Hand drawn floral save the dates

I have just been working on some floral save the date cards for my lovely friends Miriam and Jake, here's a bit of a record of the ideas and the final result!

Handmade Vintage Wedding - Paula Pryke

In September 2013, my husband Tom and I married in Bath, and we were privileged enough to have the talented florist Paula Pryke, arranging the flowers for our church and marquee reception.

Last week, Paula launched her new book, 'Wedding Flowers', published by Jacqui Small and featuring the beautiful photographs of Tim Winter. We are ridiculously excited to see our wedding feature, and that some of our handmade endeavours feature alongside her beautiful flowers.

 ©Paula Pryke & Tim Winter 2015         

About Paula...     Paula Pryke is a world-renowned florist, with over 30 years experience organising flowers internationally for weddings. She has published 16 floral books, and was recently awarded her OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours list in 2014.                      

                                                                                                                                                               The making... We had a very vintage themed wedding with as many handmade elements as possible, and although yes it was a total labour of love, I really want to share this post as I'd love to inspire a few brides to get making for their own special day. The book is crammed full of DIY ideas and inspiration for choosing flowers, themes and even making them yourself.                                                                  

A detail from 'Wedding Flowers', our church pew ends at St Aphege, Bath ©Paula Pryke & Tim Winter 2015

About the book...

A beautiful book packed full of gorgeous photos and amazing floral displays for planning every aspect of your wedding day. The book gives the bride the confidence and ability to design her own floral theme and work with a florist to execute it, or perhaps even undertake some of the arrangements herself for a truly personal touch. 

The book has step-by-step instructions throughout, and demonstrates how brides, bridesmaids, friends, and family can make some of Paula's most popular wedding flower arrangements themselves.

A detail from the reception not to mention 200m of home-made bunting!  ©Paula Pryke & Tim Winter 2015

Wedding Themes section in the book and us looking very happy! ©Paula Pryke & Tim Winter 2015

GET MAKING!

I thought I'd go through a few of the handmade elements with some of my, and some of the book's images. To find links to past posts outlining how to make them, scroll to the bottom of this post and click the links.

The oak stamper we made and used ©Paula Pryke & Tim Winter 2015

I love how the book nails one of the most important things to consider when planning a wedding - choosing a theme! First thing was first and we decided to have a vintage inspired wedding with flowers and decorations echoing an English cottage garden feel. 

I used acorns as a central motif and designed an oak sprig to use on the invitations and other decorations. I had this made into a stamper by the English Stamp Company.

As well as being super useful on the day it makes a sweet memento, and will be used for years to come! Pinterest is a really useful resource to inspire ideas for making your own stamper.

It's all in the details!

The oak motif design was also used as the central image for the invitations and orders of service, which my sister and I hand letter pressed onto textured card. 

The signage was really important, and to the left is an image from the book featuring some of ours. A wish tree is a a pretty alternative to a guest book and a good excuse to get your stamper out again!

Hand-made hessian table runners,  name setting cards & favours.

So I won't tell a lie, the table runners took an evening to make (with a friend) and nearly broke my sewing machine, but they were the basis of the vintage feel and will be useful for years to come! (see link below for basis outline of 'how to!')

Details from the tables ©Paula Pryke & Tim Winter 2015

Details from the tables & lovely ushers Will & Chris ©Paula Pryke & Tim Winter 2015

 Handmade mini jars of apple chutney © Francesca Secolonovo Photography

Use your handwriting!                                                                                                         A time consuming but effective favour, homemade apple chutney, with ditsy floral lids and hand-designed handwritten labels (Another stamper!) -  to go with the cheese and port!

Stamper ideas, for sweetie bags or favours.

Love sweet love book details ©Paula Pryke & Tim Winter 2015

Table names, place settings & menus..

You can just about see them in this photo detail of the reception below. We used the names of our favourite places in South West London, and I designed and painted scenes.

Details from the tables ©Paula Pryke & Tim Winter 2015

These were also scanned and used on the main seating plan, and on the background of the menu!

Our simple seating plan © Francesca Secolonovo Photography

The bunting...

We matched the seating plan with the English garden decoration theme, and oodles of hand-made bunting! (200m to be precise, eek!) 

Vintage port decanters with hand-drawn labels...

I loved this one, it was so simple and effective. Collecting vintage decanters (They are still ridiculously cheap at car booties and in charity shops!) filling them with port and decorating them with beautiful trailing flowers (in this case, Gloriosa superba or so the book tells me!)

 Vintage port decanters with hand-drawn labels ©Paula Pryke & Tim Winter 2015

My top 3 Paula Pryke ideas (pinched from the book!)

The book is crammed full of DIY ideas and inspiration for choosing flowers, themes and even making them yourself.

1. Handmaking confetti cones - there's even a step by step in the book (and biodegradable don't you know!)

Totally worth the effort - handmaking wedding cones ©Paula Pryke & Tim Winter 2015

Us looking jolly again with the confetti! (Hi Michael & Suzi!) ©Paula Pryke & Tim Winter 2015

Our home-made wedding cake, decorated beautifully with fresh flowers ©Paula Pryke & Tim Winter 2015

2. Decorating your cake with fresh flowers. So my mama and sister made the cake, but boy oh boy did Paula transform it into something wonderful. The book outlines how to make your own herb and flower cake topper - stunning! 

3. Chair Backs. If like us you are seated amidst your guests, or even if you're not, this is a fab way to decorate your chairs.

 Our bride and groom seat backs ©Paula Pryke & Tim Winter 2015

And finally, it is just left for us to say - thank you so very much Paula, you really did make our wedding x

Make your own: Clare makes blog inspiration pages!

Click the images below to go through to some of the making posts for each project!

Handmade Chutney Favours

Hand-drawn menus

Handmade Bunting

Hand-painted Table Names

  

Hand-sewn Hessian Table Runners

Signage & Stampers for the Wish Tree

Teaser images above are copyright Francesca Secolonovo 2013

Handmade Winter Rose Soap

A project which I made as Christmas gifts for family and friends and totally enjoyed. Excuse this being a bit of a long old post but it took a long old while to make it and get it right. I had some, or rather a lot of help from some lovely friends Miriam and Jake who feature here too!

We used the Nerdy Farm Wife's Winter Rose Soap which can be found here...

The story and how to ...
Our lovely ingredients to start with (for full list, click here)

I am not going to copy out the recipe, just use this as a visual prompt for the process as we made it! See links above for the step by step guide.

Here goes, not forgetting to introduce my partners in crime, Miriam and Jake!!

 It all started very intently with some serious goggles and studious following of recipe!

Making the delicious smelling rose tea.

 Adding the lovely moisturising shea butter and oils.

 Looks disgusting, but this was the start of heating the oils, and temperature checking...

 Blending the rose petals to add.

Adding the Lye..
So this looks a bit bonkers, but Lye is very corrosive caustic soda and requires serious attention and some protective eyewear (and face wear - we got a little paranoid!!)


Stirring in the colouring and dried rose petals below..

Spooning the mixture into the moulds (kindly made by Jake's fair hands..)

The final set batches..

The packaging...

1. I started wrapping with cellophane cello bags so seal in the lovely scent and oils.
2. Next, wrapped with brown paper
3. Finally covered with strips of patterned paper I have designed and printed out. For more details of my designs and to get in touch, please visit my website www.claretherese.com

 Tied with brown string, and labelled with the list of all the lovely pure ingredients.