WEDDING: Recent Wedding Purchases

Over the Christmas period we met up with a lot of people we hadn't seen since we got engaged, back in May 2013. Every single person we met congratulated us and asked how our wedding planning was going - at this point my panic levels started rising! Since the summer we hadn't really done anything towards our wedding, other than make the invitations and have a meeting with a potential catering company. We'd both been so busy starting new jobs, moving house and the run up to Christmas! These conversations did us good though, it's got us back on the wedding planning track. So since Christmas we have delivered the notice of marriage to the correct registrars office, discussed catering with another place, paid the deposit for the place we're getting married at and had a look through the items we've already bought. I really need to get my wedding dress but I've just started to really try and eat healthier, so I don't want to get a dress now and it be too big by my wedding (probably wishful thinking but hey ho!).

We've actually managed to pick up some brilliant bargains for our wedding, so I thought I'd share a few with you...

^ We bought this Fujifilm Instax Mini 8 camera at The Wedding Show, they had a show offer and I can't remember the exact price but it was around £65. We also bought 90 shots (the paper the photo prints on), which were also on offer. It's not a cheap option for a general camera but we're going to us it as our 'photo booth' and it's a lot cheaper than hiring one. We chose it in a pale blue colour, which will go well with the pastel colours at our wedding. I've reviewed it in more detail here. ^

^ A while ago Paper Themes (I reviewed a couple of their fantastic products here) had an offer on their website - if you filled in a questionnaire you received a £20 voucher with no minimum spend, how amazing?! These cute little paper flowers were £3.99 a pack, there are 3 packs in this picture. Unfortunately they aren't available on the website anymore but you can get them for the same price from Debenhams Wedding Stationary here. ^

^ I also bought these from Paper Themes, they're £8.49 for a pack of 5. We are planning on using them to label the sweet area we might have or little signs for something. We aren't going to use them as place cards but they're so versatile, the options are endless! ^

^ These Tea Light Lantern Bag's were a bargain at 2 packs for £1, from Poundland. They have a pretty star and moon pattern on the bag, which you can see when you put a tea light inside. We will probably put fake tea lights in, just to reduce the fire risk. ^

^ We bought 5 of these hearts at The Festive Gift Fair at the NEC on the run up to Christmas. They were £1 each, we might hang them on the end of each aisle but not quite decided yet. ^

^ As I've mentioned, we're doing our own photo booth, this 'Photo Booth Dress Up Kit' is from Tesco and was reduced to 75p! We just need to get some wigs and an old dressing table we can revamp for all these props to go on! ^

Have you seen any good wedding bargains around recently?

Feel free to leave me a comment :)

NAILS: Dotty Bows

This is a very girly nail art tutorial, bows and dots make for a great neutral toned nail art. As usual, the final look evolved, I sat down to paint my nails a neutral colour, then decided I wanted to jazz them up a bit but without adding any bright colours. That's when the bows were created but I still wasn't happy, so I added the dots! There was no pre-planning with this, just going with the flow :)

 

Does anyone else 'end up' doing their nail art like this?

 

To create this nail art I used L'Oreal Shade 205, Scherer Chameleon in C29 Dreams and Poundland Nail Art Pen in White.

 

Firstly, I painted my nails with the L'Oreal nail varnish. I applied about 3 coats, as it's a very pale colour and I wanted a good coverage.

 

 

 

 

Next, using the white nail varnish, I applied one dot and then draw two triangles either side of the dot. The points of the triangles need to put pointing towards the dot. I found it easier to do this than try and draw a bow, my hand isn't very steady!

 

 

Then I used the Chameleon nail varnish to add some dots and I put a dot in the middle of the bow too.

 

 

 

Are you a fan of more neutral nail art?

 

Feel free to leave me a comment :)

 

NAILS: Cath Kidston Inspired

This nail art is inspired by Cath Kidston, I love having flowery nails as almost everything I own has some kind of floral print!

Firstly, I painted my nails with Miss Sporty Quick Dry. I love the vibrant blue colour, perfect for brightening up these rainy days recently! I then used the Poundland white nail art pen to create the polka dot effect. If you don't have a nail art pen with a fine nib just use a cocktail stick, (carefully) snap off the end so that there isn't a point (this helps with even application). Dip into any white nail varnish and dot onto the nails. I try and do this step quickly after applying the blue nail varnish, so that the white dots 'sink' into the blue, creating a more even finished look.  

 

Next I used MUA nail varnish in Shade 3 to create 3 larger dots on my fourth fingernail. But you can use any darker nail varnish you have: purple's and pink's generally work best.

 

While the darker nail varnish is still wet add a paler colour into the middle, this time I used a white. Quickly use a cocktail stick or nail art tool to swirl the darker and lighter colour nail varnish together, making sure that you don't make the circle any bigger.  

 

Then I added some leaves to the flowers using ASDA Nail Polish in Aqua 23. I have used a glittery green nail varnish before for a more sparkly finish.  

 

Here's the finished look:

 

 

What do you think?

 

Feel free to leave me a comment :)