Wedding DIYs #1 Paper Stuff

Mitch and I have been married for 6 months :) In a lot of ways it feels like longer but at the same time I can remember every bit of our wedding as if it was last week. To mark this mini milestone, and because all the "thank you" cards have finally be written, I thought it's be fun to share, in a little more detail, some of the stuff we made for our v.DIY wedding...

So, first up is a little bit about all the paper stuff. (I think the traditional term is 'wedding stationary' but that to me sounds like pencils, notebooks etc none of which was present at the wedding. Incidentally, I really struggled with all the "traditional" wedding terms/ettiquette/order in which stuff had to happen - we kinda just did whatever we thought seemed cool in the end.)

Save the Dates
We used Moo.com to print these. They had lots of different options (we opted for the postcard layout) including the ability to upload your own designs (in our case two v.simple geometric designs that I created in InDesign. The more you order the cheaper each indivual item costs so we opted for 50 which meant we had a few spare that I can now add to our 'wedding book'. The delivery was quick and the quality of the postcards was excellent. Really can't fault moo.com.

Invites
Because I'm pendantic and got, let's say, really into the DIY aspect of the wedding (read: controlling), I knew that I wanted to design the invites myself. Mitch, being the most patient and understanding person ever, let me get on with it. I say, let me get on with it but it's actually my dad who brought them to life. He took my original drawings, edited them in Illustrator (v.handy having a graphic designer around) so that they worked on the paper size we'd chosen, drew the map, laid out all the information AND got them printed. They didn't cost a thing in terms of cash but I know that a lot of his time went into them and I couldn't have been be more grateful or happy with the finished thing :)

Seating Plan
Referring back to my *ahem* enthusiam for DIY-ing as much as possible, I was v.keen to make the seating plan and had a v.clear design in my head. We'd already decided to name the tables after places we'd visited on our trip to New York (where Mitch proposed) so all I had to do was to draw a little illustration to go with each table. I used to draw all the time before uni but it's one of my hobbies that's been neglected for years. The wedding was the perfect excuse to pick up my pen and pencil again. It was a pretty laborious task, mostly because the piece of paper was huge and tracing the designs took aaaaages, but I really enjoyed making it.

Thank yous
Our 'Thank You' cards featured my illustrations from the invites and were, like the 'save the dates', in postcard format. Again, my dad v.kindly put them together and had them printed along with a photo of me and Mitch. Seeing as how straightforward they were to make I really had no excuse for how long it took me to send them out. Apologies friends and family if you're reading this, we are rubbish.

Finds from the charity shop

I spent the last few weeks volunteering in a local charity shop and, during that time, I found a few rather nice things: small leather bag, black hat, blue-y green pencil skirt and a glass lemon juicer (something I've been searching for for aaaaages).

It was an interesting experience but not entirely positive. I met some lovely people - the manager, other volunteers, neighbouring charity shop workers and most of the customers - but I also encountered a lot of down right shitty-ness. The rudeness of some of the customers was shocking, arguing about the prices mostly. I can understand a bit of haggling, that "if you don't ask, you don't get" stance, but these people were unbelievably tight. One women refused to pay 99p for a book (in pristine condition) and would not take no for answer, and demanded it for 50p despite the fact that the money was going towards a charity. The next form of shitty-ness was the amount of theft. SO many people stole from that place. Finally, I have a massive bone to pick with the people who v.kindly "donate" utter shite, I'm talking actual rubbish - broken toys, dirty gym clothes, shoes with holes in them. Some of the things (and the smells that came out of those bags) we unpacked would put you off your lunch.

The shop I worked at is actually closing down today (thanks to the lease being too much to renew & too much competition, there are 6 other charity shops on the highstreet). I'm not sure I'm ready to volunteer again just yet. Charity shops are a really great thing - good for the charity and good for bagain-hunters - but they deserve more respect from some memebers of the public.

Mini rant over. Hope you're all having lovely Fridays!

Cat print purse

I actually made this way back in December - it was part of my nan's christmas present - but I completely forgot to post about it. Anyhoo, here it is. The cat print was created from an afternoon of potato printing - I can't recommend this enough, hours of fun - and then I used some colourful threads to fill in the gaps with very simple embroidery (so simple in fact, I don't think it even counts as embroidery). A couple of the cats got some sticthed whiskers before I made it up into a purse. I had intended it to be a coin purse but, as you can see, it's a little on the large side (truthfully, I couldn't bear to cut through the cat faces). It's lined with plain black fabric and features my attempt at an inner pocket (which was not particularly successful, see above, but oh well, my nan didn't seem to mind). I'm definitely going to have another go at printing but I'm not sure what just yet...

