Pretty Fircone Inspiration

 Just some pretty pictures I've collected for fircone inspiration

Lots of things to do with the 2500 fircones we now have!

Signs

Matt, as a sign writer, should be all over this...but I think the last thing he wants to think about for his own wedding is his job!

So, I thought I'd give you a flavour of some of the signage we'll be using on the day- some DIY as per the rest of the blog, but some shop purchases too!

These are a couple of bargains I got in the Cox and Cox sale www.coxandcox.co.uk which we can use to guide people to the house...they are really high quality, metal signs for a fiver!

On the DIY front, we had a lot of spare pieces of wood and MDF at home from where we removed a kitchen cupboard to put the dishwasher in!

Matt cut the MDF and I painted with a pot of blackboard paint I found in my Dad's shed! We can use these for welcome signs- I used them for our Will & Kate street party- so the next one will be ours!

Stationery

This one is all Matt again...designed at home in our office, these are just some of the bits of stationery Matt has designed- the menu and the invite. We also have the order of service and lots of other bits and pieces that we are going to have printed. It's a handy skill that Matt has!

Easy Table Plan

This one is really easy...and completely editable! I think it looks quite effective (and apologies for the mess of blankets on my sofa!)
It's just a mirror we had up in our old house (haven't got round to hanging it in the new house!) and I've drawn out the table plan using a white liquid chalk pen- which you can just wipe off with a tissue. We're just going to stand it on an easel outside the marquee...

If you are coming this is just the draft table plan! ;-)

Wedding Website

 

Our Wedding Website is now live...www.mattandsaraharegettinghitched.co.uk

Fircone Pomander

I made these using a Pomander Oasis, stubb wire and fircones-simply wind the wire round the fircone and stick it into the Pomander

To have a ribbon round it, the ribbon needs to be wrapped around the Oasis first of all (I discovered this the hard way!)

I'm hoping to hang these over doors or maybe on the ends of the pews in the church

Save The Date Magnets

 

This one isn't my DIY one! Matt designed these and made them-I just think they look fab!

I'm just writing the envelopes for them, so you'll be receiving yours soon if you're on the list!

Beautiful Bunting

I'm still not sure whether or not our marquee is going to look too white so I've been stitching some bunting just in case to brighten it up. 

I made a cardboard template of a triangle and used it to cut out the same shape in three different colours. I used a 50m roll of bias binding and stitched the triangles onto it- we ended up using it at our Royal Wedding street party!

A really easy one-not sure whether or not we'll be using it yet!

Table Numbers

Our Table Numbers are going in some oasis for our table centres (I'll share these later!) and they are really simple and easy to make.

I bought the numbers from Hobbycraft:

Unpainted 8” Paper Mache 3D Number 7 - HobbyCraft Arts and Crafts Supplies Online Shop

I then bought a doweling rod in Homebase along with one of those little Dulux sample pots

Then very simply-I painted the numbers, used a stanley knife to make a hole in the bottom then dabbed a bit of glue with the gluegun on the end of the dowel before putting it in the number!

Easy peasey!

Knitted Ring Cushion

Today's project is the ring cushion-not really a priority but I saw something similar elsewhere and fancied copying!

The project requires:
Some wool & needles
Ribbon
Thread & needle
Stuffing

Cast on as many stitches as you want for the width of the cushion-mine isn't huge-only about 10cm wide. Then knit until you have the length of two sides. I was pretty lazy-rather than knit two pieces and stitch together, I just knitted one large piece and folded in half!

When you've finished knitting, fold the piece in half so the right sides are facing and stitch round, leaving a small hole. Turn inside out and fill with stuffing. Then stitch the hole shut.

Next I bordered the cushion with a purple ribbon stitched just on one side of the ribbon to make a border. Then I took some beige ribbon and stitched two lengths of it onto the cushion for each ring. Then simply thread the ring onto the ribbon and tie a bow! Easy peasy!

Something new and blue...

Today's homemade item for the wedding is the garter! I knew I hated lace/sequins and over the top garters, and I had an idea in my head of exactly what I wanted to create-something classic, not tacky and something timeless enough that I could pass on to someone.

