RMW Real Brides 2014 – have you voted?

Hey guys,

If you haven’t had chance head on over to RMW to check out the Real Brides 2014 finalists entries.

Competition is tough, but you should take your time to read through all the entries and get to know all the finalists.

Voting runs to Midnight on Tuesday so you need to get over there quick!

Can’t wait to see who gets through!

Amy C xxx

Some bits and bobs…..

What I’ve been doing:

• On Monday I unpacked and sorted everything from the Wedding Fair and sorted my craft room out.
• On Monday I also sorted out my Inbox, which is a place of pure chaos. I did a mass delete of old emails, created some folders in my Inbox and sorted most of the emails I wanted to keep. At then end I was losing the will to live! I had over 4,000 emails to sort through! Yes really! So I put the last 2,000 into a folder called ‘Needs Sorting’ and now my Inbox is clean and tidy and I plan on keeping it that way by immediately deleting anything thats irrelevant, unsubscribing from lists i don’t ned to be on, flagging emails I want to come back to, responding immediately to anything that requires a response, and then filing emails in their appropriate folders.How do you stay on top of all your email? (PS my Inbox is still super tidy! Only 8 emails! The rest have been deleted or filed)
• Tuesday through Friday was the day job, walking the dog, trying to eat healthily, catching up with friends and spending time with the Hubbie.

Posts I’ve loved:

• bright crochet found over on HeartHandmade 
  
• you might be a marketer and not even know it! 
  
• gorgeous stationary by Helllo Lucky! seen over at Poppytalk  Loving the gold and the bright colours!
• I’m completely in love with the placemats and sewing baskets seen in this post! 
  
• A great way to jazz up an outdoor space! Wish I lived somewhere with guaranteed sunshine!
  
• I’m loving the up cycled towel holder in this super chic craft room!
• The timing of this is perfect as I am working on improving my photographs at the moment!
• loving the neon pastels here
• I am in love with everything in this study!

(In case you hadn’t noticed HeartHandMade is one of my fave places right now!)

Some crafts I’d like to try

• DIY Fox Mask
• DIY DylanLex Stacked Necklace 
• DIY photo cushions over at Curbly.com  (It was this post that inspired my own photo cushions!)
• I’m thinking these doorknob hangers could be made with old fancy doorknobs and a can of spray paint???
• Super cute patchwork curtain
• My own illustrations (maybe in the summer?!)
• DIY Instagram paper

Some things I’m lusting after

• Casio watch 
• Rose gold casio
• Vivienne Westwood watch 
• Michael Kors Rose Gold

I keep seeing this ‘Steam-a-seam’ stuff on sewing tutorials! Saw it over on The Sweetest Occasion today  I need some in my life! Anyone know of a UK supplier?!

This weekend I’l mostly be:

• buying fabric for the new dressmaking patterns I have just bought
• Buying acrylic medium and getting some pics laser-printed so I can do that A Beautiful Mess photo transfer method
• Celebrating the upcoming nuptials of one of my most beautiful friends at a non-hen hen party
• Reading all the profiles of the potential Rock My Wedding Real Brides 2014, choosing my fave and casting my vote

What are you up to????

Much love

Amy C

xxx

Wedding Signposts

Inspired by Rock My Wedding’s recent post about Wedding Signage I thought I’d show you some of the signs from our wedding last June!

Impromptu sign

Cocktail stirrers

Table names

Ceremony venue (a surprise from my bridesmaids!)

Ceremony venue (a surprise from my mum and sis!)

A signpost pointing to all the places our guests had travelled from with the distance they had travelled

Our school blackboard seating plan

Blackboard dinner menu

Our ‘Gin Bar Menu’

It wasn’t until I put this post together that I realised how many signs we had at our wedding!

All of the signs were made by me or our guests.

What do you think of them? Which is your fave?

My fave is the signpost showing where everyone came from and how far they had travelled! My fab husband found all the bearings for each destination and my lovely father-in-law and brother-in-law spent ages using a compass to make sure that each one was pointing in the right direction! That and the school blackboard….in fact I love them all!

I couldn’t resist!….

I saw these cushions the other day over on Curbly.com and I just knew I had to go and make me some of those!

I thought it would be a cute way to display some of our amazing wedding photos.

So I raided my extensive craft room and found the necessary materials:

• photo transfer paper
• fabric
• scissors
• pins
• sewing machine

I transferred my images to the paper as instructed. (remembering to flip the image horizontally before printing!)

Transferred the image to some nice white cotton I had knocking about.

Cut out the images from the fabric.

Cut two rectangle of fabric (roughly a third of the height of the image)

Turned over one edge of each of the rectangles for the back. Pressed. Turned over again to seal in the raw edge.

Pinned the two back pieces to the front piece, right sides facing.

Sewed around the edge.

Trimmed off the excess with pinking shears.

Turned the pillowcase inside out.

Pressed it.

Stuffed it! (I cut up an old pillow I had lying around)

Overall I love the look of them but I really hate the plastic feel of the transfer paper. Aggie loves them too! He rested his head on them almost as soon as they were made!

I’ve done some research and I’ve found some fabric you can print direct onto! How amazing is that! So I’ll be buying some of that and trying that out.

But I also found a tutorial over on A Beautiful Mess using printed images and acrylic medium so I’m going to give that a try to. I think this method will give a more aged, distressed look which I think will really suit this project.

I’ll keep you posted with my experiments!

What do you think of the finished pillows?

Amy xxx

PS I need a new name for my Wednesday posts (they’re going to be about making/crafting/DIY) Any ideas?

Button Box’s 1st Wedding Fair! Hello Brides!!!

On Saturday Amy’s Button Box lost it’s Wedding Fair virginity with Belle’s Bridal Bazaar, Horsham! hahaha!

I had so much fun meeting brides-to-be, people just browsing and all the other lovely suppliers exhibiting at the event!

I met some really lovely brides-to-be and it was great telling them all about Amy’s Button Box and what I might be able to do for them!

My first wedding fair also saw the launch of my new Button Box Experience: BeGlamorous! My second Vintage Inspired Experience, inspired by the glamorous 1950s.

BeGlamorous is a great Experience where you and your girlfriends will spend 3 hours listening to music of the 50s, whilst glamourising a pair of sunglasses with crystals, pearls, enamel paint and lots of other lovely things, and whilst the paint is drying you can get on with embellishing, decorating and assembling your own custom sunglasses case to complement your delicious sunnies! (BeGlamorous costs £25pp, minimum 8 guests) For the month of May I am offering 10% off for anyone who books BeGlamorous! I can’t wait to do my first BeGlamorous party so get in touch now!

I’m also offering Tea & Cake Consultations for anyone thinking about planning a Button Box Experience but wanting to find out more about me and what I can offer. A ‘Tea and Cake Consulation’ involves nothing more than meeting up with me at a local tea-room, enjoying a cup of tea and a slice and cake and discussing any ideas you might have for your Button Box Experience. You’ll be under absolutely no obligation to make a booking with me and I’ll be paying for the tea and cake! (I’m currently still offering 10% off vouchers off any Button Box Experience for anyone who arranges a ‘Tea and Cake Consultation‘ with me!)

I feel so lucky to have exhibited at such a great wedding fair, that really catered for the brides who were there. I’ve been looking for a suitable wedding fair to exhibit at for 6 months now, when I saw Belle’s Events I realised that this was where I wanted to exhibit first!

I’m hoping to make it to a few more wedding fairs this year so stay tuned to find out when and where I’ll be exhibiting next!

I’d love to hear your thoughts on my stand and on BeGlamorous!

Amy xxx