Our Wedding Day....

Today we are off to the Hunter Valley to pick up the keys to our new place! Im so excited and so I thought I would post some photos from our wedding day just because im happy.






My wedding dress was custom made, the bodice was done in a french lace from Chanel, the lace was featured in the Chanel Chance ad and i showed my Father this image when i first purchased the lace and he freaked out because he thought I was going to wear it like the model below!!! Just the lace!!! I love Dads!

The bottom of my dress was made up of Italian Tulle which had thousands of tiny little ribbons tied into little bows to create the fluffy feel.

We were married in the Church that both of us had been Christened in as babies and my parents were also married there.

Our Floral Artist was just amazing, of all the proffesionals I used for the Wedding he was by far my favourite. For our wedding he used over 4000 stems of Singapore Orchids!

My flower girls were just beautiful, they were so well behaved all day

Our wedding cake, although not really 'weddingish" was extremely special to me as it was based on a set of boxes that my Husband had given to me as I love animal print, it was the first thing he ever gave me and we had it recreated into a wedding cake.

Well im off to the Hunter Valley, i hope you enjoyed!

HORSE ART

I love love love horse art and photography used in a room. Ever since i sold my horse (due to uni commitments) i feel like im missing something. So im on the hunt for a beautiful image which i can have made up for the hunter valley property.Here are some images that have inspired me:




I love the size of the following one:

I saw this one at Coco Republic but it was way too much:

Love the unusual angle of this one:

Again the size of this one is just divine!

And now here are 3 that i have found and am just trying to make a final decision on.

The first one is my absolute favourite and is called 'WINDOW TO THE SOUL"

I love everything about it and am looking at having it made up in a large size ( 162cmx112cm)

This next one is my husbands favourite and i also think this could work quite well in the house:

And this is the third contender which we both like:

This last image is one taken by the amazing Peter Stoop, an Australian Equine Photographer. This image is of my sisters horse Marishka Doll, whom we purchased off Peter and his wife Kirsten. I credit this amazing creature for helping my sister overcome her anorexia and she is just the most gentle loving horse. I think this image Peter took really captures the magic of the horse and i will be getting this image blown up and presenting it to my sister for Christmas.

New furniture...

Over the past year i have slowing been buying furniture for the Hunter Valley Home.One of my most recent purchases has been these chairs of which i bought 4 and will be arranging around a floating fireplace. The others are still packed up in their boxes and sitting in my garage ready to be delivered however i opened up one to see how they look ( as i purchased these online, sight unseen) and couldnt help taking a photo with cino posing as a model!

BABY SHOWER!

Over the weekend i threw a baby shower for my best friend who is expecting a boy. The colour palette was blue and green and the theme was pom poms and baby blocks.




I made the baby blocks myself just by spray painting some boxes.

All the decorating was done by myself and the food was made by a lovely lady who does everything handmade including the macaroons.

The refreshment stand included juices in mini glass bottles and a glass drinks dispenser filled with lime flavoured water.

The beautiful mummy:

The fabric was purchased from spotlight and my mum helped me sew the pom pom trim along the edges.

Thankyou gifts included a "bun in the oven" candle packaged in adorable little mini ovens and baby block boxes filled with hershey kisses.

We had so much fun, now its on to the next party The Christening!

Im blogging again!

Im back after a HUGE break in posts. We get the keys to our Hunter Valley place in 3 weeks!!!

Honestly the whole process has felt so slow, but its almost over so im getting super excited about all the fun decorating.I will post a few photos over the next week of all the progress.

Also ive decided that since this blog was supposed to be about building our dream holiday house and i didnt actually blog about any of it, i will now make this blog about everything in my life.

So I will start with my sisters 17th birthday party which was held recently and completely organized by myself and my other sister.

We decided to throw a big party as she missed out on celebrating her sweet sixteen due to being in hospital ( anorexia).We had a carnival/circus theme with all the trimmings including carnival rides, carnival food and lots of colour and fun!

