Tiddly Om Pom Pom

My adventures with origami continue.  I wrote about my previous attempt to create a cherry blossom pomander and my dissatisfaction with it.  I left it for a few days to have a think.

One evening, I had a brainwave.  There was no particular reason to use all the same style of flowers.  I had inspiration in the unlikely source of the pentagons and hexagons on a football.

Image Source.

Apologies for the mathematical content of this post.  Much as it may be appropriate for my and A Man’s relationship, I promise there will be some pretty photos if you can stick it through to the end!

Eye’ve been thinking

I started uni in October of 2008.  I would spend entire days cooped up in my teeny tiny little bedroom, pushing myself to read through my textbook and pages and pages of legal cases.  One of the wonders of the 21st century means that much of the case-reading could be done via the internet.  I therefore spent a large percentage of my day staring at a computer screen.

I started to notice that I was finding it difficult to read slides during lectures, and that it was giving me a headache to concentrate on what was being written.  This is how, in December of 2008, I discovered that I had managed to make myself short sighted.

A Man and I pose in front of the canal in Amsterdam in March. Personal photo.

Paper Pomanders

I’ve already discussed my intention to have origami flowers at the wedding, and spoke ages ago about the fact that I will have two very cute flower girls.  Now, I’m not sure whether our venue permits petals to be scattered by small children, but in any case that’s not really my style.  Instead, I’ve been inspired by pictures like these to give our flower girls pomanders to hold.

Images from marthastewartweddings.com; jenandtedwed.tumblr.com; thedemoiselle.com.

Charmed, I’m (almost) sure

I realised that I had failed to write up a post about my bracelet.  I wrote a few months ago about the fact that I was considering wearing my charm bracelet as part of my wedding day jewellery.  When A Man and I ordered our wedding rings, I left my bracelet and charms with Rachael to solder on.  The price she gave us was far more reasonable than I had been quoted at a big-name jewellery chain, and it reaffirmed my decision that she should be our go-to jeweller in the future.

I picked my bracelet up when we went to have a look at how our rings were progressing a few weeks ago and I’m so pleased with the outcome!  It’s funny – I’ve had all the bits in little boxes for such a long time that actually being able to wear it is really exciting.  It also feels more delicate than I thought it would.

My new toys

DIY wedding projects have given me a great excuse to buy myself two new crafting toys.  Whilst it might seem like a poor attempt at justifying the expense, I really will use them again!  They are…

Paper trimmer and hot glue gun, both from amazon.co.uk.

The Ring’s The Thing (Part II)

Today was an exciting day in the Chiffon household – we put down a 50% deposit on our wedding rings!

I was a little bit cheeky with my last post, as I knew full well where I wanted to buy our rings, I just didn’t know whether it was going to be feasible.  A couple of months ago, when we started to discuss the ring issue, A Man spoke to his colleagues to see whether anyone had any recommendations for jewellers in the area.  One of them (who’s getting married this October) very enthusiastically suggested Rachael Ann Bird, an independent goldsmith who is based around 10 miles from where we live.

Image from rachaelannbird.co.uk

It’s got to be sneeze-free

Something important to know about me is that I am a walking disaster zone.  If something goes wrong, it will go wrong for me and I’ll end up on yet another medication or walking with crutches again.  The thing is that it’s never particularly dramatic.  I don’t break bones.  I’ve never had a really serious illness.  I have what I recently described to my dad as “a litany of minor medical fuck-ups”.

One of those minor medical issues is a variety of unreliable allergies; unreliable in that they’re usually fairly well controlled by antihistamines but just occasionally I’ll spend an entire day sneezing, my face will go bright red and my eyes will turn to jellied golf balls.  Definitely symptoms I do not want to be associating with my wedding day!  So I decided a little while ago that I didn’t want to use fresh flowers in my bouquet.  If something was likely to set me off, it would probably be the bunch of pollen-filled beauties sitting right under my nose.  One of my flower girls is unfortunately similarly afflicted with asthma and allergies, so I definitely don’t want to inflict it on her either.

The next question to ask is just what I plan to use instead.  Of course, artificial flowers are an option, but you have to swing the balance between the ones which look fake and the ones which cost a fortune.

Orchids are my absolute favourite flowers, but I don’t know whether we’ll be able to afford to incorporate them in the wedding 😦 Silk Orchid bouquet from weddingshopshropshire.co.uk.

Shoes, Glorious Shoes!

The more I read wedding blogs, the more often I see one name: Christian Louboutin.  Specifically I read of ‘strassed’ shoes.

Christian Louboutin N°Prive Riche, image from christianlouboutin.com

Oh, how charming

I realise that I already published this post.  I did some fiddling around to spread my blogging out a little, so if you’ve already read this one sorry about that – there’ll be some new content tomorrow, I promise!

Although my mum asks me about my hair, makeup and jewellery for my wedding day, it’s not something I’ve ever really thought about.  Sure I’d like to look beautiful, but I don’t have any kind of ‘vision’ behind my look.

One thing I have been considering is whether or not to wear my charm bracelet on my wedding day.  It was given to me as a christening gift, and I have collected various charms but they have never been soldered onto the bracelet, and it has never been worn. I would love to wear it, but worry about whether it would be too childish for my wedding day.  The thing is, if I don’t wear it then I don’t know if I ever will and I adore my bracelet.