String Art - A great wedding present!

Oh hiya,

I've been wanting to post these photos for a while, but I made this as a present for our friend's wedding, so I had to wait until I'd given it to them in case they read this and saw it before and it ruined the surprise!

Basically, two of my friends, Matt and Lucy got married yesterday and the reception was in the grounds of their own home (they've got a nice place, lots of land). In order to make room for the marquee, they hired a tree surgeon to remove a tree.

The problem was that they removed the WRONG TREE and managed to chop down a beautiful weeping willow as well as the tree they wanted removed.

Ooops. They won't be getting a recommendation...

Anyway, they were gutted as it was a really old tree and a huge part of their garden, but they had pieces of the willow tree chopped up and ready to burn, and I had the idea of making a string art project for them using a piece of their tree, so it could live on in their home.

Plus I'm broke at the moment and thought a hand made present might be a nice inexpensive touch! :)

It was super quick and easy, my little niece and I had lots of fun making it. 

Firstly, we got some nails, in hindsight I would have preferred smaller nails as it was quite nail-heavy overall on the smaller hearts, but they were all I had. We had pencil drawn a heart shape and hammered nails into the general heart shape.

The hardest part was tying a knot in the thread to start it and finish the heart. It all has to look neat and I'm quite clumsy with thread anyway.

Next is the fun part and you just weave around the entire heart and push the thread to the bottom of the shape and then just start randomly weaving round each nail randomly in a criss-cross fashion until you're happy with the result.

Finally, thread all around the heart again at the top of the nail to create a 3D effect and tie the thread in as much of a knot as you can to finish.

Et voila! One quick and easy heartfelt tree stump string art!

Some old photos I found...

As I was posting about our wedding the other day I stumbled across some photos I haven't seen for a while...

I LOVE looking through photos. I really should print more off, but mostly they just live inside my computer or in albums on Facebook.

More pre-wedding photos :)

Our first night in Calverley

Celebrating Beth's 21st birthday 

My niece doing a Selfie

Nan & Dad at our wedding

Walking in the Dales

Happy Birthday me!

Happy Second Wedding Anniversary - A Few Wedding Tips...

I haven't talked about weddings on here for a while... it's been all Kenya, Kenya and a bit more Kenya... and the fact that our two year wedding anniversary has arrived is NOT allowed to be overshadowed :)

I love being married. A LOT of people ask you after the big event 'How is married life?' and I'm here to tell you that once you emerge, dazed and a little honeymoon tanned from the wedding bubble... the truth is... it really isn't any different to life before marriage. Sorry. That's not a bad thing though!

There is more of a connection between you for a few weeks/months due to the experience you've just shared (standing up in front of your friends and family saying your vows such a wonderfully bizarre romantic experience) but soon enough Real Life kicks in and before you know it you're heading out to work of a morning, cooking dinner, watching TV and you get used to wearing your second ring and people (me) kinda stop talking about WEDDING THIS WEDDING THAT in every sentence.

I now have the pleasure of three of my friends (including one of those as my little sister, Beth) getting wed within the next year or so and it's so great to watch them go through the build up, the prep, the STRESS, the excitement and anticipation. I know each of their weddings will be fab and totally different from each other and I can't WAIT.

I wanted to share a few tips and reassurances in the build up to your wedding:

* At some point, you WILL dislike your wedding dress. It's true! You go through all the rigmarole of choosing the perfect dress, finding it, buying it (ouch) and then.... nothing. It takes a few months to have it made and delivered and by that time you've only got memories of what it looked like (and that was a sample you tried on). When YOUR dress comes and you try it on, don't be surprised if it doesn't live up to what you remembered. After all, you paid so much for it and it seemed like the perfect dress for you a few months ago but it's more real now you've paid for it and only have this one dress. Remember WHY you loved it and try it on with a gorgeous necklace and shoes to bring back the love :)

* Hen do - it's ok to have a small one. I'm not sure where this idea has come from that you need to have a hen do with at least 30 people on and it needs to be abroad and it needs to be expensive, that's not what most nights out with your friends are like are they and you still have fun don't you? Why can't a hen do just be a night out? It has all this pressure on it to be amazing and the more you plan, the less fun it will be!

* Your husband-to-be will not be bothered, it doesn't mean he doesn't want to marry you :) I remember asking Josh at one point in the run up to our wedding, what colour napkins he wanted on the tables... the look on his face was 'basically, I couldn't give a shit babe'. I MAY have over reacted at the time thinking he didn't care about the wedding. The truth is, men DO want to get married, but they're just not bothered about the detail and you can actually learn something from their attitude. Don't lose sight of the important thing; it's about you two marrying, not about matching tableware together...

* Your wedding photographer IS worth the expense. My photographer (http://www.sarahjanesphotography.co.uk/) was amazing and completely worth the fee we paid. She even helped me put on my wedding dress which I so appreciated. A good wedding photographer will be a huge help, have loads of experience and add to the excitement of the day without making you feel you're missing most of it by standing in front of a camera. Some of the best shots she took were us all getting on with the day and enjoying ourselves!

