100 Posts!

Wow what the hell have I been writing about! Seriously though, it seems to have come round really quickly and I need to say a massive thank you to all of you who have turned up and read my posts, even if you only drop by occasionally. Its nice to know we are not alone in this big wide internet world!

So I figured that a 100 post marker deserves a few things, firstly of course is a giveaway. Then secondly we will get on to a review of what has been going on on the blog over this last 100 posts. 

The Giveaway:
The most important bit of this post right? I am going to leave the giveaway open until Sunday 16th November to give people plenty of chance to find it and be in with a chance to win!
 
What do you get?

• 2 fat quarters of cotton fabric one of which is the gorgeous circus fabric I bought in Copenhagen to make my baby blanket which I just can't find anywhere on the internets.
• A pair of Glitter Bow Shoe Clips
• A Monster Magic hanging bunny (please note this is not CE tested and is for decoration only)
• A knitted bow ring 

All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is to leave me a comment on this post telling me what the favourite thing that you have made this year has been. If you can link a picture or a post then even better, but its not required. I look forward to hearing what you have been up to.

So, what have I achieved in this 100 posts?:
I set out to try and make sure I made a post twice weekly. I would say that about 80% of the time I have actually managed to stick to that which is pretty good going. I am however no where near a place where I am able to put up posts in advance to save myself time and as the year has gone on, and things have gotten busier I am finding sometimes I just haven't been able to find the time to make, let alone come along and write about it. So I hope you will forgive me for that. I have however learnt that sometimes I don't need to have made anything and its much better to come along as tell you about my week or post up some inspiration if I can so here's hoping I might be able to get back on track with that.

I have however:

• Created 10 tutorials
• Made 12 outfits for myself
• Crafted more items that I can count
• and  DIY'ed my own wedding! 

Most Popular Posts:
I realise you can see this from the menu on the right but I wanted to share the top most popular posts on the site with you. Mostly because actually its not always the ones that I think will be popular that are.
1.  The DIY Ombre Jar Candle Tutorial
I made these for my wedding and they were really cute sat out on the tables. I am so pleased this is a popular post because the photographs are terrible! This might be one of those posts which is worth a revisit when I run out of inspiration.

 2. DIY Panda Balloon Tutorial
I am so pleased this one is popular. I had so much fun designing this for a friends bday party that it deserves to be a hit. It is also turning out to be one of my most pinned pins on pinterest. It just goes to show that there are some manufactures out there who are really missing a treat on selling Panda balloons.

 3. Ava Sweatheart Neckline Tutorial
Again another one I am pleased to see is popular. This neckline was such a bitch to sew so I hope this has helped a few of you out there to master it.

4. The Bridesmaids Dresses
And why not, these are some sexy ladies rocking some sexy dresses so its no wonder they are popular. Thank you to the wonderful Frock Nottingham for making my bridesmaids look so spectacular.

5. Mollie Makes Felt Fox Brooches
I have only just noticed that my spelling of brooches is a bit off in this picture...oops! I think this post owes is popularity to people trying to get a hold of the pattern instructions. Sadly as its not my pattern and I don't work for Mollie Makes its not my place to provide this, but thank you to the post for bringing lots of people over to my corner of the world.




My Favourite Make:
This is quiet a hard one to choose, but I think given the scale of it it has to be The Wedding:

I know it sort of counts as lots of things and is kind of cheating but I couldn't writing this post without mentioning the fact that since starting I crafted a wedding can I. The day was so perfect, everyone helped out to make everything so special and it was such an amazing day. I wish I could go back and do it all over again!

So in summery, thank you again for being here and here's hoping that the blog will continue to grow and improve over the next 100 posts. Good luck with the comeptiyion

Leopard Prom Dress

Pregnant lady on a swing in a leopard print prom dress... Very dignified of course! 

So of course I changed my mind didn't I! After making the jade prom dress I decided it was too dark for a wedding and thought about going out and panic buying a new frock from the fabulous Frock. Though I know what I am like and the one dress I would have wanted was the leopard print poplin bombshell dress! So having already got 2 meters of the fabric and a pattern that still fits for now I decided I might as well just have a go at rush jobbing the thing myself last week and I successfully managed to make this dress in time for the wedding.

