Pretty coral and yellow wedding stationery

Recently I had the privilege to work with a great group of people to put together some very pretty things for a styled wedding shoot. The colour pallet was coral and yellow, with a very feminine, fresh feel.

I was a bit nervous about this project, as it was the first of it's kind for me (and hopefully not the last!).

At first I really had a bit of a creative block, maybe because I knew the things I had to make really had to look good. The success of this photo shoot depended on everyone's individual work which had to fit into each other like a puzzle. So the pressure was on to produce something unique and beautiful.

My briefing was to make the table number, invitation and a decoration for the table. The invitation was the least of my worries as I've been making cards (handmade with stamps and stuff) from primary school. I must admit that the printing on the inside made me a bit nervous, as I'm not a graphic designer and don't have much experience with designing the printed parts of the stationery ;)  (hehe, to tell you the truth, I don't even have design tools on my computer like Coral Draw and the rest...). So, armed with my craft supplies, an old laptop I found in our archives (as my pc which I usually use has some kind of problem that has to get fixed) and the mood board I received from the photographer I started my first "real" stationery design project.

In the end (just to make sure that they had something they could use) I made 3 sets of stationery... I was so scared that they wouldn't like it or would think it wasn't good enough. Needless to say that I sat in my craft room many very late nights to finish it.

I told myself, after receiving the beautiful pictures from the photo shoot, that I should really stop doubting myself and my abilities with regards to designing and creating beautiful things...

I would really love to hear from you if you ever went through something similar, and please feel free to post pics of your projects on my Facebook Page.

I would like to thank Alicia S Photography for the opportunity to be a part of this project and also all the other service providers (Tanique Echardt: Model, Cupcakes and Candy: Cake decorations, Chantelle Nel: Make-up, Rene Nune: Hair, Alicia Smit: Photographer and stylist).

Garden project for the day

Hi again, I hope you had a stress-free, creative Worker's Day yesterday.

This project has been on my wish list forever. So when I went to a nearby garden centre the other day and came across this metal heart shape I just had to have it. I must add (actually gloat a bit...) that this project cost me a total of R90. Yes, it's not a typing error... The price includes the metal heart shape and a bag of the white crushed stone. I am lucky enough to have a good supply of succulent plants in my garden, so I could just use that.

It only took me about an hour to complete this project and I'm very pleased with the results.

  My 16 month old son thought it needed a touch of colour, so he added a handful of  black compost to the design...

Starting with putting the shape down where I wanted it to be, I then removed soil from inside the shape only as deep as the iron rim's width. This step was then followed by putting down some newspaper to cover the inside of the shape (mainly to keep out unwanted weeds and to keep the stones from being washed into the soil when it rains). Now the stage was set for my stone filling, topping it of with the pink-tinted succulent plants just on the outside of the heart.

I must admit that I don't know how long it will stay this clean and perfect, but it warms my heart for the past week already and haven't been bombarded with any other objects, colour effects or anything else of the sort by my two busy boys...

Hope you enjoy doing something similar in your garden. I would like to hear about your projects as well!

Feel free to email me for info on where I bought the heart shape and stones. I'm even willing to share some of my succulents with an enthusiastic crafter... ;)

Kind regards

Lené