In which there are marrying montages

The last week has been a time of wedding preparations, lists and staring at each other going 'what have we let ourselves in for?' Not marrying each other: there's no stress about that. We are more in love every day. But deciding to hand make signs and flowers and name places and centrepieces. There are 5 months to go and all these weird things and questions crop up ("So your friends are going to dress you in the morning? Put your boxers on for you, right?" / "Why would I tell my friends what shoes to wear"/ "Do we eat breakfast together or apart?" "Do portaloos need a generator?") I just hope we can get everything sorted in time! Who would have thought there was so much involved? I am definitely looking forward to our honeymoon.

 With all that going on, (and sadly no new outfit photos to share) I thought I would share a little of how our wedding is looking and a little of our where some of it came from.

Inspiration

All images on my Pinterest. 

1. Teal wedding shoes from a wedding that has so many little bits I love. Beautiful photos and just inspiring.
2. Lego cakes. These are definitely happening
3. 50s Wedding dress style, from fiftieswedding.com but the dress has now gone.
4. We're going for 'bridesmaids all in turquoise and mismatched'. Not actually originally inspired by this photo, but I found this one to show my bridesmaids that mismatched could definitely work.
5. Kudasama flowers made of old maps
6. The flower door entrance is really the aesthetic of dreams. No time for any of that, but it's an inspiration point.
7. Thank you made out of Scrabble, a game Andy and I used to play every week, from this awesome Rockabilly wedding.
8. Massive Lego centrepieces on OffBeat Bride, the site that taught me you can think outside any box.
9. Oh, it's another wedding from OffBeat Bride! This whole site is such an inspiration and sunny outdoor weddings is where it's at. (*everything crossed that we can do this in Britain*).

Our Wedding 

1. Our wedding invitation. There's a board games theme going on so we tried to make it look like an instruction booklet. I did a post on how I made them on Gimp.
2. Wedding bouquet. I did a whole post on this so you know all about it.
3.The wedding planning book. All the lists are in here. To do lists, guest lists, music lists...
4. My wedding dress. Sort of. Well it is this style, but it is being custom made. It won't be this pattern or colour. I only got one photo in the changing room, but trust me it is lovely. And from a 50s boutique after all.
5. Lego cake, attempt number 1. Those little nodules on the top have cake in them too.
6. Yes it's another picture of the bouquet. Alright? I'm just soo proud of it!
7. This is the actual door we will be walking through to our wedding. I think it is just as nice as a flower cover door...
8. I am photoshopping it up for Scrabble name places. Actual tiles are to expensive, but images of tiles work just as well. That one is a long job.
9. That's the Methodist Worship book with our service in it, the flyers for the dress shop, the invitations and behind it a page of wedding planning from the book.
10. This was attempt number 2 of Lego cake. There has actually been an attempt number three but my Dad took the pictures and hasn't sent them to me yet.
11. Potential cake toppers. It's even made to look a bit like our ruined abbey in the background. I need to find the right hair for me though.

And that is that. I promise no more wedding things for a while now!

In which it is about time there was some origami

Despite this blog being entitled 'Origami Girl's Heroics' you don't get to see much folding in action. Historically this blog was something quite different, a project that I didn't have the dedication for, and in which ultimately I discovered a love of fashion that I never expected to find. However, don't be fooled into thinking I no longer care for the Japanese crafts. It's true, I don't do as much origami as I used to, but I still find it a very relaxing occupation for my fingers.

Our wedding is the perfect chance to put my ability to fold origami cranes with my eyes closed into action. :)
I am making bouquets of origami tulips. Tulips are my favourite flower, but I knew from the start that I wanted to make my own bouquet in some crafty way because Pinterest is over-flowing with options like button bouquet, fabric flowers, brooches and kudasama flowers. I was so inspired! Strangely the latter seemed to be the only origami flower for which there were boundless tutorials. I considered doing a whole bouquet of cranes, but then I came up with this idea of having the single crane flying over the top of the flowers. 

I am delightfully proud of it. In fact I think it is one of the best things I've ever created - and I did art at GCSE and A Level and ran a jewellery business. I have crap-tons of art work. These bouquets though, they make me squee with delight. 

So I thought I'd have a go at a quick tutorial on how to make them, because there isn't one on the internet yet. I've never done a 'how to' on this blog before so do let me know if this is interesting or not. 

Step 1. Materials

-Glue

-Stem tape (I got it in wilkinsons, a general store type place)

-Origami paper

-Pipe cleaners

-Scissors

 Step 2. Making Tulips

I made a lot of tulips, each on from a single square of paper. If you are used to origami this should be relatively simple to follow. If not, here is a tutorial on how to make just the flowers. It is much simpler probably than my instructions. I've never actually attempted to do one of these so sorry if it doesnt make sense.