We had a fabulous time in Scotland seeing two of our friends getting married. What better way to spend a weekend than sharing two peoples really special day with them in the company of more really good friends! We all had a really great time (dispite my complete sober ness) and I am so thankful that we were invited along :) 

We visited Scotland twice in one day (due to our hotel actually being just the other side of the border), ate far too much food, played on the park, danced, sang and were generally very merry. All in all a great time was had by all. And despite this being the hardest occasion for not drinking I was at least glad to not have a hangover the next morning. So here's to many more weekends like this one.

On a less exciting note for now... They are ripping the kitchen out this morning... I am already fed up of. Noting gift being where it should be and tonight there will be even more chaos. I am sure it will be worth it in the end. Here is a picture of what it looked like this morning ( I hate that oven in the middle of the room!).

Its amazing how much better a bit of lippy can make you feel.... oh, and the jade dress hack

Don't you sometimes find that even on the days when you are feeling particularly not that attractive a bit of slap can put you in such a better mood? Thank god for going out for dinner as an excuse rather than just wearing it round the house (though of course there is nothing wrong with that if its making you feel good!).

So anyway... you remember the jade prom dress I made which is for a wedding we are attending next weekend? Well, those halter straps, lets face it, a girl like me needs a bra and I wasn't feeling all that comfortable (or happy) with the dress showing of my straps. What to do about it? Hack off the straps and replace them with some new ones of course. Thankfully the straps from the georgia pattern were perfect for this so I just needed to cut them out and replace them.

The dress pattern allowed for this pretty easily so I attached the straps on the back first then tried the dress on so I could get the length and the placement of the straps just where I needed them to be in the front. This turned out to be a great way to do it, and I will definitely do this with my next version of georgia as it turned out to be a bit like goldilocks... the first ones being too long and the second too short.

So now I can wear my dress with straps and even if its the hottest of hot days when we go off to the wedding next weekend I can wear the dress without the need for a bolero! yippee!

And just because they deserve a picture of their very own... check out the shoes, I so made the dress to match these babies! I LOVE them, they are such a pretty colour. BTW, my legs are not this pale, its just bad photo editing on my part, though I think they were quiet pasty tights.

Post Wedding Round Up: Everything Else

I have been meaning to put up some more pictures from the wedding for some time now to cover all the little details that I haven't covered already. I really want to be able to make a little gallery for 'Our Handmade Wedding' page above (where you can find all the other blog posts as well) and it seems a bit silly to do this without talking you through it first. All images taken by our wonderful photographer Ed Godden

We got married in a real ale pub in Derbyshire which is an old listed coach house called The Bear Inn at Alderwasley. One of the things we felt was important on our day was to make sure us and our guests felt relaxed all day and not standing on ceremony. A pub was the perfect choice, I mean I feel right at home in the pub! It was also a real ale pub and because most of our friends and family are beer drinkers this was much better than being somewhere where everyone has to drink wine or choose from a limited selection of generic beer on offer. The staff were amazing, they were so helpful and tentative, and the work they did setting everything out and making sure we didn't have to think about it was incredible.

The room which we used for the ceremony was a small function room with its own bar. It is painted white and has lovely atmospheric dark beams. The venue very kindly supplied their own bunting which I am very happy about, I think I would have gone insane making all this up myself!

We did however make the large tissue paper poms. There are loads of tutorials on the net for these so you can go google it :). My Godmothers other half even made the pink and blue one a couple of pictures above. He was very proud of himself and I think he showed it to everyone he spoke to!

95% of the reason why I picked this venue was the chairs (right now you are probably thinking I'm a bit insane!). I really didn't want those sash covered plastic chairs, its just not us. Now wood, that's more like it, I love these chairs. My mum very kindly, and painstakingly, made 50 hanging hearts which we hung off the ends of the chairs whilst we walked down the isle. I love the finished look of these. Not one person left me with a leopard print one though, and I go to other peoples houses and see them hanging there and can't help but grumble in my head a bit :) It's fine though, I am glad people liked them so much that they wanted to take them away.

Me and mum grew all the flowers ourselves in my garden and in the allotment. Not all of them worked but we ended up with masses of white and various shades of pink cosmos so it looked beautiful. My mum admitted to me the day before the wedding that she thought I was crazy suggesting that we grow flowers which would still be in bloom at the end of October. HA! looky what we achieved, Win!

