VEGAS BABY!

Okay so I had planned on posting this yesterday and then trying to get back to the usual schedule and some more crafty stuff this week , but lo and behold lil man decided to do a nice sick on the carpet yesterday and I got nothing done.

Anyway I thought I'd do a lil blog post outlining some of the things I wore whilst I was there, But to be honest theirs less pictures than I thought there was so you'll have to believe me when I say I wore a lot more handmade stuff.

Okay so this is us when we got dropped off at the airport, yes I am terrified. I hate flying with a passion. I was all about comfort on the way there so I wore jeggings, my Hawaiian print crop top, a white mens shirt and my grey cardigan. I wanted lots of layers and the cardigan was perfect for snuggling up in when the aircon was on and using a pillow when I wanted a kip.

This is us on the 12 hour flight to vegas. FYI at this point i had snuck off to the toilet and removed my bra and was just wearing the crop top with a shirt over the top! I cannot recommend this enough, no uncomfortable underwires or scratchy lace. It definitely made me feel more comfy although I felt really weird removing my bra on a plane!

I also had to wear my hat on the plane so it wouldn't get crushed. I was going to leave it at home but it was so HOT I'm glad I had it so I didn't burn my head!

This is one of my African wax print dresses, I took all of them on holiday and wore two. I was a bit worried the lined bodice might be hot but I actually think the double layer protected me from the sun. Rikki could feel himself burning through his tshirt one day but I didn't have any bother. 

This is a little white number I picked up in newlook!

This is my wrap skirt and my off the shoulder top. I wore this to the most expensive breakfast me and Rikki had and felt like a Parisian movie star. The breakfast was lovely but the waiter thought I was a bit weird because I ordered two croissants and a muffin? [Rikki had an omelette and smash browns] he put my plate down and was like "and a big plate of bread for the lady?" do Americans not eat bread for breakfast? And technically its not bread its pastry and muffins which is basically dessert.

This was my £25 pound swimming costume from newlook which I loved wearing but has already started pilling [sobs] and considering my struggle to find good swimwear [post here] I think a strongly worded email might be in order. 

This is another bargain from newlook, I wore this during the evening to go zip wiring down freemont street. NOT A GOOD OUTFIT CHOICE! I had the whole thing up around the tops of my thighs and was trying to make sure I didn't flash my bum to whole way down! Not helped by the harness I had to wear. In my defence I didn't think I'd be doing the zip wire that night or I'd have worn jeans...... or full pants........ 

This is another african wax print cotton dress, I wore this for a day of seeing the other end of the strip and visiting hooters....which was less fun than I thought it would be? I thought it'd be like a southern bar with country music and stuff and it was a bit dull to be honest. Although the shorts they wear are TINY. Rikki however always the gent told me he didn't think the girls were anything special. What. A . Babe.

This is us at the top of the effiel tower in vegas, it was a pretty dull day that day and we actually had to come down because it was raining but I got some great pictures before we did!

Things I also wore but didn't photograph

Kimono Cardigan

Corset topped dress

African wax print dress Purple

Lace croptop

Hawaiian print tie shoulder dress

gingham Lilou dress

Halter neck simplicity parts

I was pretty pleased with everything I packed, I had a change for the evening and I felt quite stylish all the time!

In other news! I'm planning on getting back into the grind as soon as the child is feeling better, My house is just about recovering form the wedding and post honeymoon chaos. But still needs a big clean which I'm hoping to do later.

I'm also embarking on the fun task of changing over EVERYTHING! boy is that fun! I got so aggravated by the tesco website I just ordered myself a new clubcard in my new name!

I've also started knitting a baby quilt because we know someone else who's having a baby. I mean seriously people you can just netflix and chill you don't have to "netflix and chill"

Much Love

Frankie

xxx

I'm Back! And MARRIED!!!!

OH MY GOSH, can I just take a moment to process that I haven't stopped in about two weeks? I feel like I might need another holiday!

But here they are. The long awaited wedding details! You guys have been so patient whilst I kept hush!

The excited really started a few days before when I received these lovely flowers from my friend Pin and Tonic! These are still alive by the way!

