Monthly Archive for August, 2011

Hello, Goodbye

Back in June I introduced you to our Scottish Greyhound Sanctuary foster dog, Poppy. Well, Poppy was with us for 2 fun-filled months whilst she waited for her forever home, during which time she made lots of friends,

with border terrier pal, Fidra

played with lots of toys,

with her favourite pink ball

& gave us lots of cuddles!

with foster dad, Martin

We will miss you big time Pops, but seeing you walk out that door with your new family, all waggy-tailed & full of smiles, I just knew you were going to the right place: SGS have found the perfect home for you!

beautiful Poppy

We managed to last a full 3 days with just the 2 dogs in the house after Poppy left, then along came our next foster dog, Kenny (formerly known as Kevin)!

new boy, Kenny

Kenny is a gorgeous brindle & white lad with a velvety smooth coat & a big thick cuddly neck. Despite his wise old face, he’s still a youngster really at 4 years.

isn’t he gorgeous?

He’s been with us for almost a week now & taken some time to settle into living in a house – everything is new to him.

Woah – what’s going on out there?!

He has adapted so quickly though & is already well on his way to becoming a chilled out sofa-hog just like the rest of them ;-)

Max & Molly have been showing Kenny the ropes

Yesterday he rolled over on his back & had a wee roach for the first time,

learning to relax

& today he tentatively started to play with a ball for the first time!

Kenny learns to play

Fostering can be pretty emotional. You inevitably become attached to these dogs & it can be hard to say goodbye when the time comes. But you know that they will  always remember your kindness, & the space that they leave means you can help  yet another dog on that special journey towards their forever home.

Hello, Goodbye‘: an Etsy Treasury depicting how I felt about letting Poppy go

Wedding bunting & more…

You may remember earlier this year when I posted about the bunting I made for our wedding out of old shirt fabric… I ended up loving the combination of colours & patterns I was working with so much that I incorporated them into various other aspects of our wedding as well!

a string of bunting & some tin can lanterns on display at our wedding

Well, Martin & I tied the knot back on 25th May, so I can now reveal just how far I stretched out that little bundle of shirts I brought back from the charity shops all those months ago…

Martin & I looking out over the Solway Firth

My wedding dress was handmade by Etsy seller Funnelcake Boutique. The very talented Christine worked the bunting fabrics into the roses & ruffles at the back of the dress, & I was absolutely thrilled with the result – guaranteed I was wearing a truly one-of-a-kind dress on my wedding day!

my dress

On discovering Etsy shop, Sew Smashing, I fell in love with the beautiful origami butterflies seller Alexis makes. She very kindly agreed to make some for us using, you guessed it, some of our bunting fabrics!

origami butterflies

She fashioned 2 of the butterflies into boutonnières, which Martin & his best man wore in their lapels, & 2 of them into clasps, which my bridesmaid & I wore in our hair.

Immediately after the (humanist) ceremony, celebrated with homemade elderflower champagne served in glasses decorated with ribbons of the fabric…

our champagne flutes

…& later on in the day we enjoyed a delicious chocolate wedding cake, made by Martin’s Mum, which was decorated with a string of mini-bunting in the same fabrics!

our wedding cake (DIY cake toppers from Goosegrease Undone)

About a month or so before the wedding we had a surreptitious request for some of our bunting fabrics from Martin’s Mum! Rather mysteriously, she wouldn’t say what it was that she wanted them for, but we posted some off to her nonetheless… All was revealed on our wedding day, when she presented us with a beautiful patchwork quilt, incorporating several of the fabrics into the design.

the  quilt which Margaret made us

So I am certainly pleased that I stumbled across what seemed at the time to be a bit of a mismatched jumble of old shirts in a charity shop all those months ago – without them we wouldn’t have had all these wonderful handmade touches at our wedding.

Martin, the dogs & I

Thank you to all the people – family, friends & professionals – who humoured me by going along with my slightly crazy sounding ideas & helped weave a little bunting magic through all these aspects of  our wedding ;-)

our wedding guests