A Snowy Soiree

What a gorgeous, perfect set up for a chilly but romantic soiree, and this photo is so lovely I just had to post it, as I would be in heaven if ever I was bought to a set up like this for dinner.

Or knowing me a quick snack as I hate being cold :) I can imagine I would be OK with major thermals and a gas heater but this would melt the snow which would be a shame!

It is just so beautiful though and again I have to thank Elizabeth Anne Designs for having this photo on her amazing gallery.

Perhaps this year I should take the A team up to the Sierra Nevada for a snowy photo shoot!

Andrew is already up there so be warned!

A Romantic Tuscany Wedding

I have spent a lovely evening with my eldest daughter surfing ideas and inspirations as I am trying to impart some of my knowledge in the hope she will find her feet with what she is truly inspired to do. She is a very talented young lady with a huge amount of enthusiasm and will find her vocation soon but I hope I inspire her in the meantime!

Having settled on the fabulous Elizabeth Anne Designs and finally stopped hyperventilating over these gorgeous images, I have to share these with you of this beautiful wedding in Tuscany.

I love the chandeliers hanging from the trees, the vintage crockery, the little details such as the Bride sign on the back of the chair, the whole wedding has been beautifully designed and styled, to see more of this gorgeous wedding click on the link above to be truly inspired with romantic details.

Free Downloads

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and are enjoying the holidays.

Here I am still technically on holiday but given my work is my passion I am of course busy social networking, working and expanding on our new ideas for 2011.

What I have noticed in particular, there are many free downloads for wedding stationery and just lovely things in general on the internet which really are very good, so we will be posting our finds this January which I hope will be of use to our brides and our readers for 2011 :)

I know many of my brides are extremely busy working girls so if we can find these wonderful ideas and post them hopefully it will make your lives easier!

Here is one of them I found tonight which I think are very pretty from Eat Drink Chic

A Christmas w-RAP

Even if its only gluing a few pipe-cleaners to a piece of brown paper and calling it a reindeer card...i love wrapping presents and making cards for occassions differently then the norm. By now everyone knows they are never going to get a store-bought card from me (except my husband because I like getting cards that say 'husband' on them now, heehee). This year didn't give alot of time for adorabley creative out-of-this-world wrappings, but here is a few things I came up with.





Top Left: I always give gifts to everyone's pets from my animals. I know if my cats and dog could talk, they would want to. They are little burlap bags that i stamped paw prints on and their names with paw print punched tags.

Top Right: The name i pulled in the secret santa said he wanted an octopus...that was the best i could do!

Bottom Left: For my brother-in-law...a reindeer card.

Bottom Right: Fun Christmas Cards.

Safe & Happy Holidays!

Frosty the sugar-man....ohh, he sounds delicious!



Snowman Cupcakes & Cutness by elleDESIGNS



snowcaps, on top of choclate kisses bottoms, on top of marshamallows on top of fondant with royal icing snowflakes, on top of vanilla cupcakes. sweeeet!

Christmas Week

This time of year is a time for reflection, enjoying family and friends and thinking about achievements, what we can do better to improve ourselves and preparing for another year.

For me starting my own business has been the most rewarding thing I have ever done (apart from having my three beautiful daughters of course!).

Creating a dream and making it a reality is the most satisfying feeling and I am so passionate about what I do that working is enjoyable for me, it does not feel like work, it is a hobby and a lifestyle, which I think is hugely important to create a successful business as you eat, live, breath and sleep it!

Everyone has a story and mine is no different and I did lose faith in having friends, but what I have realised over the past year in particular, is the lifestyle I have created for myself has introduced me to some wonderful people, and now I realise I have created a network of friends that I value enormously.

I thought I would share some of my days with you now to see what we get up to when we are not busy creating our wonderful weddings and parties.

Today I spent a morning surfing some fabulous blogs, gaining inspirations and ideas for next year's weddings. I then popped down to the shop this afternoon to see Loraine and Anoulka so I decided to take my camera with me and take some photos. Here are some photos of the shop in it's full Christmas glory and Loraine and Anoulka working hard creating fabulous Christmas bouquets, arrangements and decorations, I am the lazy one sitting on a chair with a coffee :)

I have also taken a photo below of my beautiful Christmas chocolate cake delivered to me a few days ago by Fi, our crazy and hugely talented cake maker, she has created a birdcage for me which I love and don't really want to eat but I will succumb shortly!

I then popped round to see Heather, the owner of Fiestasol, for a cup of tea and homemade biscuits at her lovely cosy home as she was housebound with her beautifully cuddly children and I wanted to deliver a Christmas card and also took her a lovely festive bouquet from the shop for her to enjoy.

Sometimes a working mum's life can be hard so I always think that the mum's need to be spoilt for once! Although of course Heather is very lucky to be married to a superb chef who has taken over the kitchen for Christmas with huge enthusiasm whilst I am still checking off my to do shopping lists!!