Back to the present, it's a horribly grey day today and I'm feeling quite demotivated. The job search slog continues with ziltch results thus far. Sigh. Some tea and a slice of toast should hopefully perk me up a bit. Hope you're all having fun Wednesdays wherever you are :)

my birthday weekend in numbers

5 - birthday flowers (lillies)

2 - chipotle beef rib tacos eaten at HotBox.

30 (ish) - zombies killed playing the house of the dead II at Four Quarters.

148 mins - spent using all of my concentration powers to keep up with the plot of Inherent Vice.

50% rental and 50% owned - the split of a shared ownership property we went to view on Saturday. We actually didn't end up qualifying but we sure as hell learned a lot about the scheme.

20103.92 - Icelandic krona (converted from birthday money :D )

28 years  - that's how old I am now. Shiiiiiiiit.

Mapping the City (and some February goals)

I have a thing about maps - world maps, old maps, illustrated maps, maps of imaginary places, planetary maps. I used to love drawing maps when I was little (you know, and making them look old by soaking them in tea) and I can be lost for ages poring over a detailed atlas. I think it has something to do with the connotations of journey and exploration, they give me the good kind of butterflies. So, given my penchant for maps, the title of this exhibition was enough to draw me in. It's comprised of an incredibly varied assortment of "maps" (in inverted comas as about two out of the 50 resembled anything like traditional map). Many were linked to where the artists (graffiti and street artists that is) lived or had lived or somewhere that held personal importance. Below are some of my favourites. I'd definitely recommend a visit if you find yourself near Somerset House. It's free and on till the 15th of Feb.

Barcelona by Sixe Paredes

Cabott Square, Canary Wharf by Will Sweeney

Paris Verticale by Honet

Mi mundo/Meine Welt by Martin Tibabuzo 

(The story behind this one was interesting. The artist began to lose his memory in the early 2000s and was advised by doctors to undertake memory exercises,  to create timelines and 'mind maps' which he then turned into artistic projects. This is the world as he remembers it.)

Tag Manhattan by Momo 

(A continuous drip of paint across Manhattan spelling out the artist's name to create one of the world's longest of tags. Pretty cool, huh?)

And now for some goals for the month. My Jan ones weren't entirely successful but that's cool, I can always try again in Feb :)

1. Dye my hair. It's not been done since the wedding (nearly six months ago) so you can imagine the roots I'm sporting.
2. Book a doctors appointment.
3. Transfer ISA account.
4. Make a skirt from the red fabric bought at the knitting & stitching show.
5. Find blue tapestry wool to finish my auntie and uncle's Christmas present (I really am the worst present giver ever).
6. Have people over for dinner. Mitch and I have been v.lucky in that a number of our friends have invited us for dinner over the last couple of months. Living in my parents' house makes me feel like we can't return the favour but sod it, I want to do it at least once.
7. Continue with the weekly badminton session.
8. Ebay the large-ish pile of clothes that I've been putting aside. Let's face it, I could do with with the cash. Being unemployed is poor.
9. Bake a cake. I've not done any baking in forever.
10. Get a job, obvs.

where are they now?

The 'they' I'm referring to are bloggers. Bloggers who, for one reason or another, have either decided to stop blogging or just haven't posted in forever.

I've recently spruced up my  L I N K S  list and, in doing so, I've removed the blogs that no longer seem to be going. Rather than just delete and forget about them, I thought I'd make this list - the lost bloggers so to speak - so that I can keep hold of their links in case they ever return. (I do hope so.)

Anykind - Jesse's blog was one of the first I ever got hooked on mostly thanks to her posts about her business and the craft shows she sold at. Also, her thrifting skillz were impressive, she always found the most cool little bits and pieces.

I wanna go to the beach - I always looked forward to Jess' posts appearing in my bloglovin' feed. They were usually kinda off the wall and a little random. Also, her writing is ace.

Handmade Ryan Gosling - so perfect and, as a craft lady, so relevant. I am still sad this came to an end.

Diary of Diva - Becca was always visiting somewhere cool, whether abroad or exploring places in London. Plus she had an awesome series called: 'Bec vs. Pinterest' wherein she'd make stuff inspired by something seen on Pinterest - liked that a lot.

In between Idols - Guttingly I can't even give you a link to Lauren's blog as the internet reckons it no longer exists :( So, you'll have to believe me when I say, it was full of pics of life her in sunny Florida and of her ace tattoos.

Other honerable mentions: Pretty Much Penniless, Yours Truly x, Kit and Nancy