I love it! I was going to use a poem but then I thought this is funny and cute and fits our personalities way better. So that is the last of my crafting from over the weekend. Now all I have to do is redecorate the cake stand and make some cones for rose petals. I have some pictures of the invitations to share but I want to wait till they have been posted first so stay tuned for those soon!

Wedding Guestbook

The guestbook was something that we thought about for ages. We had so many ideas of what to do on the wedding day but no idea what we do with them after the wedding. We discussed a quilt but I know my lack of sewing motivation with big projects would cause that to just sit in the sewing room for years afterwards. We thought about a fingerprint tree but I didn't like the idea of people wandering around with green ink on their fingers that could get on everything. We even thought about just not having one. But then we were at Corey's sisters house one day and we were reading through her wedding guestbook and it was quite cute to read so we decided to just have a relatively normal guestbook.

We ordered this photo book from Big W which we were able to make on the net with our engagement photos. It was really easy and fun to make!

We left heaps of white space around all of the photos so there is plenty of space for our guests to write. And the best thing was that it only cost us $30! We are trying to save money wherever possible with this wedding. I have been pretty lucky in grabbing some bargains. I might even do a cost breakdown after the wedding so you can see where I saved.

And for a last added touch we made this sign for the guestbook table. Just a little something to add a bit of colour. This will probably sit with the guestbook and the wishing well on one table. If you can't read it here is a closer photo.

I really feel like we are getting somewhere with this wedding. We managed to cross a few things off the list last weekend and there are not that many more to do so fingers crossed we will have it all done soon. I want everything done so the last month before the wedding is not too crazy. Hopefully it all works out the way I hope!

edit: as this post seems to get a lot of spam comments I have decided to turn off comments for this post to save me the headache of having to filter through them daily.

Birdcage Wishing Well

Do you remember this birdcage that I bought from Big W?

Probably not because I think I only posted it on my old blog. Anyways, I bought it to use as our wishing well for our wedding because it fits in perfectly with our lovebirds theme. It only cost me $30 from Big W and all it needed was a coat of white paint. All the other birdcages I looked at buying where $70 or more. So I went to Bunnings and bought myself a can of spray paint gave it a coat or two and a piece of ribbon and here is the finished product....

It's pretty simple but I like it that way. I thought of adding some more stuff to it but I thought it would just get too busy. This way it will just blend in nicely to our theme. I am not too fond of the whole wishing well idea but since we have been living together for a while it makes sense to do it. I am really starting to get these wedding projects crossed off the list. I got a few more done over the weekend that I will share this week so stay tuned!