I then spent the night before the wedding with my bestie and bridesmaid kal, we ate pizza, drank wine and put the world to rights. The idea was we were going to get an early night but lo and behold midnight rolled by and there we were still awake!!

I also wore my Grainline Lakeside pjs to get ready in the morning, as the fabric and pattern were a lovely gift from Pin and Tonic!

in the morning we got up at nine ready for Rikkis auntie to come and put my rollers in [shes a hairdresser!] then my mum and dad arrived, and the photographer and my friend Ali who did my makeup and before I knew it my house was full!

I also received this lovely package from Rikki 

Flowers which naturally I instagrammed 

and a lovely cute teddy that had been fully smushed into its protective packaging!

After what felt like an age of my trying not to panic and having people work on me I was ready to go.

The car arrived at 1 (we were getting married at 2) and we had gone for a fully traditional Downton abbey style car, which was beautiful and wonderful until it BROKE DOWN! I'm not even kidding. As it turns out the older the car the more unreliable it is in cold weather. Luckily there was a back up car not far behind, so on our local crossroads we stopped and I got out of my lovely old car into a shiny new car. Which would have been wonderful if 1. the driver hadn't had the heat all the way up and I mean I was sweating and 2. she actually knew where we were going. A long story short guess who ended up directing the driver?

Anyway we made it there in the end and after a quick chat with the registrar I walked down the aisle and was married! But omg was I shaking, my legs were like jelly!

Here we are signing the registrar, FYI that's not the original headdress I planned to wear, Instead I wore one I made at half eleven the night before. At some point I'll photograph the other headdress, which was lovely but wasn't quite right in the end. This one is actually two head things? joined together with floristry wire!

And this was my dress, it was a fit and flare style skirt and bodice with lace all over and some serious sparkle! I loved wearing the dress mainly because the skirt and top style meant I was super comfortable all day long. And I was fully capable of going for a wee by myself!

The veil was a two tier handmade scalloped edge, with crystals and I loved it.  

Here's a close up of the beading on my dress.

And here's my bouquet which I made, I used foam flowers and pieces of broken jewellery and beads and because I'm a sewer I put a few buttons in there for good measure! I actually had this made for about 15 months which is the beauty of foam flowers they don't die! and they also don't make me sneeze!

Our cake was lego themed, as were our favours and the cake was made by Rikkis, cousins, wifes , Aunty...... I hope you followed that! Anyway after making the cousins wedding cake, Rikkis Auntys wedding cake, Nan's birthday cake and this one I officially dub her the family baker! She also made the donut cake which you can see in the background, I desperately wanted to forgo having a cake and just have a stack of donuts for people to grab but sadly donuts go stale too quickly so as a surprise Rikkis Nan and Grandad had us a donut cake made! 

Here's me and Rikki after we cut the cake, and after I had cut myself a slice. Which is why Rikkis giggling because I immediately cut myself a slice of cake and he was like "babe you don't need to cut everyone a slice the venue will do it" And I was like "I want mine now, this is for me, everyone else can wait!"

#hungrygirlproblems

And these were the favours everyone had a little lego figure which was tailored to their personality, and their name on a lego brick, ask me how fun it is writing names on lego bricks? go on I dare you!

I loved doing the lego figures and they seemed to go down really well! everyone also got a lolly pop and the kids had boxes filled with pencils and activity books, which seemed to keep them all nice and quiet during the speeches. And guess who made a speech? yep me that's who! I was pretty hilarious if I do say so myself but nothing could beat the best mans speech who did a this is your wedding style slideshow with pictures and audience participation!

And then It was time for the first dance and time to PARTY! This was one of my absolute favourite parts of the day! I made sure to greet all my guests early on so I could spend the rest of the night having a laugh and dancing away! 

We stayed at a local hotel who were kind enough to leave the bar open for us, although some of our guests weren't so chirpy after a full night on the beers and no sleep!

and then the next day this happened!

Yeah bless him he carried me over the threshold! He also flashed my pants to the whole road lifting me up but we'll ignore that!

