Musing Bridal Accessories…

Hello blogging world

Life is pretty hectic here but I’m managing to stay on top of everything. I’m hoping I can get everything I want to achieve this year, including the wedding and weight loss! I’m actually noticing (slight) changes in my body, but not enough for people to stop and be all “Wow, you’ve lost weight!”. That’s my fiancé (lucky duck!).

On wedding-related news, I’ve been pondering over bridal accessories. I’ll be having a veil, but I don’t intend on wearing the thing for the whole day. I’m probably going to nix it for something low-key for the reception, like a hair accessory. My only issue is what the heck am I going to wear!?

I’ve been throwing up between buying something from Etsy which is cherry-blossom inspired, but the thing is, they’re from America and possibly expensive… so maybe I should try to buy something onshore… but where?

All the shops I’ve found in Australia have gorgeous accessories, but I’m a poor student and I can’t afford it…

And then I found this place.

Their accessories are ah-mazing and also – soft and fluffy (I’ve been to a pop-up stand… I felt their stuff… I wanted to buy but was poor at the time, boo). Also, you can custom-make for your own wedding. They won’t go to drastic lengths to change their original products, but I’m sure I can find something that will just fit with the whole vintage-geeky-vineyard-hodgepodge theme.

I dunno guys… what do you think? Should I go for it?

Engagiversary! + sweating it out

Hello folks!

Yesterday I turned a quarter of a century and, apart from a few minor body issues, it was an awesome day! It was also the day that – a year ago – GP asked me to marry him ❤ I’ve already gone through our proposal story, but it was nice knowing that a year ago, we started the next step on our relationship journey.  I still can’t believe that GP wants to marry me, especially as I can be a bit of a beesh. But he has been with me every step of the way.

On the wedding front, we’ve been working our asses off in the gym lately, however, my body decided it didn’t like that idea, and it’s since swelled in places which make it hard for me to go to the gym (or anywhere, really). That part of my body is my left foot – it’s swelled to about twice its size and I wasn’t able to put any pressure on it at all. That was where the not-fun of my birthday came from. GP was sweet enough to get me some crutches because, DAMNIT, I was going out on my birthday come hell or high water!

I wasn’t able to go to the gym. I couldn’t go on any of the cardio equipment without pain, and I couldn’t do any weights because my elbow was in so much pain from all the chest, back and arm weights, and I couldn’t put any pressure on my foot. So we skipped the gym yesterday (which sucked, because I was so pumped to go). I’m hoping to go today, but my foot is still a little swollen. I can now walk on it, but I’m limping like a mofo. Hopefully it’ll get better before 3PM and GP and I can head to the gym to sweat it out.

As for how I’ve been doing on my weight-loss journey, I’ve only lost about 3kgs. GP however has lost a WHOPPING 10kgs! I’m so proud of him! ❤ I’m hoping the gym will kickstart my body and I’ll lose the weight I want to lose. I’ve been following the same exact regime as GP, so it really doesn’t make any sense that I’m losing so little and he’s losing so much!

Wish us luck and let’s hope my foot gets better!

E x

First DIY Project!

Hello all!

I mentioned in an earlier post how I was planning a whole bunch of DIY-ish projects. Well, we started one yesterday!

This project is for the reception, and involves us cutting wine bottles using a bottle cutter specially designed for cutting bottles (it’s got knobs to adjust for heights and everything!). We bought  it for $40 from an Australian website (http://www.etchingindustries.com.au/g2-bottle-cutter/ – the G2 bottle cutter!). The bottle themselves were provided by the lovely Lou from Tamburlaine, our wedding reception coordinator. She’s been so awesome throughout the process, and providing us with bottles has saved us SO much time!

As for the project itself, we’d been putting it off for some time, but because Monday was our “stay at home and be lazy mofos” day, I got restless.

Seriously restless!

I asked if GP wanted to try cutting a few bottles to make sure our DIY project would work. So we started with two bottles – the Sparkling Scarlett Bubbles bottle and Verdelho bottles from Tamburlaine Organic Wines.

It was a failure.

Let me explain…

A few weeks prior, I had removed the labels by soaking the bottles in a bucket for a few hours and then carefully peeling. The Scarlett Bubbles’ labels were difficult to peel (I had to use a scraper to get it all off), but the Verdelho bottle just peeled right off beautifully. I was happy and thought that this might not be as hard as I initially thought.

