One (wo)man's Trash is another (wo)man's Treasure

My good friend Claire came to visit me in Banbury today for a 'Charity Shop Marathon'. What I have learnt from today's experience is 'you should never venture into Charity shops with Claire!' My poor bank card is on the brink on of a mental breakdown - it's very worrying!

Joking aside, I am delighted with my finds today (Thank-you C x). I've always been very supportive of charity shops. It was only yesterday I delivered bags of neglected clothes of mine into a few charity shops in Banbury (and before you say it - I was not buying them back today). After a lengthy time rummaging through the rails I found and bought a cute cherry print dress, a nice fitted t-shirt and my favourite purchase has to be this unbelievably cute polka dot cardy - for £4.99!

This I will definitely being wearing to school next week!

I am hoping to get a few more blogs up before school starts back. I have managed to squeeze in a few craft projects over the summer that I would like to share with you so watch this space.

I will leave you with this photograph (meant to upload it ages ago). Clearly I think I'm a professional photographer with the use of Istagram (I wish) - but I love this photo with the filter I used...

Lots of Love

AmyCookeDesigns

No longer a single gal!

Well this is my first post since becoming Mrs Russell (still feels very odd saying that). I do hope to do a proper Blog piece on the Cooke/Russell wedding once we get all our professional photos, but thought I would do a quick blog for you on wedding veils.

For those of you who know me well, you will know one of the first things I said when Thom and I started to plan and think about the big day was that I would NEVER wear a veil. That statement stood until 4 days before the wedding. Being a huge eBay fanatic the weekend before the wedding I clicked 'BUY' on a cute, £14.99, 2 tier waist Ivory veil which I do not regret one bit - completely loved wearing it on the day.

With my eBay veil on the big day

In march I went to a wedding fair in Birmingham with my chum Miss Wright. We both already had our wedding dresses, but that didn't stop us trying dresses on. The last dress I tried on before we left was the complete opposite of my wedding dress tastes (though I loved it on). Once I had the dress on, the sales girl placed a veil on my head, and it wasn't as bad as I thought! I was still determined to make my own head piece.

My very first 'veil experience'

Months went by and I thought no more about the pretty veil I tried on at the wedding show. Instead I busied myself making the fascinator I thought I would wear on the day. I used feathers, a taffeta Suffolk puff with a beaded crystal/pearl centre and French netting. Although I didn't end up wearing it on the day I was really please the the final outcome. Here's a little look...

Glue gunning feathers (not a god combination) 

Sewing crystals & pearls onto the Suffolk Puff 

The finished piece!

You can spend a life time thinking about the exact things you will have on your wedding day. Before I got married people kept telling me you think you know what you want but once you start planning everything it will all change. Most of what happened on our day was what we had talked about before we were even engaged...

...however the unplanned, sneaky little veil managed to creep its way into our big day :-)

My dress and veil - best day of my life!

Just to finish I am still going to stay as AmyCookeDesigns for my blogger and the little craft fairs I do - don't think I can part with  my wee business name that has given me some lovely memories to look back on.

Until next time...

AmyCookeDesigns a.k.a Amy Russell :-)