I made her cake and keeping to the colourful theme and wanting to do something special for her ( as she has been through so much and has recently been so much stronger) i made her a rainbow layer cake with 17 layers representing her 17 years of life. I only got to the crumb frosting stage on outside as i ran out of eggs but it still looked okay ( and the room was dark so you couldnt really tell).
I will post more photos as soon as i get them from my sister including a daybed we created in the back of a ute, firepit with marshmallow roasting and carnival rides including a bucking bull (which my husband managed to stay on the longest for, 48 seconds!) Stay Tuned.....

The last few weeks have flown by so quickly. Ive been fortunate enough to have spent them at Perisher skiing. Here are a few pics from our trip:

My parents have a chalet here:

Some of the family:

Ready to ski:

Perfect weather:

Havnt had much progress with the house. The next commitee meeting is not until the 16th September so will not know too much until then.

In the meantime i have had lots of fun shopping and have picked up some amazing furniture for the house...will post some of my purchases soon.

Interesting shower head....

Like many ladies in blogworld I love looking at real estate. These images come from a house in Crackenback ( near Thredbo) in the NSW Alpine region. Not sure if I like it but I was certainly intrigued by it, and I always wonder, how much did that cost?

Our little slice of Paris...

I have always been obsessed with the Ritz Carlton in Paris. I have never been there but for some reason the front of this luxury hotel appeals to me in so many ways. I love the grandeur of it, the lovely large windows, the pops of black, and the beautiful cream awnings. To me it just seems like the most romantic hotel in the world. ( I think Princess Diana also has something to do with my romantic obsession).

When it came to our wedding day i knew i wanted a photo in front of a building that reminded me of the Ritz Carlton. Now in Sydney this is quite a mean feat as we are such a young country and dont have many historic buildings ( compared to European cities). However i managed to find a little slice of Paris in the form of the Bvlgari building (Luck played a big part in this as my Husbands restaurant was just down the road from this building and only discovered it by accident when parking my car) and this is our Parisian inspired photo:

Outdoor Entertaining....

A huge thankyou to Ange at "chairup" for mentioning my blog. I absolutely love seeing all of Ange's DIY projects and she is a huge inspiration for me. Thankyou Ange!



I wanted to try and paint a picture for you on how the outdoor entertaining area will look. I am absolutely obsessed with outdoor living areas and when making up the plans for this house our main area of focus was on the outdoor entertaining area.



I cant wait to get the floorplans for the house and the landscape designers drawings because once i post these it will be alot easier to understand what im rambling on about.



In the meantime i will give you a little sampler:





All of the living areas of the house will open (with bifold doors) onto a deck which wraps its way down one side of the house all the way to the back where the golf course is ( this will make much more sense when you see the plans)



The deck will have three main zones:



1. In-built Jacuzzi area



2. Outdoor kitchen and dining area



3. Outdoor fireplace surrounded by lots and lots of oversized lounges









So the jacuzzi will be concealed in the decking abit like this one below. There are a few reasons we are doing this the main one being that it eliminates the need for a safety fence around it. Also it will be alot easier to maintain, being a holiday house we can just cover, lock and leave. Plus I just like how clean it looks:





Like this but our decking will continue all the way to the fence line and all the way around the house ( there will be no step-up)

I want a huge outdoor dining table like this:

And about 60% of the outdoor area will be open-air, just because the nights at the hunter are so beautiful and i want to be able to gaze at the stars....

I love the sheer size of this fireplace...ITS HUGE! and i love that its part of a wedding ceremony...

Interesting fire feature:

I love love love firepits, something like this on our open air deck would look nice maybe:

But i also like the traditional fireplace as well:

These images are all a bit mis-matched but hopefully it sort of paints an image.

I love how resorts (especially around pool areas) have lots of groupings of lounges. I want to recreate the resort style feel by having lots of little groupings of lounges all taking in different aspects of the view. I have so many lovely images from my summers in Croatia showing exactly the look i want to create and of course i cant find my memory card anywhere!