So there are 5 things that make up this project:
1. The Broderie Anglaise cream trimming
2. The Blue & beige striped ribbon
3. The thin blue ribbon
4. Elastic
5. Thread

First of all-the store list. Surprise surprise there are some eBay purchases here:
The Broderie Anglaise was £1.20 from Lynn at CraftsnStuff http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Lynn-at-Craftsnstuff?_trksid=p4340.l2563
The ribbon, which I love, is East of India which I got from Country Bloomers Sidmouth http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Country-Bloomers-Sidmouth?_trksid=p4340.l2563 3m for £2.40
The thin blue ribbon, elastic and thread were all purchased at Dunelm Mill

First step was to cut little holes along the East of India ribbon and thread the thin blue ribbon through as a running stitch. Before I cut the blue ribbon I took where I thought the centre was and pulled the ribbon out further-this leaves enough slack in the ribbon to tie a bow.

I then tacked the East of India ribbon to the Broderie Anglaise and machine stitched them together.

Measuring round my thigh, I cut a piece of elastic the right length-stretched slightly to ensure it would stay up.

The next bit might not be very clear...take each end of the Broderie Anglaise and meet them together, along with the ends of the elastic and machine stitch together so you have two loops: one of broderie Anglaise and one of elastic.

I found the next bit tricky! I had to loop the elastic over my big toe and pull it tight then hand stictch the brodier anglaise/East of India bit to the tight elastic-this bit took the longest!

When you've finished stitching by hand round, let the elastic go and the garter should scrunch up!

I love this one-there is one similar on "Not on the High Street" for £45-and this comes to about a fiver! Bargain!

Buttonholes for a Winter Wedding...

With our buttonholes I wanted to do something wintery and homemade. As our wedding is at my Dad's house, there won't be people there to organise everything for us on the day as there is in a hotel, so as much as we can get done prior is useful!

There are five things you need to make these button holes:

1 Fircone

1 Pheasant Feather

1 piece of gardening wire

1 piece of ribbon

1 hat pin

This is another eBay project so here's where I got each thing from

"Stub Wire": http://shop.ebay.co.uk/porter3163/m.html?_trksid=p4340.l2562

Feathers http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140504474406 for 99p!

Pins from Floral Natalie for 99p http://stores.ebay.co.uk/floral-natalie?_trksid=p4340.l2563

Ribbons from Beaux Ribbons Ltd http://stores.ebay.co.uk/BEAUX-RIBBONS-LTD?_trksid=p4340.l2563

Fircones from http://shop.ebay.co.uk/ruep007/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p3686 we got a LOT of fircones from here as there will be a lot fircone bits and pieces I'm planning to make!

So, here's how I did it...

1. Take the fircone and wrap the stub wire around the lowest layer of the fircone a couple of times

2. Then wrap the wire around the bottom of the feather-I didn't use the full length of the feather, just wrapped it around half way up and cut the excess off

3. I carried on wrapping the wire around the bottom of the feather, then covered this with the purple ribbon

4. At the end of the ribbon, I folded back the last bit to avoid fraying, then stuck the pin in to secure

The stuff I bought above was enough to make 18 button holes, but if I bought more pins I could get 30-for the cost of about a fiver! Much cheaper than using a florist and something you can get out of the way well in advance!

Pretty Name Tags

One of the first things we've done for our wedding is the names (we know who we want at our wedding!) I knew from the start I didn't want card name places. As a child I always used to save my name card from weddings, which made me think that I wanted something a bit more permenant.

I made these using wooden hearts and an ink stamp alphabet in a typewriter-esque font. I bought the wooden hearts from Dovecote Woodcraft on eBay  http://stores.ebay.co.uk/dovecotewoodcraft and the rubber stamps came unmounted from Card & Things on eBay http://stores.ebay.co.uk/cardsandthingsincstampoutpost. My other half mounted a "cushion" layer and sticker back onto the unmounted stamps and then stuck them on to some acrylic blocks.

I got an ink block from Hobbycraft in the bargain bin! 90p for the purple then sat in front of the telly stamping the hearts!

I'll thread the hearts on some ribbon-next decision is whether to then tie the ribbon around the napkins or hang them off the back of the chairs? Decisions, decisions!