Happy Monday… hope you all had lovely weekends? We had a little bake-a-thon that Delia would have been proud of yesterday, and as we were shaping our little Gingerbread men and women into the prettiest edible wonders, we thought wouldn’t these be lovely to include in a winter wedding!! The possibilities are endless, but we love the idea of using them as decorations on Christmas trees – you could even make one for each guest with their name and table number on them and turn the whole tree into a festive seating plan!! Or how about mini Bride and Groom gingerbread people cake-toppers? Or one of our favourites… candy-cane place cards…. just pop one on each persons napkin, and they can nibble on them through the speeches, or take them home as a memento! So easy to make – we used the lovely Rachel Allen’s recipe (below), and cutters are available pretty much in every supermarket or cake shop at the minute!! So happy baking, and more importantly… happy eating!! Aoife & Deirdre xxx

Ingredients : (makes 40)

300g butter

125g caster sugar

125g soft dark brown sugar

225g golden syrup or treacle

725g plain flour

2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

3 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon
For the icing for the gingerbread boys and girls:

175g (6oz) icing sugar

1-2 tbsp boiling water
You will need a piping bag and nozzles.

How To :

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F), Gas mark 4. Line 2 baking trays with parchment paper.

In a large saucepan, melt the butter together with the sugars and golden syrup or treacle.

Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ground ginger and cinnamon into a large bowl.

Add the melted butter and sugar and mix together.

Knead the mixture for a few seconds until it comes together, adding a teaspoon or so of water if necessary, but without allowing it to get too wet.

Flatten the dough slightly into a round about 2cm (3/4in) thick, wrap with cling film and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.

To make the gingerbread boys and girls, remove the dough from the fridge, dust the work surface with flour and roll all of the dough out to about 5mm (1/4in thick).

Cut out the girl and boy shapes using boy/girl cutters, transfer onto the baking trays and cook in the oven for 12 minutes, until they are slightly firm, a little darker at the edges and slightly drier on top.

Allow the shapes to firm up for a few minutes, then place them on a wire rack to cool. When they have cooled, they can be iced, if you wish.

To make the icing, sift the icing sugar into a bowl and add the water. Beat until the icing comes together, adding a little more water if necessary. (Be careful not to add too much or the icing will be too runny.) Using a small palette knife or the back of a spoon dipped into boiling water (to make the icing easier to spread), spread the icing over the gingerbread boys and girls.

If you wish to pipe on details, such as faces and hair, spoon the icing into a small piping bag with just the smallest corner cut off.

While the icing is still slightly ‘unset’ on the biscuits, arrange the silver balls or whatever decorations you are using, then set aside for the icing to set.

Images : 1. www.wilton.com, 2.www.helloisitea.blogspot.com, 3. www.weddingaccessories.net

Ideas, inspiration and information from The Bridal Lounge

… let it snow, let it snow….! Well apparently it sprinkled some snowy dust in certain parts of the country last night – we didn’t see any where we are, but the reports definitely has us convinced that Christmas is really just around the corner!! So we found the perfect Snowy Monday DIY for you all…. SNOWGLOBES!! These absolute stunners are from Anthropologies 2009 Winter Catalogue where they filled their globes with mini-vintage Santas, antique jewellery and other lovelinesses. Fortunately for us we found a super easy DIY project by Well-Worn, to guide us through making our own! We think they would be fantastic decorations for winter weddings : Fill the jars with you and your fiancé / finacéé’s initials, or charms that mean something to you, or use large jars and put your table numbers in them!! Lots of festively fabulous ideas! Now back to work – and here’s the How-to… Enjoy, Aoife & Deirdre xx

You Will Need :

- A jar of your choice – with a lid

- Figurines or jewellery ( or whatever you want to be inside your globe )

- Anti-rust sealant for items that are metal or liable to rust

- Clear-drying epoxy

- Distilled water

- Dash of glycerine

- Large white or silver glitter – NB: the smaller type floats at the top

Steps :

1. Use clear-drying epoxy to adhere your piece to the inside of the lid. Let dry per instructions.

2. After the epoxy dries completely, fill your jar with distilled or boiled water (cooled to room temperature!)

3. Add just a dash of glycerine so the ‘snow’ falls slowly.

4. Add as much glitter as you like. If you don’t like the look of glitter, you can usually find faux snow at craft and haberdashery stores.