Then we had a day on cleaning and washing, a day of packing, a day of changing money over and before we knew it we were ready to fly!

Here's me looking terrified at the airport, guess who hates flying? Guess who discovered that If you take two really strong travel sickness tablets, a full dose of Kalms and wash them down with a large glass of wine then you don't really care who you are or where your going or how your getting there? 

Me! #feelingbuzzed

Anyway I will cover Vegas in a whole other post because I took some outfit pictures and we did too many activities to tag it onto this post!!!

But we did come back to this

A lovely sign and a balloon at the airport! We actually screwed up this plan , they wanted to be waiting for us as we got off the plan but we arrived an hour early so we were waiting outside!

Notice how rough I look? We'd been awake for nearly twenty four hours at this point!

and this was decorating our house!

as well as balloons and confetti!

So right now, I'm trying to get over jet lag, I spent most of last night trying to convince myself that I did actually need to sleep and no it was not time for food. 

Writing thank you cards.

Doing all of our holiday washing...... Did we really take that much stuff?

Changing my name over on various social media and actual government things! 

And trying desperately to get the house back into some form of order

But mainly I want to sleep,

and eat......

anyway! much love!

Frankie 

AKA Mrs Baldwin

 xxx

  

Hawaiian Print Crop Top

If you've all finished laughing from my last post I'd like to give you an excuse for another giggle.

I made a stripper top. But I'll get to that in a minute.

So I eeked this crop top out of the left overs from my tie shoulder Hawaii dress. And its lined using an old pillow slip, because well I'm a classy girl who uses what she has! and the lace is thrifted off the bottom of an old dress? top? something?

The fabric by the way was by the craft cotton company!

Anyway the pattern is from the third great british sewing book, its one of the hacks. But I added a bit to the front so I could have a button band.

Which is why its a stripper top. Because as it turns out my button hole foot does not like sewing through six layers of fabric, so instead I used press studs. Which seamed like a great idea until I realised, as I was removing it by pulling apart the front to a rhythmic "pop, pop, pop" that this is how strippers remove their stage wear. To a rhythmic "pop pop pop" and of course the hoots of drunken men!

So yeah I'm classy and apparently I now have easy access to.....well....... stuff............ 

But yeah stripperness aside the fit is pretty good. Its a bit short for my liking but I'm told that exposing ones tummy [omg can you tell I love with a four year old? Tummy? TUMMY for gods sake!] anyway I hear its the new thing! 

Oh look at me being all fashionable and stuff!!!!! 

No idea why I look so miserable on these pictures? I'm actually very pleased so this face must be related to something else? Maybe I was thinking about the ironing?

Anyway In a slightly new feature I'm going to show you not only what I've made but two ways I've styled it! I know right! Aren't I the best! Which means if you have a burning desire to make a crop top we can dress the same and be twins! 

So look one! this one is actually what I wore a few days ago and now it might be my flying to Vegas outfit, mainly because I can wear this top bra-less and a long haul flight with no underwire seems pretty blissful to be honest.

Blue skinny jeans - mine are Newlook but similar here

white shirt - Pretty sure mine is a george at asda mens one? but similar here

crop top - handmade

This is the slightly more summery look and I'm thinking of packing it for Vegas. Now normally I wouldn't wear shorts this tight and well short on the internet or ya know in the real world, but someone on instagram said my legs looked "amazing" and its given me quite the confidence boost! [I swear I'm basically Heidi Klum now]

Anyway 

Slouch cardigan - Handmade , my own tutorial can be found here! 

Crop top- handmade

shorts - cut off levis! [pretty sure this pair was my sisters and that one summer my mum took all of my sisters jeans and cut the legs off, but I might have just imagined that! Either way these jeans are nearly as old as me!] Similar here

Shoes - Matalan, similar here 

Anyway so yeah I'm loving this as a tourist look, minus the heels! Actually I've seen a pair of red Hawaiian print trainers in the nike shop in free port and I'm pretty tempted, although to be honest I'll probably just pick up some low top converse wannabees from primark!

Let me know what you thought of the style ideas!

Much Love

Frankie

xxx