Halloween!

Ok, I know it's really too early to be posting for Halloween... but after leaving DisneyWorld where the decorations are already up, I am supremely excited already!

At The Scrappy Tree we are taking part in a Halloween blog party on October 22nd (which I'm glad is early because I just can't wait til the end of October!) which is being hosted by A Fanciful Twist - you can join in by clicking here to see the original post.

Can't wait to start digging out all my spooky scrappy stash! We are going to carve pumpkins, make pumpkin pie, watch Harry Potter movies (ok, not Halloweeny really but we love it!) and maybe even do a bit of fancy dress :) Early Happy Halloween!

Gayle xx

The Stampman Challenge: A Perfect Pear

It's been ages since I made anything just for the fun of it!  Spotted the 'Perfect Pear' challenge over at The Stamp Man and it reminded me that I happened to have some pear stamps in the drawer!  I bought these Creative Expressions 'Partridge In a Pear Tree' stamps last Christmas :)

Now that the wedding is behind us I am hoping there will be more time for a few crafty projects; it seems like a long time since I did anything much apart from wedding-related items or the odd birthday card (although having said that I do have a fair few thank you cards to knock up very soon!).

Anyway, I had great fun making this ATC :) thank you to The Stamp Man for the inspiration!
I've also posted this ATC and another one that just happened while I was playing(!) over at The Scrappy Tree  :)

Gayle xx

Wedding Part 5

Wedding Part 4

Here we are! The wedding...

...and so concludes Part 4!  A few more pics to follow tomorrow :)

Wedding Part 3

Part 3!  Nearly there!  This post begins with the day before the wedding.  The girls returned to the spa at the mall to have manicures and then simply had to insist on being chauffered to the Scrappy Boutique where much money was spent - we simply don't have shops like this where I live in the UK!

There was much running around to be done that day and in the evening everyone returned to the villa where the chefs (under the instruction of Head Chef K) prepared an extremely yummy meal for everyone which was very much enjoyed!

After dinner, the groom went to visit and stay over with his family (after all, it was the night before the wedding!) and the girls began to worry that the creased look that the dress had adopted was not going to drop out of the fabric in time for the morning...

 ...but after much steaming-of-the-bathroom and waving-about-of-the-steam-iron they really just had to go to bed, so they did. :)

In the morning, I woke at 5am and thought I could hear rain outside so went to the window and BANG - thunder and lightning!  The family decided to congregate for mimosas and croissants and wait for the rain to stop and the sun to come up...

 

...and when it did, the rain had stopped and everything was just a bit... damp.

In the night, most of the creases in the dress seemed to have abandoned their fight and had fallen out of the dress onto the floor, where they had to be swept up because there were so many we were falling over them :)

Some make-up, hair, jewellery, a dress and shoes later, 

I gathered up my skirts and prepared to step out into the damp outdoors - my carriage had arrived!

End of Part 3 (I know I know, at least I started the wedding day in this post! lol) - Part 4 to follow...

Gayle xx

Wedding Part 2

Here we go with Part 2!  Still haven't reached the wedding by the end of this post so you may wish to wait for Part 3 ;)

So!  We visited Islands of Adventure on the Thursday and thought we'd take in some rides. We took with us Gav's brother Tom who has always been a been sceptical about our love of theme parks... but you can't disguise the big grin on this guy's face just after we got into the park!

We visited The Cat in the Hat, Poseidon's Adventure, WWoHP (love this place!) Spiderman, the Hulk, Popeye's Bilge Rat Barges (extremely wet!)

 

and then stopped at Margaritaville to dry off a little before heading home to get ready for our visitors that evening :)

 We drove home to the villa via the supermarket to stock up, and some of Gav's family came over to join us for dinner.

The next day, more parks! Universal Studios this time :) We worked our way along the from the entrance (Shrek 4D, Twister, Mummy, Jaws) and around the lake (MiB, The Simpsons, ET), skipping a few faves on the way if the waiting times were too long because we wanted to pack in as much as possible!