Begin with a waterbomb base

Fold the  points of the triangle on the left and right upwards to meet the centre crease. Turning the triangle into a square. Do the same thing on both sides.

Then do a 'book fold', folding each flap over from the left side to the right side like a book Keeping it the same way up always it should now look like a diamond, or a square on its side. You do the book fold twice.

Then you pick up the opposite points of the diamond, the left and the right and bring the together in the middle. Tucking one into the other. You repeat this on both sides. It should look like this.

Then fold each section in half and open again. Put your fingers and thumb between the petal sections and pull out just a little to reveal the hole at the bottom of the flower.

Blow into the whole in the previous picture to inflate the flower. You can then peel back the petals and little or as much as you like.

 Step 3. Stems

Wind two pipe cleaners together for strength and push them into the hole at the bottom of the flower. Glue it in place. Then LEAVE OVERNIGHT. I am so impatient. I always ruin things by rushing to do the next stage. But honestly, let the glue dry.

Then wind the stem tape round the whole of the pipe cleaner. Go up and down twice. Stem tape is naturally sticky so keep it taught so it releases the stickiness and press firmly when you reach the end. It shouldn't need any glue.

 Stem 4. Repeat

Then make lots of flowers like this! I like to make them different sizes and with different amount of petals pulled back. So that they are somehow 'natural' whilst being obviously fake.

 Stem 4. Bouquet it!

Get all those flowers, wrap them together and add a big bow with ribbon!

 I also made a single origami crane and glued it onto some gold wire with a bead at top and base of the bird to hold it in place. I then wrapped the wire round one of the flowers and covered it in more stem tape. When I put that flower into the bouquet, there was my bird, flying over the top!

Beautiful!

I hope this was interesting/ useful to you! I also want to say, I am possibly saving money on buying flowers doing it this way, but not oodles and oodles. I am really fussy about my paper and in Britain it is ridiculously hard to find good quality and NOT RED origami paper. All the packs tend to be in different reds and golds. They do have other colours in Japan. We are having purple, turquoise and green as our wedding colours so I ended up ordering the paper direct from Japan. I've spent about £40 on paper and have made 2 bouquets and a half. So if you are planning a wedding buying bouquets straight from a market might still be cheaper. Or you could just use plain colours and ordinary paper. Or have them as red flowers! But my origami tulips make me very happy.

 

In which there is an overwhelming weekend and peppermint

This weekend has been one that has been just that little bit stressful. There were definitely good times -watching Mean Girls and drinking wine as well as eating a ridiculous amount chocolate fingers over the two days. However I've been also doing a bunch of stuff for work AND wedding things. I can't believe how confusing wedding planning can be. We spent hours and hours discussing things to go on our invites and making big decisions like shall we get married at 2.00 or 2.30! I enjoyed all the design part of the invites but deciding on wording or which hotels to reccommend isn't fun at all. I cannot wait to get married but sometimes it is overwhelming how many different things need to be finalised! In the meantime I went out and bought some new tights. I got a mustard yellow chunky knit pair and these gorgeous peppermint tights. They look paler in this light but indoors they look good enough to eat. I totally have outfit photos still to go up from my holiday still but I want to share this outfit that I wore today first. I'm really proud of all the co-ordinating colours going on here.

This outfit is almost camoflage. Perhaps it would work if I was hiding in the Scottish hills amongst some heather.

The oldest shoes I own. Literally had them for eight years! Doc Martens are the best.

My necklace has a flame and a beret on it. I made it at a Christian craft workshop I ran several years ago and actually has quite deep personal significance, but it does look a little odd to outside eyes.

Woo! Batwing top: I love you so much

In which I am designing my wedding invitations and squeeing

I am so excited about my wedding invitations. I am been feeling so creative making them today (and over several weeks, but I did loads today!) Wasn't sure whether to put them up as it might ruin the surprise for people who are going to be invited, but I am just so excited about how they are looking I really wanted to share. There is still lots to be done with them, like we are having a page which lists 'contents' and we have pictures of bride, groom and minister game pieces and such. Plus the inside pages which give the actual details. But I am so proud of the front page as it is. In case you missed the explanation before, the invite is meant to look like a board game instruction booklet as we are theming the wedding on toys/games. And it you have missed that we are into games then you should read some more of my blog! :P

I spent absolutely ages doing drawing after drawing of the two of us playing a game on the carpet. I was trying for realism at first and just never made us look right, but then I was actually inspired by something I had bookmarked on OffbeatBride from ages ago and imitated that style a little to make us go cartoon.
These guys were my inspiration: http://www.toastmonster.com/wedding-invites/wedding-invite-gallery-2/thankyou-card-2/

So I have screenshots of the stages!

Scanned in final drawing

Doing some editing up close

What it looks like after a bit of editing

Andy and I, all coloured in

And with our names and everything.

There is still looooads to do on the whole thing but that's where we are at now.
 But what do you think?