I couldn't do this post without showing you my hair. I had this crazy idea I wanted to make my hair into a bow at the back after seeing someone else do it at a friends wedding. I really didn't think my hair would be long enough to make this work but the hairdresser Holly did and incredible job. She even spent the night before painting bobby pins pink with nail polish so you couldn't see them! How incredible is that!

We made all the decorations for the tables (thought you can't see them all that well). There were felt hearts and plush numbers. The ombre candles, hundreds of paper stars, more flowers, flag place holders held in Ferrero Rocher, pom pom napkin rings and little chocolate hearts. I knew that making all this stuff was a huge undertaking, but I never ever imagined it would look as incredible as it all did.

So I will leave you with a small selection of images, but remember if you want to have a look at more than this you can see them all on our Photographers website: www.edgodden.co.uk

 

Post Wedding Round Up: Mr Sprinkles

Check out Mr Sprinkles:

Isn't he awesome! This is our wedding cake. He has not been handmade by a anyone we know, but was created from the image in my head by the wonderful Melbourne Cake Company. Now I don't think it's everyday that a wedding cake maker meets a client who's only real stipulation is that their cake should have face.

It took me ages to decide on the wedding cake idea. I wanted it to be something representative and fun but had no idea what this meant. Then one day whilst we were a little bit drunk we were talking about making cuddly stuffed cakes, and I love to make plush food, but I remarked that the cake should have a face 'all cakes should have a face' and there it was. It was then that I decided that the wedding cake should be a perfect reflection of a monster magic cake. 

After a few Pinterest searches on cakes I eventually stumbled across this sprinkles cake made by Swirls Bakery and instantly fell in love. I nearly changed the whole idea for this cake, but then had a chat with the lovely cake lady and we came up with the design for Mr Sprinkles. She added the bow tie all by herself which is an excellent final touch.

He turned out great, he looks the part, and best of all tasted delicious.

Photos by Ed Godden Photography 

Post Wedding Round Up: The Bridesmaids Dresses

Its that time of week again, and this week I am showing off.... The Bridesmaids.

How gorgeous do they look! These girls they are the absolute perfect mix of absolutely wonderful, and a little but nutty! We have my sister on the left, my friend Stevie in the middle who gets far too excited about everything, and Yvonne on the right who is just the right amount of good and bad influence on me (probably tipped on the bad side, but that's ok right!). They really did make my day, and I couldn't have got married without them, so thank you ladies xx.

The dresses were handmade by the talented ladies of at Frock in Nottingham. Rather than explain how they work myself, here is how they put it:

'Frock was born from a love of beautiful vintage dresses. We have a passion for vintage sewing patterns and enjoy experimenting with original patterns, adapting them and making them  relevant to the women of today. Women who want something unique and an alternative to todays mass produced throw away fashion.

At Frock we make our dresses by hand in small runs, this means that we are free to customise our dresses to suit and to play with the design, mixing up fabrics and design elements at will.

Although our dresses are inspired by vintage, we are not restricted to one era and like to embrace the fun and flirty best of all decades and give it our own twist.'

I really wanted the dresses to be something which they might choose to wear again at another occasion. I also wanted to be able to make them similar enough in style, but also allow my bridesmaids some room for freedom. This is why Frock were perfect, because not only do they do a made to measure service (at a reasonable price) it is also fully customizable. So we went through the fabric swatches book, picked a fabric, and then my Bridesmaids picked the style of dress from their patterns that they liked the most. I think this worked out well and I hope they were more comfortable in their dresses as they picked the fit. Frock then made up all three dresses to our specifications and I couldn't be happier with the result.

 

So I hope you like the dresses as much as I did, enough that I had to go and buy my own Frock frock! I was really pleased, as you can see above, at how well everything came together, from the shoes to the dresses to the bouquets. Not bad to say I am pretty sure I winged all this design stuff!

I am planning an exciting Monster Magic style festive tutorial for you at the weekend (when I actually have some daylight to photograph it) so check back on Sunday to take a look.

Post Wedding Round Up: The Wedding Dress

Ok, so this is the one you have been waiting for right? Well I won't keep you in suspense any longer...

