An announcement

Well finally I am officially engaged. It was not so much a surprise for me as I have known it was coming for some time ever since my dear other half scouted out ideas for rings from me and with a few initial consultations with my jeweller in which I talked about what I liked and didn't and the concept I wanted for my ring (sparkly, uplifting and wrapping and nurturing, much like a birds nest).

I was told to be dressed and glamorous by 4pm and he picked me up half an hour later (definitely a gentleman to give me extra time to figure out just how those suspenders I  bought for the occasion fitted together with the lovely vintage inspired stockings with cuban heel)

He drove me to Woolwich which is where we had our first real conversation and our first kiss together. I was asked to get out of the car and go down to the Pier. Along the way I passed three ladies who commented on my rather glam appearance for an afternoon stroll and I just blushed and mumbled something about being led on a mystery tour led by my boyfriend, they smiled and nodded and went on their way and I stood at the pier waiting.

He followed shortly later with a bunch of a dozen champagne roses and a picnic basket containing a bottle of baby moet and chandon and two ritzenhoff champagne glasses (full points for not resorting to plastic for the occasion.) He got down on one knee and read a little poem and proposed to me and my ring is just heavenly.

Afterwards we went to Sepia for dinner and enjoyed a long degustation dinner with many delightful dishes and beautiful matching wines before retreating home.

At the moment my head is spinning trying to keep on top of various plans, I am going to Japan for two and a half weeks in only two weeks time, so I want to start planning the wedding in full speed but I should focus on the trip first but it is hard to focus right now.

Wedding of Marion and Mark – 09.09.09

Well Wednesday the 9th of the 9th 09 heralded the wedding of my friend from university Maz and her boyfriend Mark. (He likes numbers and proposed on the 8th of the 8th 08) It was a lovely wedding at one of Sydney's prettiest churches - St Marks Anglican Church in Vaucluse. The reception was held in the church gardens on a sunny spring day with views to the harbour. There was sparkling pink moscato to drink and the canapes that floated around were enjoyable. 

I particularly loved how she had set the gardens up for the wedding and she used the bonbonnerie gifts of little basil herb pots very well to add layers of colour and texture, it was a design element that worked well for their low budget and I for one am grateful for the delicious addition to my balcony's herb patch. The gifts table and cake table were also very charming, I just love all the old wooden tables. Overall this wedding was such a classic English Garden Wedding.

Painting Presents

It is my friends wedding next Wednesday morning and I have bought her a nice bison ceramic salad bowl in a pretty sagey green colour with wooden salad servers. Lately I have gone off purchasing wrapping paper, the designs are either boring or horrendously expensive and just not in my budget but the time the present is purchased. I have a big roll of brown paper I'm using as a base for everything and I just wrap it in an unusual style with odd folded flaps or oragami flourishes at the end, then I can wrap ribbons round it or stick a small bit of feature paper from my supplies to it. For a wedding though something special is required so I dug out my roll of Chinese Silk Paper and paints and did a brush painting of some blue flowers... I forgot I was going to put yellow centres on them once they had dried and in the confusion I wrapped the present before going "oops" I still think it looks find though. 

A few weeks ago for my friends birthday I did her a chinese brush painting of a mountain landscape. She was the one who kindly gave me a framed picture of a duck for my birthday. I decided to make this into a scroll type painting with two balsa rounds. 

The Japanese Haiku in the top corner is very nice and when I get home I will look it up and add it onto this post in a bit

I wish I had a scanner to get a better image of these, they photograph poorly with my mobile phone

A year of nesting

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This weekend I celebrated a year of having left the nest. Saturday started off simply enough with a walk down to the Kings Cross Markets for breakfast and some stops at the fruit and veg, deli, supermarket aisles. On the way back, the cake shop had miniature croquemboche's for sale so this was perfect, a little tower of decadence to carry carefully home and enjoy on the balcony in the afternoon. There was also a little mini bottle of Möet that I had been saving for an occasion and so this too was shared. A simple celebration but quite fine and dandy indeed. 

On Sunday I had my Grandmother over for afternoon but as usual forgot to photograph my creations. I made leaf shaped honey and lavendar madeline cakes, crackers with english cloth bound cheddar cheese, another with a lovely soft french chevre with Italian proscuitto and a broadbean and mint purree with pork and fennel salami. I also made these cute little cupcakes that are inspired by the concept of a fruit custard tart. You make the basic vanilla cupcake recipe, scoop out a bit in a centre, fill with custard (home made from scratch, no powder involved) and then topped with some fruits (strawberries, blueberries and golden kiwi fruit) and glazed with a little melted strawberry and vanilla jam. I was running late though and rushing at the end to have everything laid out so the doorbell rang before I could photoshoot it. All I had left was two dodgy ones at the end of the day to remind me of the occasion. Everything else was demolished.