A Stephanie Allin French Wedding

Ok so I'm getting married next year, and yes I'm getting married in the South of France which means I'll just have to have a Stephanie Allin wedding dress!

I'm trying them on next month after cooing over them in every bridal magazine they appear, even the names make me smile with Bardot (below) and Frankie my current favourites. Love, love, love them!

Dukan Diet Starts Today

 

 

So it's been a busy year so far and the furthest thing from my mind has been wearing a bikini, so imagine the fear when I realise I'm to be bikini clad in less than two weeks, so my only answer is - bring on the Dukan! 

I've had a good read of the main book and the book of recipes so feel pretty good about diving head first into the Dukan diet experience. Unlike the Atkins you can't eat fatty meats, salt or oil but with it being a French diet the recipes are right up my street. Smoked salmon, chicken terrine and moules marinieres are suggested for the first 5-day 'attack' faze, oh such a hardship! But as a bread addict I'm worried I'll run out of steam in a day or two, never mind with the promise of 2lbs a day lost I think I can forgo the bread for a few days...

In other news, my Dad is recovering well having had his cancer tumour removed on Thursday the nurses were amazed he was able to go home after only three days - us Sharkey's are made of strong stuff clearly. After the stresses of last week with my Dad I'm quite pleased to be doing the accounts today, never again will I complain that my life isn't exciting enough, I've had enough excitement to last me a lifetime over the past month.

Martha in Ray-Bans

French Wedding Flowers

 

After a jaunt to France to do some interior design work this weekend I got the chance to check up on my wedding flowers growing in the garden. Peonies, roses and gypsophila all looking lovely, so lovely in fact I had to fill my case with them much to the amusement of the airport security man...

I'm really madly into Pinterest at the moment, between interior design ideas and wedding stuff I think I click 'Pin It' more than anything else on my laptop. I'm finding it the easiest way to gather everything I like visually, I've folders of downloaded images on my laptop which can now be deleted thanks to the wonders on Pinterest. Now that I've discovered how to Pin from my iPad there is no end to the obsession... Check out my page here.

Martha

 

Martha being her usual useful self in my office sitting on everything I need. Sigh...

Extra Large Pearls

A friend of mine is a pearl importer and occasionally gets these sets of huge pearls for photo shoots. There's an amazing texture to them that makes their colour far more vibrant than the regular small pearls. Beautiful!

DIY Silk Stacking Rings

A great little DIY jewelry project to make something pretty (and to save some pennies!) is this tutorial on DIY silk stacking rings from The Lovely Dept. blog.

Luis Monteiro for Tatler

Beautiful colour palette from Oh the Lovely Things blog. Got to be my favourite design blog of the moment.

Ritzy Bee Blog

OK, so another blog I love, love, love! Even if you're not wedding obsessed like yours truly Ritzy Bee has a beautiful collection of items, photography and pretty things, if you're January is feeling a little grey I'd recommend this injection of beautiful inspiration from event designers Maria & Kelly - they have links to every blog possible so it's a road to a long afternoon of blog reading!

Favourite Blog of this week!

I'm spending far too much time reading everyone else's blogs and not writing my own so as a compromise I'll post some recommended blogs!

A daily addiction for anyone who loves colour, fashion, food and lovely things is Oh Joy! run by the lovely designer Joy Deangdeelert Cho, she has an incredible talent for finding the best things and creating beautiful posts.

Modern Calligraphy

Calligraphy by Hilary

Calligraphy by Hilary

When I was about seven year old, my lovely elderly next door neighbour Dillys bought me a calligraphy set for my birthday. Taken my the desire to have the beautiful script seen in the accompanying 'how to' book, I spend hours slaving over the curves of a lower case 'r' and writing an uppercase 'S' about a hundred times until scraping to a halt and spilling ink across the page.

I was, however, not the best at it and created reasonable but very shaky calligraphy much to my disappointment! This morning I stumbled upon the beautiful offerings on Etsy, my favourite being 'San Fransisco' style from Calligraphy by Hillary (above). Other great sellers include Ever After NY (below), and Bubbo.

EverAfterNY on Etsy

Bubbo on Etsy