 Later that day a very good scrappy friend of mine, Kristin, flew in from California so we picked her up from the airport and then had dinner and wine at the villa :)

 and the next day while the boys went golfing, the girls hit the shops!!  Florida Mall here we come!

While at the mall we decided to have pedicures - the maid of honour and mother of the bride had never had pedicures before and had to be forced to do so!  They discovered that certain parts of having a pedicure are very ticklish indeed...

But we all came out with pretty toes in the end! (excuse the blurry pic)

Having conquered the mall and our unruly feet, we headed home for a 'Cat in the Hat' party...

 ...which ended up in much hilarity which I'm not able to share here...

 ....needless to say...

...we all took our duties as members of the bridal party very seriously that evening :)

And so ends Part 2!  Next instalment coming soon... :)

Gayle xx

Wedding Part 1

So.... I've been thinking about how to go about blogging our wedding and it seemed it just wouldn't be complete if we left out the time before and after, so these wedding posts are going to have to come in parts! We spent 16 days with our family and friends in Florida and all of them were so much fun :) I'd love to blog about everything that happened but it would just take forever (I think I took over a thousand photos myself without those taken by our guests!) so this will necessarily be an edited version of events. At times we felt like we were being papped because every time we stopped somewhere all the cameras came out! lol! So you can see the size of the task in hand ;)

We left Gatwick Airport at lunchtime on the 30th August, all very tired from staying up late packing, getting up early to finish packing and then spending 4 hours on the shuttle to the airport. I even forgot our Disney tickets and we had to turn around a mile down the road from the house to go back to get them!

Of course when we got to the airport, we were all kinda tired but managed a brief pre-flight drink to buoy us up :)
(K, can you spot the armadillo??)

We had a good flight (anyone else actually quite enjoy investigating the little boxes that make up airline food? No? Just me then :)) and then picked up our hire car and drove to the villa we were staying in - this was a great surprise! It was bigger than the places we've stayed in Florida before and absolutely gorgeous - I loved the beds! The biggest, most comfortable bed I've ever slept in. (Yes I did run in and throw myself on the bed when we got there!)

The next morning our first job of the day was to head straight to the courthouse. We needed to apply for a marriage licence and although the rules seemed less strict for non-residents of Florida we were still a little apprehensive that there might be a few problems we hadn't anticipated. Look at the size of this building! Intimidating or what??

Well after we marched in armed with passports, driving licences and birth certificates and had prepared ourselves to read something about divorce and custody of children (which I'd found on the internet for Florida residents), actually they only wanted our passports. And for an extra thirty bucks we could have booked the courthouse to get married that day. No witnesses needed even. Wow.

So off we skipped to Disney's Hollywood Studios! We sampled some of my favourite favourite things there (Indiana Jones, Star Tours, The Great Movie Ride, Aerosmith, Fantasmic) and it was an absolute pleasure to share these with people in our party who had never seen them before.

Unfortunately I hadn't charged my camera and it ran out halfway through the day! But it did mean that I could really enjoy the show of Fantasmic, and the reactions of my Nan and my maid of honour, who had never seen anything like it before and were absolutely blown away. Magic. :)

The following day we visited the Magic Kingdom, which is always a favourite for all of us. We caught the boat across the lake,

took in the views of the castle,

and then the weather came to say hello in true Florida style, forcing emergency poncho purchases! To be honest it was so wet I'm not sure they made much difference in the end!  I wish we had poncho pics but it was just too wet to get the cameras out - I ended up walking barefoot through the park there was so much water because my flip-flops kept shooting off my feet and aquaplaning across the surface water!

So we left the park late afternoon and went back to the villa to change; we then headed out to Olive Garden which we love love love! Gotta get those breadsticks ;)

For now, I'll leave you digesting (I know it took us a long time to do that after this meal!) and Wedding Part 2 will be with you soon...