No I'm not sorry. I lied! What a terrible person I am! My wedding dress came this week. Its vintage! The seller described it as ready to wear and with out flaw which of course means it was so dirty it turned the water I washed it in turned grey and it needs a fair amount of of seam repair and neatening. Joy! Well it's been washed. It smells a lot better and isn't nearly as stiff. Look the lining is creamy white! Not yellow! hurrah!
Its been a very weddingy few days, tonight I tackle the invites. Not the filling out but the wording and the look. God help me. I understand why we can't just text every one and say "Oi, cake, some lovely feels and the odd photo opportunity. Be there." but only sort of. Can we have a moment to talk about how expensive stamps are? 60p. 60p for a bloody first class stamp. 50p for a second class stamp. So eh we'll be hand delivering most of them. And yes I am aware that e-invites are all the rage but parents and grand parents across the land are crying out "But i can't put an e-invite on the mantel or in a photo album!" Lets not even get on to the cost of save the dates and thank yous. Urk. Being polite is expensive people!
Tomorrow I will say nothing about the wedding, I promise. If I escape from a sea of "we request the pleasure of your company" that is.
No one really thinks a certain way because of what their gender identity is.
This mini rant is brought to you from too much perusing of wedding boards on Pinterest. You don't need a book or a series of inane blog posts or magazine articles to tell you how to relate to your other half. Just treat them like a person you care about! That's it be a decent human being, treat them like any other person you want to stick around with. Having mandatory date nights isn't going to bring you any closer together if you don't make an effort. A weekly trip to the climbing centre would just make me hate you. (I don't like heights.) You can still be selfish and alienate the other person while on the surface "trying."
Relationships, yet another place where the rule of Don't Be A Dick applies.
And the object of your affection in question fell for YOU, you just the way you are (hairy toes and all.*) Not some weird person who sends sickly sweet texts every Tuesday lunchtime (because you set a reminder), makes sure you have an official date every Thursday ever without fail and leave creepy little love missives in their lunch box. Unless you've always been like that. If you are I bow down to your amazing powers of organisation and perkiness. Will you be my friend? My after coffee and a good breakfast so I don't smash a
plate over your head friend?
I am nice to Bloke, honest.
Minnie xoxo
*Stop laughing at me, they aren't THAT hairy and I wax. HUMANS ARE MAMMALS! WE HAVE HAIR!
I have a new love in my life. Her name is the DIY Bride. Other wise known as Mikala Bierma. This lady is the funniest, I have such a crush on her. I don't think its creepy? Is it creepy. Who knows?! Do we even care?
The videos they kill me dead! Now I am a diy, crafty type but really who wants to put all that effort in to ONE day. Dear prospective wedding guests there will be some lovely life changing moments for the bride and groom and some cake for you. Anything beyond that point is a bonus. SOME SWEETS IN A BAG TO TAKE HOME?! MY GOSH YOU ARE SPOILING US! I'm serious here, the wedding is in July, I have a dress, we have a church there is a reception venue that has a bar. Anything we do on top of this is a bonus. Sorry dudes, we're epic slackers.
So much hilarity. This will seem totally bizarre to the not crazy not planning a wedding crowd. But not only is there a "ZOMG you have to spend the equivalent of a house deposit on a wedding!" there is an opposite, partially pinterest induced, hipster/diy all the things wedding related pressure. Now I love pinterest as much as the next speccy, sewing machine owning, cake baking, knitter but my word I don't love you all enough to hand fashion individual candies for wedding favours. THERE WILL BE SANDWICHES AND A DJ DEAL WITH IT. And yes that DJ's name might well be "mp3 player hooked up to some amps." Deal with it.
And now to reassure those who will be coming to the wedding. Yes I will feed you. Yes there will be music. But really folks its only one day out of many and lets face it no one wants to hear the wedding has been postponed until they can figure out how to dislodge me from the sofa because I had an unfortunate accident with a hot glue gun and some glitter.
Yours forever apathetic in planning but very much in love,
Sock knitting has been the priority. Wool socks are the best in this weather.
Not a bad few days. Now that I'm done with uni for a bit the festivities will gear up a notch. So much baking to do, so much more house prep. I just love this time of year!
So I still can't find my camera cable. I am going to have to admit defeat soon and properly unpack all our boxes instead of leaving them in the spare room and pretending they don't count. Anyway...
Back to the bake along!
I've been feeding it a little rum once a week, that is just brushing it over lightly with some rum. The rest of the time I've been keeping it in an air tight package of baking paper and cling film, (I don't have a cake box that's big enough.) The fruit is starting to get really plump and the smell is just amazing. Its so utterly christmassy. Spicy and rich.
Now is the time to start thinking about how, if, you want to ice it. Do you like marzipan and rolled royal icing? Or perhaps a dusting of powdered sugar is more your style? I usually go for a layer of lemon whipped icing with a rolled royal icing on top. The cake won't be decorated until just before its served (on the day or the day before) so there's plenty of time to decided what you want to do.
Only 34 days to go till the big day! How are all your cakes going?
Our christmas decorations. Yes really. Its daft and random, and a really stupid thing to be upset by because we have no room for a real tree. For a while I was convinced I'd just put them some place safe, but then I had a proper look and Bloke had a proper look. Nope. They are some where between here and Loughborough but they are most definitely not here.
They must be somewhere so I'm not going to replace them (just yet anyway- I live in hope), but I still want the flat to look festive. The solution required some serious patience on my part. Paper crafting. I am utterly, completely terrible at anything beyond the making of paper chains. So please be very, very impressed with what I have to show you. I made this! It only took an evening!
I used this tutorial for the wreath. I did use a few staples to keep the individual pieces tight and did use a glue stick to make it sturdy enough to survive the festive season fixed to the door. A 36 pack of designer paper for scrap booking was enough to make one large wreath, a long paper chain, a decent length of heart shaped chain and a few gift tags. The whole endeavour cost much less than £10 including staples and glue.
Huzzah! Cheap, cheerful and festive. I'm rather proud. So I had to share.
I made a teeny tiny tree! We don't have the space for a real tree this year. Tiny flat is tiny. I used this tutorial off the martha stewart site. It was pretty simple, there was a Murder She Wrote marathon on and my tiny tree only took two episodes from start to finish, so less than two hours! A few little pompoms and some glitter and it'll be even more festive. It might be a little lopsided but I'm quite proud.