5. Screw your lid on tightly and enjoy your snow globe!!

Thanks to Nicole from Well-Worn for the project!! All photos from www.anthropologie.com

Not DIY Bridesmaids, but gorgeous DIY ‘will you be my bridesmaid’ cards!! Subtle, but significant difference ;0) First off though, sorry for our absence from the Blogosphere last week – we had a little hiccup, but all sorted now and lots and lots of lovely inspiration and ideas coming your way! This was one of the cutest things we saw last week, and it comes courtesy of one of our absolute paper-girl crushes Anna Bond of Rifle Paper fame…. oh how we love her hand painted fabulousness on invitations, cards, stationary, calenders (we’ve just bought ourselves a beautiful pack of recipe cards illustrated by her!! now just have to fill them in and get our aprons on). But we’re away from the topic there – Anna is incredibly talented, and her pieces are so unique. This is a little project she created for OnceWed and is just one of the funnest ways we have seen of asking your ladies to be your Bridesmaids for your big day, and with a little help (ok a lot) from Anna you can have a go yourselves! See all of the instructions and details here! Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy – Aoife & Deirdre xx

Images courtesy of Anna Bond

Ideas, Inspiration and Information from The Bridal Lounge

Happy Monday! Hope you’re all haven’t been blown away by the crazy winds we had here last night?!? Speaking of ‘blown away’…. every now and then we come across an idea that, well… that we just wish we’d thought up ourselves (or in this case just executed as prettily as this one!!) It relates to a familiar question for us from our clients – “We have our hearts set on confetti but the Church won’t allow it… what do we do?” There are a couple of different options – Rice or biodegradable paper confetti being our favourites (paperchase have a great one!) But how do you make it personal and pretty? Well this couple had the answer! We found this gorgeous idea on www.100layercake.com where this DIY and the couple’s actual wedding was featured. Given that the Bride Jess has a wedding planning business (Duet Events) the day was going to be nothing less than amazing – check out all the fabulous details captured by Gia Canali here. This was one of our favourites though, and fortunately for us Jess did a run-through of the how-to!! Enjoy and have a great week, Aoife & Deirdre xx

(we’ve paraphrased the directions…. but hopefully they’re as easy to follow!)

You’ll need… Glassine Envelopes, Biodegradable Rice Hearts (or rice, or biodegradable paper – google it for sources there are lots available through online stores!), Solid Colour paper hearts, patterned paper, labels with cute sayings on them, thread and a sewing machine!

Step 1: Fill your glassine envelopes with whatever contents you want in there…

Step 2: Stick solid paper heart onto patterned paper and cut around leaving approximately a 1cm border…

Step 3 : Stick your cute message (that you printed onto nice paper stock) onto the front of the hearts…

Step 4 : Place on top of the glassine pouch and ‘stitch’ through both with your sewing machine to seal and VOILA all done and gorgeous ‘environment and Church friendly’ confetti is yours!!

We love how Jess used a mixture of colours and patterns to create her look, but you could just as easily use colours from your wedding palette to create a more ‘styled’ version… to be honest we are crazy about these ones though!! Love them!

Photo Credits – Duet Events at www.100layercake.com

Happy Monday everybody…. We’ll skip over Saturday morning’s early start and disappointing result and hope instead you all had lovely weekends ;0) We came across today’s project to make these adorable mini magnets when we were hunting down some polaroid paraphernalia and thought it was just too cute… Now we know it’s not necessarily a ‘wedding’ project, but just think of all the ways it could be! Save the dates, little take-home gifts, thank you momentos or even how about using pics of all your guests and combining them on a large metal backdrop to create the seating plans or guest book!! In the fantastic ‘sharing and caring’ nature of the web Jennifer Kirk of www.ambrosiagirl.com adapted a project she saw on www.howaboutorange.blogspot.com and created a little mini-polaroid frame download to make it super-easy to make your own magnets! See the whole process here (we’ve abbreviated it a little bit…) Enjoy, Aoife & Deirdre xx

Pick some of your favourite piccies and use Jennifer’s polaroid frame to turn them into little photos. Get download from Jennifer here… Then mount the printed sheet onto board (you can get foamboard or card from most craft shops or stationers). Cut out the individual polaroids and colour around the edges in white chalk marker (or Tippex!!) to create a ‘block’ effect. Then just stick some magnetic tape to the back and use a wide sellotape on the front to create a glossy front and voila….. your mini-pics are ready for any welcoming piece of metal!!!

We also had to include some images from the original project on www.howaboutorange.blogspot.com – we’re loving the cute little pantone magnets….

