I got the idea for the necklace from another necklace that just sort of happened a day in front of the tv set. I liked the idea of a ‘random’ pearl necklace with, of course, crystals, and in the beginning there were pendants of hearts both back and front in different colors but it quickly came out way to blingy and a little tacky, so I toned down the multicoloring and lost the pendants and was quite happy with it. The only pendantish bead left on it was a small AB tinted flower.


The whole lot are Swarovskis, which I get at Perles & Co where they are reasonably priced. That said, this is easily the most expensive necklace I’ve ever made.


I can’t remember where I first saw the backdrop necklaces, but I’m guessing a photo of some 30s willowy beauty. Alas, I am myself not of the willowy kind, and a silky 30s gown with open back was very much out of the question (it would also have required me smoking vogue cigarettes with a black ivory cigarette holder and, well, there are a few problems with that scenario).

Anyways. The necklace is strung on nylon and has an odd shape since you need a strand going around your neck, otherwise it won’t stay on your back. Unless you make it waaaaay longer and move very carefully. The neck strand has a silver heart clasp to allow you to put it on, and this is how it all turned out:

I love a certain kind of enamel jewellery. Like Pilgrim’s Velvet series. So for hair jewellery for the wedding I got myself a bracelet, ripped it apart, stuck it to hairpins and put it in my hair.

I got the coque feathers from ebay – search for millinery feathers. They are glued between two small patches of white felt that were then stiched to the back of the three medium flowers that were fastened together with thin wire and attached to the hair clip. The same for the other hair clip with three flowers, and the largest flower (that I couldn’t find for the photo) I stuck on to a large bobby pin, also with the help of wire.

For the birdcage veil I bought a bit of french netting – sold in hat shops if your craft shop is not amazingly well stocked – and played around with it, after reading a few online instructions. There’re two nice edges to netting, and if you do like me you’ll miss both of them doesn’t matter much, but try to get one of the nice edges to fall across your face

My veil was not fastened in any way, just put on top of my hair but if you want it stuck properly you can put a comb or hair pins in it, of course. Most people do.

Amazingly, in the 1400+ photos we have from our wedding, the feather hair clip did not get one good pic. I guess that is because people tend to take photos of the bride’s face, not the back of her head. But still…

To celebrate the fact that we had been engaged for a year, and the fact that I finally managed to ask D to marry me (which of course went totally wrong but worked out since he, too, said yes) we handed the rings back to their maker to add some bling. D’s got a tiny black brilliant and mine got a sea green slightly larger one. I love the result. D wants more bling in his ring =) I want even more colour. We’ll see where it ends…

The picture settings are playing up, click the photo to see it properly.

This year the gingerbread house evolved into more of a full gingerbread landscape, a small part of the Moomin valley. The Moomins, who are usually asleep during the winter, have been woken up by the Hemule and are exploring the snow. They have some unexpected company – a penguin lurking around the corner, a surrealistic family of mini-moomins living in an igloo right outside the Moomin lighthouse and our old friend the manga prince, fighting the dragon as always.

I had templates for the Moomin house and they can be found here. It seems to be to scale with a Moomin playhouse, to which the figurines belong., we found them in Dona’s shop in Stockholm. The bridge and the other houses are just cut out from the dough. Oh, and don’t buy the cheepest gingerbread dough you can find. It’s not hard enough to make houses of and you have to rebuild them…

More photos of the project can be found in the photo album.

So yesterday we found engagement rings! We decided early on to have two sets, one ‘real’ and one for travelling etc. These are our travel kit and interim rings while we try to decide on material(s), design and budget for the proper ones. We really like these, even if they’re just in stainless steel and glass =)