Kartell 'Cindy' table lamp

Yesterday, armed with the gift voucher we received from Irene for our wedding present, as well as the money we were given by our friend Jeni (who'd instructed us to buy something nice for our home), we finally made our way to Space Furniture. Of course, we could only actually afford a very small percentage of what is in the store , but we managed to narrow our few options down to a couple of Kartell lamps.

We could afford to buy two 'Take' lamps, designed by Ferruccio Laviani (we liked it in black, and thought they'd make nice bedside lamps). I think this particular lamp is the cheapest item in the Kartell range.

Image: Kartell

The other option was to buy a platinum-coloured 'Cindy' lamp by the same designer. This particular lamp was $60 cheaper than its usual retail price.

Image: Kartell

After much deliberation, we decided on the 'Cindy' lamp. The lamp now takes pride of place in the living room, and I must say it looks very classy. Apologies for the grainy photographs - they were the best I could do in this miserable weather!

The damask lamp that was previously here now sits in next to the Barcelona chair in the bedroom. I'll add photos of its new location on a sunnier day!

New stuff in the Flying Ducks house

Last week was very busy, as we decided to repaint the bathroom before John returned to work this week. This involved sanding most of the walls right back (well, my husband did that part), painstakingly preparing the surface, and then painting in a room with very little ventilation (which means longer drying time). There's still some work to do, like finishing the edges and installing towel rails, so I won't post pictures until it's completed.

In other news, I completely lied about my previous post being the last one about our wedding, because we received another awesome gift! On Saturday night our friend JB dropped around for a surprise visit with this stunning frame from Abode & Bod in Wilston (a place which I have never heard of before, so I must pay them a visit!). It's an apple picture made from hundreds of pieces of Japanese tape. I've been wanting a picture to put on the wall leading into the kitchen, and now we have one!

On the weekend we also visited my favourite Brisbane store, Nook. There are far too many things there that I want to buy for myself, so I always spend quite a while there deciding what I want. Much to John's dismay, another item for the home decided it wanted to live with us - this pouffy little owl. It's come to my realisation that I have quite a collection of birdy things now, so I figure another one won't hurt. Mr Owl lives above another Mr Owl (the framed owl fabric I bought last year from Sivad Designs in Nundah), and I hope he'll be very happy there. 

Speaking of Nook, Michelle has now opened an online store. That's right, now I don't even need to leave the house to buy things. Very, very dangerous indeed. The really good news is that people who aren't in Brisbane can now enjoy shopping at Nook too. Check it out here. 

Post-wedding overview

I wanted to show off some of the lovely aspects of our wedding, held on 10 April. I’m not going to show off my favourite photos — most of the super-cute shots include my husband, who is a very private person and won’t want his image splashed all over the internet. (If anyone’s really keen to see some shoot me an email.) I will, however, do my best to give you an overview of many of the elements of our wedding.

All photography (except for the table shot, which was taken by Riini) is by our very talented friend Natasha Harth.

The lovely ring pillow was made by my mum, with rings made by Maple XO (John) and Bentley De Lisle (me). The butterfly bouquet was made by myself and my mum using feather butterflies from Floral Trims, based on one featured on the Martha Stewart website. The 1950s handbag is from Vintage Rose in my local neighbourhood, and the shoes are by Camper (of course).

My hairpiece was purchased online (like most other things for the wedding!) from fascinators.net. My 1960s dress came from eBay (a steal at $30), and was altered to fit perfectly by PQ Fashions in Brisbane (they also expertly altered John’s vintage suit jacket).

The car was an old Dodge that’s been in John’s family for several generations. It was also used as the wedding car for his parents, as well as his grandparents. It was brought from Toowoomba to Brisbane for the weekend, which was a real treat for us.

Our reception dinner was held at the Grove Establishment in Ashgrove. In addition to the wonderful food, I was drawn to this place because of the black and gold Japanese Floral wallpaper by Florence Broadhurst. The table settings were very simple, using cheap Ikea vases with orange and black sticks. The table numbers were simply folded cardboard with number stickers, with clip-on feather butterflies from Floral Trims.

The fabulous and extremely delicious cake was made by Vanessa Franklin. It was organic gluten-free organge and poppyseed cake with Green and Blacks white chocolate ganache, served with a yummy lemon curd. Oh, and it also had candied oranges on it! If anyone in Brisbane would like Vanessa's details, please let me know.

I think it's fair to say that we had a lovely, relatively stress-free day. It was nice to see so many of our friends and family, and we even got to eat (amazing, I know!). This was very much a DIY wedding (with a bit of help from our creative friends), and I think it turned out pretty well.

