The Past Two Weeks

I have the house to myself all day today and finally I have found a spare hour or two to catch up with my blog. It's been a stressful couple of weeks (I still haven't made it to the bottom of that ironing pile!) so today I'm taking it easy and making the most of the peace and quiet.

School is almost finished for the Summer holidays and I can start to focus all of my attention on wedding planning. Although it's been a busy few weeks at school it's also been a lot of fun. I always prepare end of the year shows for the parents which is stressful but I love to see the proud looks on the parents' faces as they watch their little darlings performing entirely in English. It's so rewarding to see the progress my students have made throughout the year and to see my hard work pay off. All of their little tantrums and quarrels are suddenly forgiven and forgotten as I watch them give their best performance and afterwards when they thank me with gifts, flowers and pictures they've drawn.

Another little project I've been busy with is stitching this sweet bib for my lovely friend's first born. I love making cross-stitch gifts and as I'm sewing I imagine that every cross is a tiny kiss, hand sewn with love.

These are some 'during' pictures. The bib which I bought from my favourite haberdashery in Perugia is by DMC.

And here is the finished bib - it looks sweet enough to eat!

This weekend I'm working on our wedding invitations and going to an open day at some local wineries but I'll post more about these in a day or two.

Hope you all have a nice weekend xx

Too many pies and not enough fingers!

I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed this week by all of the things I have to do. My head is buzzing with wedding plans, school projects and house ideas, I have a pile of ironing which is almost taller than me, a work basket full of projects which need to be completed and a list as long as my arm of things that need doing. Matteo has been away a lot with work recently (4 out of the past 6 weekends) and he's off again tomorrow to Portugal for 10 days. This week we had a mad rush trying to get all the documents we need for the wedding sorted out before he goes away. Italian bureaucracy is a nightmare and everything is far more complicated than it needs to be.

Yesterday we spent running around Perugia trying to find all the bits and pieces we need for our invitations. I think we finally have everything ordered we just need to wait for everything to arrive and I can start assembling them. Thank goodness for the Internet - I ordered almost everything online as we couldn't find exactly what we were looking for here in Perugia.

Today we spent most of the day in the house taking more measurements and digging up the floor in the kitchen. Or rather, Matteo was diggin and I was daydreaming about how the house will look when it's finished! I drew a couple of sketches of how I'd like the kitchen to look. I was quite pleased with the result until Matteo pointed out that I'd forgotten to put in a fridge, dishwasher and cooker! Thank goodness he's more practical than I am! Here's a few of the many pictures I've collectd of kitchens that I love:

The first four pictures are all by Jordi Canosa but I'm sorry, I can't remember where the last one was from.

I have another busy week ahead with end of year shows to organise at school. I may have to take a little blogging break for a week or two until I have the ironing pile back under control!

Have a good week xxx

Another wedding post

My mind has again been full of wedding plans this weekend. I've been doing more work on the invitations trying to find the perfect font to use. There are millions to choose from online and I'm once again struggling to make a decision. I think I have it narrowed down to two but there are still so many more to look at. I've been using a great website which has thousands of free fonts to download. As well as finding fonts for my wedding invitations I've also found loads which I'll be able to use at school.

My sister sent me a link to this beautiful wedding styled by Cheri Messerli. I love all the quirky pretty little details and how it looks a bit disorganised and haphazard. I really don't like overly styled weddings with perfectly matching elaborate flower arrangements and religiously followed colour schemes where everything matches from the bridesmaids dresses to the grooms underpants! Don't get me wrong, these types of wedding are beautiful but they are not me. I would like my wedding to look fairly similar to this one with lots of quirky little personal touches.

Bunting and flowers in jam jars and glass bottles - my favourite things!

Matteo loves Origami so I think I'll get him making some of these swans.

I love the idea of setting up a little fairy tent for the kids (and me!) to play in.

To see more pictures of this wedding visit Cheri Messerli. Thank you Loulou May for sending me the link.

Finally I wanted to say Happy Mother's Day to all the lovely mummys around the world. I have the very loveliest mummy in the whole world and I wish I could have been with her today to spoil her like she deserves to be spoiled. Lots of love Mummy xxx

Sarah Elizabeth

Wedding Invitations

When Matteo and I got engaged last April and I started making wedding plans I decided that I wanted to make all of the wedding stationary myself. Now that the wedding is 3 months away and we have to send out the invitations in a months time I'm starting to regret that decision!

The problem is that I'm unable to make a decision about anything. I've seen so many beautiful invitations online and I was unable to decide how I wanted to do mine. However, finally we settled on an idea that we thought would be simple to make and not too expensive to produce.

Yesterday I set aside the whole day to concentrate on ordering the materials for the invitations. I searched all over the internet for the kind of card I wanted without a lot of success. Either it was the wrong colour, the wrong size, the wrong price or it was out of stock. When I finally did find what I was looking for the company wouldn't post to Italy. In the end I went back to the very first website I'd looked on and ordered ready cut and folded cards and envelopes from there. They're a bit smaller than I wanted but otherwise ok.

I still have all the other bits and pieces of materials to find and no doubt I'll go through the same long process. However, at least we're making progress and I feel a bit less stressed.

Here are some of my inspiration pictures for the invitations.

Image 1 - Image 2 - Image 3 - Image 4 - Image 5

When searching for card I came across this amazing company in Wales which makes paper from sheep poo! I would have ordered it for our invitations but it was a bit expensive once you added on postage to Italy. I'll hopefully be able to use some for other things such as the menus or the order of service.

Today it's been pouring with rain most of the day which scuppered our plans for a day out to a local antiques fair. Typical since yesterday I had to spend all day indoors working on the computer when it was brilliant sunshine outside! However, at least I had a reasonably productive day. Hopefully I'll be able to post pictures of the final product before too long.

Hope everyone had a nice weekend xx