The Interior DIYer
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Bring on the new year

Just a mushy couple of words to say thank you to all of you who read, liked, followed, crept, encouraged, commented and contributed to keeping my sanity this year. Not many people I know ‘in the real world‘ know of my site. It’s my little corner of the world where I can yap on about dumb stuff, and not feel embarrassed. So to sum it up, I couldn’t say it better than Dr. Frasier Crane – thank you for listening.

Bring it on, 2013.

p.s. Have a safe and awesome new year homies. Careful with those sparklers. See you on the other side!
xx A

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Our wedding

I really feel that adding text to this post will ruin it. Our wedding day was like a dream, and was over twice as fast. But thanks to the painfully epic photography skills from Karina and Emily, we get to relive our day every time we look at our pictures.

I had to crop out a massive paragraph stressing the importance of researching and finding a photographer{s} with mad skills you adore, who you can sit comfortably with on your wedding morning and who will listen to you talk crap whilst you put your face on. It’s an investment you will have for the rest of your life.

Our entire day was all under one roof at Dunboyne Castle. Hubby {fiance at the time} and I stayed the night before our wedding in Dunboyne Castle where we sprinkled tea cups and draped hydrangeas onto every surface the night before. The next morning, we got ready {in separate rooms of course}, walked 3 minutes to our ceremony, got married, and after pictures and catch up with family, mozied across the hotel to our reception. We wouldn’t have had it any other way. Linkage for all the details of our day at the bottom of this post …

We hope you enjoy 🙂

I made my veil 20 minutes before the ceremony. Sorry, but I just cannot justify paying €250 for something similar, when I made mine for about €1. Thrifty to the core.

And the bouquets – nothing other than gorgeous hydrangeas. Huge props to Dorothy from Dunboyne Flowers who spent weeks hunting for hydrangeas the exact shade of purple as the bridesmaids dresses, and ordered them in especially from Holland. I didn’t think it was possible, but she did it. Perfection.

Together with the ever passionate Romy, we put together a bespoke hand fasting ceremony {where we ‘tied the knot’}, as well as traditional exchanging of rings. We’re still getting compliments on what a personal and beautiful ceremony we had. It was perfection and wouldn’t suggest or have wanted anyone else for the role.

To add a personal touch, we displayed framed pictures of each of our parents on their wedding days, and for the remainder of the day, got told how much we look like them.
We also displayed our Confetti engagement mention should our guests be up for some light reading.

In keeping with our tea and porcelain theme, I wrote out our seating chart on vintage plates. I was so stuck for so long as how to display our seating, and I didn’t want to have to go down the printable, chalkboard or anything too over the top route. Thankfully, my dad came up with this simple idea, and after a few trips to the charity shop and digging through cupboards, with a trusty Sharpie, our seating chart was done. Since hubby and I met in a cinema and are avid movie lovers, I printed off our favourite movie covers in black and white {printed twice and glued to either side of a piece of card}, which corresponded with the movies written on each plate. Movies you don’t see – Batman, Star Wars, Fargo, Napoleon Dynamite, Inception, National Lampoons Christmas Vacation and Beetlejuice.

We wouldn’t have done it any other way 🙂
Venue – Dunboyne Castle Hotel & Spa, photography – Karina Finegan and Emily O’Callaghan, ceremony – Romy McCauley  {A Beautiful Ceremony}, hair – Emma Kennedy of Dylan Bradshaw, flowers – hydrangeas from Dunboyne Flowers, everything else from my parents garden, groom and groomsmen suits – Red Herring, grooms shoes – Jeff Banks, brides dress – Memories Bridal, brides brooches – my grandmothers clip on earings along with my own collection {plus a little skull, obv}, brides bracelet – John Rocha bracelet from hubby, bridesmaids dresses – Coast, boutonnieres / buttonholes – made by moi, tutorial here, flower girl – dress by Bluezoo, plus faux hydrangeas I sewed on to match hubby’s boutonniere, flowering tea favours – made by moi, tutorial here, cakes – carrot cake, black forest gateaux, and gateaux Diane, all from Mannings Bakery, tea cups and teapots – from various charity shops and family.
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2012 – in review

This year has been quite a big year for me. I pushed myself and concocted some more tutorials – some simple, and some not so much. I experienced a roller coaster of emotions that comes with planning a wedding, and experienced some unusual illnesses thanks to stress. But every cloud has a silver lining, and I learned how to better deal with the glory that is stress. We tied the knot, and we’ve gleefully fell back into our old routines, and now that Christmas has come and gone, I can concentrate on cracking out a few more projects at home. Bring on 2013!

I blogged about tips and tricks on how to organize a bookcase {this piece was actually featured in Handmade Living UK magazine, but they went into liquidation shortly after. I would love to share it with you but unfortunately I still haven’t gotten the PDF’s or a copy of the magazine. Massive sad face. C’est la vie}.

The beginning of 2012 kicked off with a healthy dose of DIY’s – attacked with tape, how to kitsch up your kitchen, and my himmeli tutorial. All of which I still adore and have on display, and haven’t gotten bored of any of them one bit.

Our engagement story got into the wonderful Irish wedding magazine, Confetti. That was a fun one since we may have been the first ones to get asterisks into such a dainty magazine. Most excellent.

Using scraps of wallpaper, wrapping paper or other off-cuts as a background, I did up a little tutorial under the title of lovely layers, about jazzing up your framed delights.

In April of this year I bought ‘hydrangeagirl.com’ and made it my own. That was a big step for me, and I felt like such a grown up. HG then turned 2 in August. She’s come a long way baby … 

I love, love, love getting e-mails from folks who have tried out my tutorials. One example, the lovely Robyn e-mailed me her  spin on my deceptive DVD covers. Complete creative winning. It makes all this typing worth while. 

With our wedding fast approaching, some DIY wedding stuff snuck in there too. First up a tutorial for the boutonnieres / button holes I made for the groom and groomsmen, followed by a write up about our flowering wedding favours. A  bit of a labour of love.

And of course, hubby and I got hitched in October, and flew away to a mind-boggling romanitcal honeymoon. Both of which I will be blogging before the new year – I best be getting my ass in gear then. I’m in the agonizing process of choosing which photos to share, without going over the top and boring the hell out of you.

UPDATE: you can see our wedding deets here, and our honeymoon pics here. 

And in November I kicked off Project Less 365 thanks to Laura Howard, and I’m proud to say even though I only gave myself 60 days to drop 365 things, I think I may have reached my goal already! I can for sure say this clear out process is clearing not only our home, but my mind of clutter too. Less is more, peeps. 
xx A