It is actually separates rather than a dress. The skirt is princess style and knee length and was made by my sister Rachel. It is made from 18 layers of soft tulle fabric, 8 pink underneath, 10 white on top, with a satin layer in between to keep my modesty. She painstakingly cut and stitched each layer. It is basically 19 circle skirts sewn together. She did a great job of this, the layers are perfect. 

The top is a baby pink silk satin corset which was handmade by my sister in law Alex. Alex has made a number of corsets in her life, and has always done a really professional job of it so I knew she was perfect for this task. It is laced up the back, and doesn't have a front fasten to keep a lovely clean line. I love the neckline.

I am so pleased with the final finish, they did such a good job of excellently turning  the image I had in my head into something real. I also wanted something which I could and would wear again. The corset is perfect for this, and my sister has given me the skirt pattern so I can use this as a petticoat for evening wear, perfect! 

A together I think the outfit really worked and was so very me. And who was I to resist finishing it off with Rock and Roll Bride for Crown and Glory cat ears. Mr Fox was completely not surprised with my unique take on wedding attire.

I love it! Thank you sisters xx

Photo's thanks again to the talented and 'award winning' Ed Godden Photography

Post Wedding Round Up: The Bouquets

I purposefully didn't want to purchase real flower bouquets for my wedding. The idea was to hand craft as much as possible. I started off, like I usually do, collecting images from the internet with ideas and popping them on (yep you guessed it) pinterest. There were actually tons of ways to DIY flowers out there I was surprised at the amount of different ideas I got from it.

So after a couple of evenings with my bridesmaids trying out different techniques, with some attempts more successful than others, we finally settled on these. It was actually something which I didn't find an image or tutorial for but just happened to cobble together from the collective ideas I got. I think it worked perfectly and the colours really complimented the dresses. I think the finishing touch of the ribbon which my mum did really helped as well.

I am not planning on writing up a tutorial on these as there is some vague twinkle in my eye about making them for sale. But should that not happen I will of course show you how to. In the meantime, check out the board (sorry it's on my old account) and hopefully find some fabulous ideas for yourself. It's actually really easy to make your own wedding bouquets and the best thing about them is that they will keep forever as a souvenir of that special day.

A little sneaky peak there at the dresses! but look at how well they work with the colour scheme.

I plan to run the wedding bits as a series of Friday posts, so watch out for next weeks installment!

Photos by Ed Godden

Post Wedding Round Up: The DIY Glittery Shoes!

I am finally able to start blogging some of the DIY craft done for the wedding, I'm so excited to be able to show you now that I have some decent professional photo's thanks to our fabulous wedding photographer Ed Godden.

You will all remember the DIY Glitter Shoes tutorial that I posted a couple of months ago. Well not only did we glitter my shoes but we also glittered the bridesmaids shoes. The idea was that they could pick the style of shoe they wanted and then they would end up matching as we used the same glitter on them all. They turned out fantastic don't you think? I am so pleased with them and they matched the dresses so perfectly.

The Glitter on my shoes was a very chunky nail art glitter with large heart shapes in. This created a lovely effect, but the finish was not particularly smooth. The blue on the other hand was an extra fine glitter which produced a much smoother sheen with a more professional finish. Which do you prefer? I really can't make my mind up!

Next up I want to show you the DIY Bouquets, they were so much fun to make, and so simple. I know, I know, you want to see the dresses and what we actually looked like. I hear you don't worry but I wanted to show you the elements before I put them all together. It will all come along very soon I promise, so watch this space.

DIY Pink Ombre Jar Candle Tutorial

I have been making these pink ombre candles in jars as part of the centre pieces for my wedding and wanted to share the tutorial with you. I hope I don't end up bombarding this place with tutorials, but hey who doesn't want to know how to make stuff right? I will try and keep the text brief and the pictures easy to follow.

Supplies:

You will need: 

Candle wax (mine came from the Norfolk Candle Company)

Candle wick (this normally come as a sort of 'string' which you cut to length)

Candle wick supports (little metal discs to hold the wick down)

Clean Jars

An old glass bowl/container

An old pan

An old plastic handles spoon

Wax crayons

Optional: Candle fragrance

Put your glass dish in a pan of hot water over the stove top. Be wary not to 'boil' the water you just want it to be simmering. Add some wax to your glass container and heat until all the solid wax has melted.