Now skip ahead a few weeks to yesterday night.

After the labels were soaked, peeled and gone, we used the bottle cutter to etch a line over the base of the bottle where we wanted it to detach. This is a lot easier then it sounds. All it requires is some gentle pressure and a steady hand. GP was able to etch two relatively thin lines in the bottle (although he made the lines slightly thick because of “re-etching” – i.e. going over the already etched lines. We later learnt that a thinner line makes it a lot easier to detach).

After we etched the lines we got two big bowls – a bowl filled with boiling water from the kettle, and a bowl filled with iced water. We then began dunking each into the water baths, making sure to keep them in there for 5-10 seconds each dunk. Our first effort was a complete disaster. The Verdelho broke off but was crooked, and the Scarlett Bubbles didn’t even budge.

Disappointed, we decided we’d try again, but this time only with the Verdelho bottles.

This time I did most of the etch (one solid, thin line from start to finish, except for one bottle which I thought I hadn’t etched) and GP did the dunking into the water baths. This time we used a pot over a stove fire on a low simmer to keep the water at boiling point. We kept the ice water bowl.

And it was perfect!

Let me show you a picture! 🙂

It’s a little hard to see on the image, but the glass was smooth all the way around. We’re going to sand down the glass just in case because we don’t want any unwanted little fragments ruining our night and our project. But overall, the bottle were perfectly detached!

All in all, we’re both super stoked that it worked! I’ve soaked and de-labelled four more Verdelho bottles and we also want to attempt the Bubbles bottle again with our new technique.

Wish us luck!

E x

Happy Easter!

My god I am a horrible blogger.

I don’t think I could ever do this for a living. Actually – I take that back. I probably could if this was the thing giving me financial stability…

Anyway! Happy Easter everyone!

It’s just ending here in Australia, and we (GP and I) have had an awesome time! On Good Friday we drove up to Newcastle with some friends and bade another of our friends a farewell. Lucky guy is leaving on a long secondment in America. We spent some time boozing, eating, laughing and chatting. I even got some wedding talk in because one of our friends is our MC! 🙂 He wanted to get the general layout of the room and talk about personalities so he can get a better feel of his audience.

We’ll be taking him up the Hunter Valley to see the hall this month 🙂 (hopefully…)

On Saturday, my family, GP and I went to Cockatoo Island (my first time there!). It’s a stunning island in the middle of the Harbour. There’s views of the Harbour Bridge and the city, and the island itself is full of so much history! It used to be an island to house convicts, then became an orphanage and reformatory for orphan and delinquent girls and boys. It was later changed to a naval dock where some of the first Australian warships were built for WWII. It’s honestly a photog’s paradise, with a mixture of industrial, raw and gritty scenarios and old decaying buildings and structures of convict Australia against the modern sky scape of Sydney! We strolled around the island, had a picnic lunch and then enjoyed a coffee and some drinks while soaking in the sun. After a brief mishap with the ferry (wrong ferry, whoops!) we ate at a Mexican restaurant – Had to Happen – that had all-you-eat fajitas. SO very bad for the diet, but so very good to eat. GP and I made sure not to eat too much sour cream or cheese. All-in-all, it was an awesome day!!

On Sunday, we went trekking with another group of friends. After a painfully long drive to the Blue Mountains (and more specifically, Wentworth Falls), we headed out on a hour-and-a-half trek through Australian bushland and to the waterfalls. The views were stunning and even GP admitted that the Australian wilds were a “different kind of beautiful to New Zealand”. We took heaps of pictures in front of the waterfalls and through the bushland. I got soaked by one particular waterfall, which was just awesome. It was such an awesome day and hopefully we make it a “thing” to do it every month or fortnight. GP and I’s legs were so sore afterwards, but it was worth every sore muscle.

And finally, Monday was a day to completely relax. We did nothing all day (and that includes exercise too, I know, we’re bad!). We’re still eating well, so hopefully today hasn’t set me back…

I know this wasn’t really wedding-related, but I thought I’d document the awesomeness that was the long weekend. 🙂 My next post, I promise, will be about the wedding!

For now, I shall go~

E x