All I can say is if anyone out there is considering starting up their own business, just go for it, you have to be passionate about what you do and be prepared to work hours that no one else would even consider but it is so rewarding to create a lifestyle and meet hugely talented and interesting people that otherwise you would never have crossed paths with.

Christmas Table Inspirations

I am having yet another lazy morning spent surfing the wonderful blogs I subscribe to and squeaked with delight when I came across this wonderful Christmas table top shoot on the City Sage Blog.

Created by Kelly Oshiro Design, this table top is so simple and yet beautifully done with soda pop bottles, red and white paper straws (which I am going to have to buy as they remind me of when I was a child), the humble carnation and baubles which catch the candlelight.

Both these delightful blogs are well worth a visit to be transported into a wonderful world of decor and design.

If you have decorated your tree and house but not thought about your table decorations I hope this inspires you to be creative, mine is going to be silvers with hints of magenta this year and I bought the most fabulously glittery table runner!

Winter Star Wedding

I love this inspiration board found on Brenda's Wedding Blog using stars as a winter wedding theme. Such a beautiful idea and very pretty, it would be a nice idea to have table names after different stars and even have a star named for your wedding day.

I thought golds would take over again this year and love the photo with the wedding dress, but I do think we will still see a lot of silver again for 2011, blended with duck egg blues, ivories, corals are still very much in and sage greens.

Winter Wedding Inspiration Board

Top left to right Earrings Centrepiece Bouquet Winter Cape

Middle left to right Falling Snow Table Decorations Snow Bride Falling Snow

Bottom left to right Image Bouquet Bouquet Snow Queen

I am sitting here on this very dark morning with a raging storm and torrential rain overhead, so I have engrossed myself in creating a lovely wintery wedding board instead of looking out at a very gloomy day!

So here I am with my steaming coffee, all my Christmas lights twinkling and creating beautiful images for everyone to enjoy as we approach the big day :)

Which does remind me, I have an awful lot of wrapping to do today for a certain little person in my house!

To see the credits for the above inspiration board click on the descriptions

Merry Christmas to all and to all a Sugary Sweet Night!



hard at work in the kitchen with my favorite new apron



Oh, the weather outside is frightful...but inside it smells like Christmas Cookies!

• Sugar Cookies with piped almond royal icing
• Gingerbread with extra sweet ginger flavored marshmallow fondant
•  Of course, my husband's delicious cookie recipe: toffee & white chocolate & chocolate peanut butter

....delish!

christmas cookies. baking & cuteness by elleDESIGNS

Cranberry Inspired Christmas Decorations

A morning of Christmas inspirations today and you must head over to Elizabeth Anne Designs to see this beautiful cranberry inspired decoration with a how to tutorial as well.

A rich colour scheme with an olive, deep reds and golds, with a beautiful centrepiece and table setting, plus ideas for making sweet displays and beautifully wrapped presents.

Which reminds me I still have a lot of present wrapping to do!

A White Shabby Chic Christmas

I always love the white shabby chic style and here are some inspiring images found at Country Living for creating a white and silver Christmas with some very pretty ideas. Sadly in my house, nothing would stay pristine for longer than an hour with dogs, cats and kiddies, so this is a scheme I have to avoid, although there are elements of this and one of my daughter's bedroom is very Cath Kidston with white furniture!

I am in love with the bedroom though, one of my favourite colours is a soft pale grey, in fact there are many inspirations on this wonderful website for decorating it is definitely worth dropping by.

A bit of Festive Fun continued

As our festive fun continues this week, we are delighted to receive these photos of Claire's fabulous gold and red Christmas tree.

A glorious festive, twinkling tree filled with with lots of lovely details from the gold reindeers, a personalised bauble I spotted and cute snowmen and gold angels. I love it and it is so glittery with the traditional rich deep reds and glorious golds.

Big thank you to Claire and it does look like there are some rather large pressies under the tree which is exciting, only 5 more sleeps!!!

Christmas Table Inspirations

A lazy Sunday morning spent surfing creative blogs has again bought me to so many hugely talented and creative people, who like me, love designing spaces, details and decorating.

This morning I was looking for festive inspiration and also midsummer night themes for weddings and I stumbled upon Hostess with the Mostess and found this lovely clean and fresh table setting using flashes of reds, white twigs and succulent plants. I particuarly loved the 'chandelier' using bleached branches and hanging lapiz shells, a lovely idea for a beach wedding as well.

Another idea we use is to wrap the containers with diamante, normally we buy cheap cosutme jewellery bracelets from a warehouse here in Malaga and use them to wrap around glassware and another fabulous idea which is also beautiful for table decoration is to use them as napkin rings, you can never beat a bit of glitter and sparkle at anytime of year, but at Christmas the more the merrier!