Whilst the wax is melting you can prepare your wicks. Wicks come in two forms, you can either buy them pre-cut with a metal disc on the bottom which can just be put straight inside the jars. These normally come dipped in wax so are pretty stiff and so no more support is required. The other format is wick which comes as a long string. With this type you will need to cut it to length, but make sure it is about 2cm longer than the height of the jar. Add the metal disc to the bottom and attach to the bottom of the jar. You can do this by dipping it in a bit of your melting wax. Then tie a not around a cocktail stick/pencil etc and lay across the top of the jar. This helps to keep the wick straight and centred until the wax dries. 

Once the wax has fully melted you can add your colour. You can see here I have two shades of pink crayon and a white one. Break a bit of the darkest crayon off and add it to the melted wax. You can also now add a small amount of fragrance if required. I used vanilla. Stir the crayon until fully melted. You should now have pretty pink wax.

Being careful and remembering this is hot wax sitting in hot water, lift the glass container out of the water and pour a layer of wax into each jar. How much you use it up to you and it does not need to be exact. 

Repeat these stages using lighter colours of crayon each batch (you can mix some with white to get pastel shades) until you have lovely ombre candles. Each layer should have dried sufficiently to add another by the time the next batch of wax has melted. 

HAZAA! You are left with a beautiful set of ombre candles. I can't wait to show off these bad boys at my wedding, they look so pretty with the light coming through them as well. 

You can of course do this in any colour, it doesn't have to be pink. You could also go for rainbow themed, or how about black and orange for a Halloween theme? If anyone has a go at this I would love to see a link to yours, please post a comment below and let me have a look. 

Shoes and Glitter, What more does a girl need?

So in 4 weeks I will be Mrs Fox, Exciting! I have been trying for a number of years to find the best way to publicise my crafting obsession, and have always been stumbled by the fact that I can't EVER stick to just one craft, and so specialising for me is really hard. However, one thing I have learnt about myself on the journey to crafting my wedding is why try! There are so many wonderful ideas out there, craft tutorials, pinterest boards, blog posts, everything. So the DIY Fox is born. My vision is to show you what I have been up to, with tutorials as often as possible, links to tutorials I have found this week, favourite sites, and reviews or 'try it myself' anecdotes from tutorials from all the other talented visionaries already out there. I will try to, from time to time, have a Fox related theme, but for now GLITTER!

I so want glitter shoes for my wedding, but I have been struggling to find the 'perfect' pair in the style and colour I wanted for a reasonable price. So I decided why not D.I.Y. There are so many tutorials and videos out there for how to do this, but I wanted to quickly run through mine with you. Firstly, because most of the tutorials I found were American (Modge Podge to us is just simply PVA, or School glue), and secondly to show you how pretty they are.

So here we go:

1: First you will need a pair of heels: new, old, borrowed (probably best not!) just make sure they are clean, and its probably not going to work so well on anything suede/fabric. Patent or leather are likely going to work best.

2. Gather all your supplies. You will need:

Shoes

PVA Glue (or Modge Podge if you are reading this from over the waters)

Some kind of brush or sponge

Glitter

Newspaper

(optional: tissue paper for stuffing inside the shoe to stop glitter getting inside, masking tape)

3. Using your glue and brush, cover an area of the shoe in the glue. You will likely want to work in smaller sections to make sure the glue doesn't dry out, but you can put the glue over the glitter so there will be no gaps. If there are any areas you specifically don't want to get glitter on you might want to masking tape these areas.

4. Carefully sprinkle your glitter over the area covered in glue, making sure that any spare glitter lands on the newspaper. Repeat the last two stages until you have covered the desired areas in glitter and leave to dry completely. You may find you need to tip some of the glitter from the newspaper back into a tub to re-use. This is easily done by just folding the paper in half and tipping down the crease. 

5. The final stage is to cover all the glittered areas with a clear sealer. This is a picture of the one I used which I was able to buy from the internet. It is a clear Acrylic spray which dries with a gloss finish. Spray this over all the glitter and leave shoes to dry. This will stop your glue from chipping, your glitter from getting everywhere and also helps to waterproof them. 

And finally - TA DA!!! prance around in your super glittery shoes whilst trying to find as many items around the house that you can also cover in glitter! 

I hope you enjoyed the first instalment of The DIY Fox. I hope to see you soon.