Red Carpet Manicure!

Let's talk manicure's... more specifically, GEL manicures. You know, those wonderful long lasting ones that give you glossy hard-wearing nails for up to two/three weeks. Yes, those. I for one, am in love with them! 

Working with my hands every day has meant that although I LOVE to look after my nails, and paint them, I never got more than a day or two out of my nail polish, which meant the hour or so it took me to do them really ate into my working week. Cue Red Carpet Manicure... 

My mother in law bought me a gel kit (after I had tried, and loved, hers!) which she had bought on QVC. It came with all the tools and prep bits you needed to get your nails ready for the easy three step curing process, which you paint on like normal nail polish (base, colour (2 coats) and top coat), curing each layer under your little portable LED light for about 45 seconds. When you're done, you're DONE! Your nails are glossy, hard, and totally dry... which takes a little getting used to, it's so great. 

I am more than a little obsessed with nail art, as you can see from my pinterest board, Polish It, so I am so happy that I have figured out how to include glitter (Martha Stewart Craft Glitter is the BEST!) in my mani, and I am excited to try out lots of different colour combinations and designs. 

So far, I only have four Red Carpet Manicure Colours - and they're all GORGEOUS! I can't wait to get more... It was previously quite hard to chose from the colour card, though I'm delighted they've updated their website, as I had found them quite different in person, but my local Sally's has started doing them, so it's great to be able to see them in the flesh, too. 

I want to spread the word far and wide about this amazing home kit, as it's so easy and really awesome for people who work with their hands - believe me, it's almost impossible to break a nail (so I was able to grow great length for our Wedding, which I normally can't do!) so it's a life-saver if you're busy, but want to look polished.

Yay for nails!

A @ a*r

Belfast Restaurant week...

For our two week anniversary, Ryan surprised me with an amazing dinner at The Merchant (our wedding venue!) where they were serving a fantastically delicious five course tasting menu, accompanied by matching cocktails for each course. The food was incredible, as always, and the cocktails amazingly matched to each course... You can see why they are the best hotel cocktail bar in the world! Here are some snaps of our meal... Increasingly atmospheric as the sun went down and candle light took over! Enjoy!
A*R

Mr & Mrs...

Well... we did it... we got MARRIED! After all the planning and hard work, last Friday was our big day and everything (pretty much) went to plan... Ryan is now my husband, and I am now his wife! All is right with the world!

We are back at work already, though I am down with a throat infection (post wedding burn-out, of course!) so we are easing our way back in and trying to make some headway with some big deadlines and exciting projects, we can't wait to share... we have SO much going on right now, I'll never quite know how we made time to get married in the first place, hehe!

Our wedding truly was a LOT of work - we opted to do absolutely *everything* (bar the catering) ourselves, which although in part was a budgetery choice, really was, I think, the only way we would have wanted to do it! I know we would have always wanted to have control over all the little details of our day, to really put our stamp on everything, so it TRULY was *OUR* day and only one that could be created by us, for us (and our guests)... it's actually at times like this when you thank your lucky stars that being creative means you can turn your hand to anything! I know so many brides & grooms would love to do all the little details themselves but would not know where to start, and would have to pay a LOT of money, and put in a LOT of hard work, to find the right person to get those details from. Looking back, although everyone thought we were utterly crazy, we will always know that we crafted every detail of our day with our own hands... from our save the dates and wedding invites, to cakes, to our flowers, to our ring pillow, decorations, favours and everything in between... and that's something very special for us to know we achieved...

All those things truly were the icing on the cake that was standing next to Ryan on 28.09.12 and saying 'I DO'. And I really do. 

Love you RB.
Your wife. xo

Wedding count-down!!

We're sorry it's been a little quiet on the blog... Our impending wedding is in part responsible, as well as a boat load of work! We have just under three weeks until we say 'I do!' (so excited!) and we have a lot of things to work on and create for our big day... Here's a little sneak of what's been happening so far!

I'm sure the next few weeks are just going to vanish! I had better get to it! ;)
A @ a*r

ANNUAL BIRTHDAY SALE!

Hello everyone!

Abi turns an ancient 29 today ;) 
To celebrate, in our usual fashion, we're running a birthday sale where you get 29% off anything in our tea-towel category... now, we usually apply our big birthday discounts to everything in store, but because we're getting married in 5 weeks (!!) we're a little short on sewing time because we're so busy, but we still wanted to run the sale for you, so we thought this a good compromise...

Just enter code HAPPYBIRTHDAY29 at checkout to get 29% off anything in the tea-towel category!

ENJOY!!
xo

abigail*ryan in H&G...

We're delighted to be in this month's issue (September) of Homes & Gardens magazine, in a feature about beautifully bold cushions! Hurrah!

You can find the featured cushion, our Sycamore Scatter in Coral & Seafoam, right here...

Thank you to the lovely team at Homes and Gardens for including us!

--

Also, thanks so much to everyone who commented on my last post about Big Bridal, it was great to hear your thoughts and feedback about this issue, and how curvier ladies are under-represented in the wedding inspiration blogosphere... I'm sure it's a topic close to a lot of people's hearts. I'm glad i'm not the only gal who feels this way! ;)

Axo

Let's talk (big) Bridal...

It's been a while since I have posted anything here about our forthcoming Wedding... and it really is forthcoming, now, only 7 weeks away! (yikes, how did THAT happen!)


I have been mulling over whether to blog about this or not, but it's something that I have really come up against when putting together my look for the Wedding, and I'm just going to say it, it's not easy being a plus size bride!!! Sometimes, it just feels like an uphill struggle! 


I am 6ft tall, in my flats, and wear a size 22/24 UK (yes, I said it) and it is impossible to find any inspiring, beautiful images of brides online that I can relate to... plenty that I relate to in terms of their style, absolutely, but not in terms of their shape and size. I found myself scanning pinterest for a 'chunkier' lady to see what I might look like dressed head-to-toe in the kind of pale tones I usually avoid...and when I found someone in the sea of size 6's, they were probably a 12/14 MAX, and that scared me a little... if they looked 'chunky' in their bridal whites, am I going to look like moby-dick?! I did a fair bit of internal crying at this stage...


I would love, love, to be like these uber-fashion bloggers who are part of the 'fat-acceptance movement' (where basically, they dress as if they weren't bigger, and have no issue wearing raised hemlines, exposing their skin etc and areas that would normally be expected to be covered up if you're bigger) but I'm not... I like to dress to really flatter my body shape, and like to dress to make myself look smaller (if possible). There are parts I like to draw attention away from, and parts I would NEVER expose.


To this end, I am designing my own wedding dress and having Ryan's talented aunt, Lynne, make it for me -- but, this lack of beautiful larger, taller, curvier, chunkier brides is so missing for me online it did make me quake in my size 9's a little... oh yeah, I have massive feet too, so this makes bridal shoe shopping equally gruelling!


I just thought I would throw this out there - there is SUCH a lack of appropriate, inspiring, beautiful dresses and shoes for someone my size and height, it just rather takes the fun out of that side of things. I'll never have that moment in a bridal shop, or quirky vintage boutique, of finding 'the dress' because I frankly don't want a sleeveless, backless, corseted job and can't fit in to a size 6 dress for someone who is 5ft1" tall... granted, the road I am on may end up more fun in the end, and indeed give better results, but it's a difficult one no less and one that has made me wish for a magic lamp to rub to shrink myself a good half foot on more than one occasion! ;))


Does anyone else out there relate?!
Abigail xo!