Wedding Wednesday

Are you on Pinterest? It's such a great site for finding inspiration, and I went trawling there a few days ago to find material for this post.

As soon as I saw this picture I knew it was perfect for this week's Wedding Wednesday:

When I followed the pin back to the original site, I was not too surprised to find that this gorgeous dress is from The English Dept., a Portland-based vintage shop. Owner Elizabeth Dye also designs gorgeous dresses that are available on Etsy. I've come across The English Dept. before, because one of my favorite bloggers found her wedding dress there.

I love Elizabeth Dye's sweet and feminine but unfussy style. And I can't get over the short wedding dress. Short dresses are the best!

She also designs a few lovely hair accessories. It's enough to make me want to get married all over again.

I Spy Friday

Every so often, I like to put together a post about one of my absolute favorite things in the world: red shoes. I'm not too much of a shoe person in general. I like them, but not more than any other accessory or clothes, ya know? Except for red shoes. Red flats, really. So here are a few of the sweet red flats that have caught my eye recently:

 

 

From the top:
Marc Jacobs flats, available from Zappos
Lagoon ballet, available from ASOS
Rocket Dog flats, available from Schuh
KG espadrille sandals, available from John Lewis
Beating Heart flats, available from Ruche (and Ruche is having a sale right now, so get on over there!)

Wedding Wednesday

I've decided to start a new weekly feature, Wedding Wednesdays. This is partly so that I'll be forced to post more, but also because I do make wedding flowers after all. I should pay more attention to what's going on in the rest of the wedding world.

So, once a week I'll share some lovely bit of wedding paraphernalia that I've come across recently. This week's item I stumbled upon while checking out Little Goytre, who was kind enough to include me in a post last week. She also included this gorgeousness...

Cutture is a London-based stationery company that creates intricate laser-cut objects of beauty.

I can't believe the gorgeousness of this place card. I usually prefer hand-cut when it comes to paper, but there is something to be said for laser-cut when it looks like that...

And if you're not currently planning a wedding, they still have something you might like, such as these skyline greeting cards featuring famous landmarks from famous cities. Amazing!

Perfect Sunday

As I mentioned in the previous post, I worked super hard on Saturday, in the hopes that I would be rewarded with a fantastic Sunday. Well, it wasn't fantastic. It was perfect.

To start off with, M. was able to stay home all day for once! This was only because one of his experiments from the day before hadn't worked (he's a cancer-solver), but at least we got to have a weekend day entirely together, which hardly ever happens. And somehow, miraculously, spring and London coincided for one glorious day. And so we got this:

(Yes, that's our laundry. Few things make me happier than air-dried laundry.)

And this:

And we did this:

And ate this, on a blanket in our back garden:

(We also ate s'mores, but I was too busy eating to take pictures. Which is how you know you have a really good s'more.)

And we cleared out a huge patch of over-grown weeds so that we could plant these:

(I really wish I had a before picture, because it was really crazy over-grown. Those are pepper and lettuce plants, ringed with charcoal ash to keep the slugs and snails away. Which kinda worked. If anyone has hot tips on how to [organically] keep those little buggers off my garden, please let me know in the comments!)

And we also planted a few of these:

Such a lovely, perfect day. (And I didn't even mention our veggie full English breakfast, or watching the London Marathon in between weeding, or white and orange butterfly that paid a visit...)

I Spy Friday

A few weeks ago, I went away for a long visit home, getting back only this Monday. It was great to see all of my family one last time before I can't travel anymore for a while, but it was even nicer coming home again. For one thing, M. had stayed home and I hate being apart. For another, our garden bloomed while I was away, and I came home to a riot of blue, red, yellow, and above all green.

It made me itch to get outside and growing things. Or trying to, anyway. This year we've already made huge strides in our gardening ambitions: we went out and bought a few seedlings. Just some lettuce, peppers, and strawberries to get us going. Tomorrow we plan to be outdoors all day, planting and weeding and grilling and hanging laundry out to dry. So today I'm staying in and trying to get all of my work done. (Including things I should've done yesterday, like... this blog post. Jet lag really kicked my butt this week!)

So here are some garden-y things for your I Spy this week. Even if, like me, you have more gardening ambition than ability, you can at least look the part.

From top to bottom:
Fine straw crochet hat, available from Accessorize
Ethel's Long "Lace" Gardening Gloves, from the Victoria & Albert Museum Shop
The Kitchen Garden, by Alan Buckingham, available from Amazon (and probably your local bookstore!)
Traditional Herb Growing Kit, by Erin, available from GreenFingers
Stripe Wellies, by Joules, available from John Lewis (So much prettier than Crocs!)
Walker waterproof picnic rug, available from John Lewis

I Spy Friday

So, for a while now (longer than I'd like to admit), I've been reading the blogs on a great baby site called Babble. And recently on Babble, someone posted the perfect summertime uniform for moms, which I loved. I think it would be an amazing, cute, casual couple of outfits for just about any lady, in fact. (Aside from the gladiator sandals. I just don't get those. They look so uncomfortable and are, to me, extremely ugly.)

But when I took a closer look at the ensemble, I realized it came in at $1200+. !!!! (And that's not including the cost of one of the tops, which is no longer available. Even more !!!!!!!!)

So, since I won't get to wear awesomely cute clothes like these this summer, and since I love this styling so much, I put together a more budget-friendly version with two minor changes. First, no gladiator sandals for the aforementioned reasons. Second, no nail polish because a. I forgot to include it and b. I bet you can find red nail polish on your own. You're pretty smart. And I left the TOMS in, because, really, can you beat that? A pair for you and a pair for a child. Nice.

From top to bottom:
Weeping Willow hat, from Anthropologie
Cuffed shorts in greenway, from The Gap
Twist-Neck Roll-Up Top in navy stripe, from Old Navy
TOMS in classic red, from TOMS
Cuffed denim bermuda shorts from Levi's, available at Zappos
Drapey stripe tee in heather gray, from j.crew
Rothco messenger bag, available at Amazon
Gilded Heart bracelet, from Ruche
Sharon sandals from Bass, available at Zappos

And, all told, that comes to just $265! Saving $1000 feels so nice.

I Spy Friday

Happy Mother's Day! Yep, this weekend is Mother's Day in the UK, so I decided to do a little gift guide this Friday. Which leaves plenty of time for you Americans to get your shop on.

I'm not too sure why the background came out pale blue this week, but I kinda like it. Anyway, on to the products...

From top to bottom:

Ebelskiver pan, available from Williams-Sonoma (I feel like I might've posted about this before, but I really want one, so it's always on my mind!)

Tote Devine bag, available from Ruche

Rob Ryan water bottle, available from ModCloth in the U.S. and John Lewis in the U.K. (among many others)
Dimpled bowls by Linda Bloomfield, available from Not on the High Street
Mandarin pear green bangle, available from Ruche