Photo Credits – 1-5 Jennifer Kirk AmbrosiaGirl, 6-7. www.howaboutorange.blogspot.com

Happy Monday… no no wait it’s Thursday! We missed you all for DIY Monday, so to make up for it we’re back with a really easy but very effective idea for you today… There’s are no real ‘steps’ to this one, it’s as easy as taking simple cylinder vases and basically ‘wrapping’ them with your favourite fabric, ribbon, paper, lace… basically whatever suits your style and the look you want to achieve – then just pop in a candle, or flowers – even feathers – the possibilities are endless! Some of our favourite ‘wraps’ are the gorgeous lace ribbon and sheet music in the images below and our vases of choice at the moment are Ikea’s ‘Cylinder’ series of vases (€16.99 for three really good sizes) Enjoy, Aoife & Deirdre xx

Image Credits – 1-3. Morgan Trinker Photography via RuffledBlog.com, 4. Martha Stewart Weddings

Ideas, Inspiration and Information from The Bridal Lounge

Happy Monday everyone – hope you haven’t been blown away by the gales sweeping the country? Speaking of ‘Blown Away’… our Monday DIY is a super easy but super lovely idea that can be used for so many things, but we LOVE how Martha Stewart Weddings have used it for a TeaParty style wedding shower. Heart shaped doilies are made from coloured napkins and are used over a tablecloth as decoration. They’ve used different shades and tones of pink in lots of different sizes. As ever the lovely Martha has detailed instructions for us all to follow and even a video to show how ridiculously easy these are to make. Get the full directions here – www.marthastewart.com.

Then as if that wasn’t enough – we couldn’t resist including these two other quick little DIYs, again from Martha and in keeping with the TeaParty theme. Personalised teabags, and little take-home teabag favours packed into glassine envelopes made to look like big teabags…. So easy, but so gorgeous…!

For the personalised teabag tutorial click (here), and for the favour bags click (here)…. No pop the kettle on and get cracking ;0) Enjoy, Aoife & Deirdre xx

All pictures and tutorials detailed above courtesy of www.MarthaStewart.com

Well here’s a quick and easy (and fun) project for a Monday morning! Jeffery Rudell came up with these decorations for an oriental themed brunch he was throwing for friends when it was too wet and windy to go out into the garden and gather flowers! He found a pot, a box of coloured paper umbrellas, some ribbon and some florists supplies and got creative! We think it would be fantastic for using on your welcome table, or at a wedding shower, or a birthday or really anywhere you just want a cheap and cheerful decoration….. we also can’t help wondering what a GIANT one would look like…. so if any of you feel brave enough and make one – be sure to send a piccie! Enjoy, Aoife & Deirdre xxx

What you’ll need : Two terracotta pots, a cube of oasis floral foam, a ball of oasis floral foam, a cane baton / stick of any description to make the ‘trunk’, some ribbon and a box of paper umbrellas!

Step 1 – Make the base by filling the terracotta pot with a dry oasis cube (you will have to trim it to fit), then stick the cane or stick into the center and pop the round oasis ball on top.

Step 2 – Begin with one open umbrella at the top of the oasis ball and surround with partially opened umbrellas and work down to cover the entire ball.

Step 3 – Wrap the cane with ribbon to cover – use a matching shade. Cover the underside of the ball up to the where the cane is inserted to create the full topiary effect.

Step 4 – Cover the area at the base of the cane with rice (as below) to cover the oasis and voila… you’re gorgeous topiarys are ready to go!

Photo Credits – Jeff Rudell via CraftStylish.com

Ideas, Inspiration and Information from The Bridal Lounge

Happy Monday – hope you all had lovely weekends (between the showers!!) You might have noticed by now that we’re paper addicts here at the Bridal Lounge. It all started when we spent hours in the playground at primary school swopping treasured pieces of ‘fancy paper’ from our collections with our friends (remember the scratch-and-sniff ones anybody?) So when we saw this beautiful canopy from a wedding photographed by Ashley Rose, we couldn’t rest until we found out who had created it and how!! After a bit of hunting and searching we’re very, very happy to be able to tell you it’s a super simple DIY concept by Jesi Haack… and we have all the details. So happy DIY Monday! Enjoy, Aoife & Deirdre xx

Here’s the Inspiration….

Here’s the How-To courtesy of Jesi Haack….

You will need – Coloured posterboard, construction paper, tissue paper, scissors and a stapler!

Step 1: Trace out the shape of your large leaf onto the posterboard – this will create the base leaf to which the other leaves will be attached.

Step 2: Cut out your leaf shape and use it as a template for your other leaves which will be put together to make your ‘petals’. You can use as many petals as you like – Jesi used five per flower.

Step 3: Do the same in two smaller sizes (medium and small) using construction paper and tissue paper. Jesi used the tissue paper for the smallest leaves.

Step 4: Place each paper leaf on top of one another in order of size. Jesi used several sheets of tissue paper leaves to create dimension and fluff!

Step 5: Fold base of petal like a taco and staple. Create your five ‘petals’ like this (step 1-4 above)

Step 6: Staple each petal together to create your flower.

All Done!!!

Photo Credits: Inspiration Photo – Ashley Rose Photography, DIY project photos – Mr Haack

Inspiration, Ideas and Information from The Bridal Lounge