*Your husband to be will probably go to a strip club on his stag do. It's so cliche and predictable, but it will probably happen and you might never know about it.

* It's not all about wedding photo albums. We just couldn't afford an album having returned from honeymoon a little bit broke, financially. In hindsight maybe we should have put money aside before we got married to pay for the album, but I'm not sure how much I'd sit and look at the album anyway. I had our favourite picture made into a big canvas and it's hanging on the wall of our bedroom. I see it every morning and I LOVE it. Other images are dotted around our house in frames and we're constantly reminded of our wedding day, I think I prefer it that way.

Do you have any tips to share?

SUN AT LAST!

At long last, we had a sunny day yesterday!

Costa Del Sol Bradford!

It's about time we were able to sit in the garden and be WARM. I even went in a convertible car yesterday with the TOP DOWN while eating chocolate pretzels - good times.

Then we sat in the garden of a friend's house and steadily made our way through 7 bottles of wine. Between 3 of us.

My head this morning was not happy.

England, you're not ALL BAD. (Sure I'll change my mind next week at some point and continue pining over Kenya.

Just some photos I found...

Holy cow I miss Kenya.

Here are some photos I've just found on my phone...

Anyone want to buy a souvenir? 

Still smiling...

My old view from my apartment in Mombasa

One last sunset at Mombasa airport

Are you freaking kidding me?!

Shirt from a market in Kenya - you like? 

Pieces of Kenya I carry with me all the time :)

Mission: Reclaim my weeknights...

Now that I'm working full time once again, I'm determined to make more of my weeknights than I used to before I went to KENYA.

You know what it's like, it's so easy to let Monday slip into Thursday and before you know it, it's time to put the bins out again and gear up for the weekend. As soon as you get home from work, the TV goes on and you go into zombie mode.

Well not me. I refuse to live for the weekends as much as I can. There are five decent weeknights to be utilised that I used to just squander.

The issue is that I'm BROKE, so I'm trying to find activities that are low cost or (preferably) free.

Here's what I've been doing to fill my weeknights so far:

1. Instead of putting the TV on, I've been listening to more music in the kitchen with The Boy and spending more time cooking different meals. I cooked a Kenyan meal for some friends the other night which was fun. We all ate with our hands and listened to Kenyan music - YOU WILL LIKE KENYA, FRIENDS.

2. I've joined the local library. You can borrow up to 20 books at a time and it's free to join up! I am a bookworm, unashamedly so. You don't even really have to be quiet in the library anymore! Nobody told me to shush (but then again I was talking with the Librarian so I guess she couldn't shush herself) It's open late enough to pop round when I finish work and browse.

3. I've been clearing out my clothes, shoes and accessories and selling lots of different things on eBay to make some extra cash. So far I've made over £100 just from selling clothes I haven't worn for the last six months (I made a rule for myself, if I haven't worn it in the last year, it goes, no excuses).

4. I've been painting! Yep, I surprised myself with that one too!

OK so I'm not going to win any awards for them but they were super easy and super cheap and I now have something to show for my weeknights...

5. I've made some biscuits. This activity wasn't so good for my waistline but will get me some new friends at work I'm sure :)

They're not burnt. Honest.

Any more suggestions for me?

Reflecting On My Career Break in Kenya... Again...

Today was my first day at my brand new shiny job which means I have officially ended my Career Break chapter of my life.

I know I've said it before but it really has been the most incredible time and I have absolutely no regrets.

A classroom in a school - Mombasa, Kenya

Life's a beach! Nyali beach, Mombasa Kenya

It took a LOT of courage to get out of my comfort zone, to leave a job I enjoyed and biggest of all, to leave my husband behind when I so desperately wanted him with me... but the experience taught us that we both want to go away together at some point in the near future and do it properly and do it together. It wasn't that I was unhappy with the life I had previously, but I always knew there was a part of me that wanted MORE adventures and to try something new.

After all, we only live once. 

I had adventures every day in Kenya. I learnt a new language, I watched the sun set (and come up) I was independent, I got food poisoning twice, I ate fish from a stranger's open fire, I held a snake, I bartered in markets, I got a tattoo, I lived by myself in my own apartment, I cooked on a camping stove, I cycled 10kms in the Kenyan sunshine, I swam under a glass bottom boat and almost drowned, I drank 5 shots of tequila in one night, I got stung by a jellyfish, I had my hair braided, I burnt my skin climbing off a motorbike...

Adventures. Small ones, big ones, dangerous ones, hilarious ones. 

Buuuuuuut, I've been lucky enough to get a great contract job within a few weeks of returning back home and my first day today went well. New adventures.

Anyhoo, I have found it SO HARD to sum up my trip in words, so I decided to use the magic of Windows Movie Maker, with the help of one of my favourite songs, to display just a snippet of what I got up to in Kenya over those amazing three months.

Get the popcorn, and I hope you enjoy watching my video about my career break in Kenya.