Beautiful wedding gifts

Apologies for the hiatus - I was off getting hitched. :)

In addition to the charity donations, honeymoon contributions and gift cards we received for our wedding, we also received some very special gifts. I am still in awe at some of them, as they show just how much thought our friends put into giving us something that we'd truly love now and into the future.

My best friend Rebecca bought us this absolutely stunning Dinosaur Designs vase. It's the perfect colour for us, and I think I've found it a home where I'm not likely to knock it over (I hope!). 

Our friends Angelina and Michael got us this Alessi Firenze clock, designed by Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni. The Castiglioni brothers designed the Arco lamp that I want so badly. Even though I know I'll never afford a real one (only a replica), at least now I can say that we own a Castiglioni clock!

The lovely Terese at designed to a T knows how much I love Florence Broadhurst designs, and she made us some wall panels using the red Circles and Squares wallpaper design. My jaw almost hit the floor when I opened this gift! I've placed the panels above our reading chair in the bedroom.

Another gift that has made it's way into the bedroom is from Fiona and Ryan at Studio Pounce. They went and bought us a limited-edition Maiden Voyage pillowcase set designed by Sarajo Frieden from Third Drawer Down. Purdy.

And, finally, we got some very stylish gifts for the kitchen as well. The Maxwell & Williams casserole dish is from our neighbours, Merv and Margaret. The very cool (and very sharp) Tramontina knife block was bought by my sister Kristy, her fiance Jason, and Jason's mother Iris.

More wedding rings

On the weekend while I was visiting my family in Bundaberg John collected my wedding ring. It was designed and made by David Phillips at Bentley De Lisle in Brisbane.

My original engagement ring from John was not actually the silver 'diamond' designed by Eliza Tee seen here, but a porcelain Kiss X ring by Danish designer Anne Black. Being a very clumsy person, I knew it wouldn't take long for me to break it, so I opted for a silver design as well.

For my wedding ring, I wanted to have something inspired by Anne's design, so I asked David to make me a silver band with the 'x' symbol printed all the way around.

My mum has made a lovely ring cushion for the ceremony (inspired by the design of my wedding dress), which will be carried by my sister.

Wedding rings

Yesterday John's wedding ring finally arrived, all the way from Portland in the United States! Lindsay Jo Holmes from MapleXO specialises in making jewellery from recycled skateboards. As neither John or myself are into the traditional gold and diamonds, we had a challenge on our hands to find something suitable for the both of us. After some research we discovered Lindsay's work, and decided that her Boyfriend Ring would be perfect for John.

Lindsay worked with us via email to choose the colours and finish that we wanted, and this is the result.

Lindsay was also kind enough to send me one of her recycled skateboard bangles, which I love to death.

This Saturday John is collecting my own wedding band, created for us by the lovely David and Heidi Phillips at Bentley De Lisle. Until I can show pictures of that, here are some pictures of my custom-made engagement ring, which we commissioned from local designer Eliza Tee.

Another sneaky look at our wedding. Ssshhh...

I thought I’d share another sneak peek of our wedding. Some time ago I stumbled across the amazing images of Laura and Ben’s much blogged-about Brooklyn wedding on the Martha Stewart Wedding website, and straight away I wanted to design my own version of the butterfly bouquet. Orange and black feather monarch butterflies would fit perfectly with our colour scheme, so I placed an order with Floral Trims.

Over Christmas, my mum and I got to work creating the bouquet, and this is the result. I’m very happy with how it turned out, and I can’t wait to show it off in a few weeks’ time. It’s pictured here with some of my other accessories — the most adorable shoes in the world from Camper, and a black 1960s peyton handbag that I found just two weeks ago in the Vintage Rose window on my way to the train station.

I also ordered some large clip-on butterflies from Floral Trims, and I’ve used those to pretty up the table numbers I made for the reception (which simply consist of offcuts of black cardboard I found behind the office futon and silver stickers from the dollar store).

As little thank you gifts for our guests, or ordered persinalised pencils from the UK on eBay. A very cute but relatively inexpensive wedding favour!

A sneak peek of our wedding invites

Many of you know that John and I are getting married in just over seven weeks (eek!), and I'm sure a few of you also received one of these for yourselves!

I would like to pay public thanks to a couple of people for their help with our wedding invites. Firstly, my lovely friend Fiona Lee of Studio Pounce designed the adorable John and Kylie graphic (complete with a short Kylie perched on a pile of books to kiss tall John!). This image appeared on our 'save the date' magnet, as well as the postcard-sized invite.

Secondly, my equally lovely friend Angelina Martinez loaned us her graphic design skills, working with Fiona's image to make our super-classy invites. We were then able to print and trim the invites ourselves, using 270gsm smooth white card from Paper Stop.

Thanks so much Fiona and Angelina!