40th Anniversary

Hello fellow crafters,
It is a week since I last posted, as once again, I have not been well (here). One of the effects of liver disease is nausea, often resulting in 'head-in-a-bucket' sessions, lasting for many hours.

As most of you know, John and I recently celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary, with a wonderful evening shared with friends. We left for New Zealand the next morning and I have only just organised my photos.

I had intended to use all the original decorations from our wedding cake, but the main one was slightly discoloured, so I used a fresh one (I bought the basics, then put it together, adding my own bits and pieces). The little doves however, are from the original. I made a traditional rich fruit cake 2 months earlier, and every few days until I iced and decorated it, I turned it over, and sprinkled it with brandy. The knife is a family heirloom and has been used to cut every celebration cake in John's family for about 120 years. Since his parents' passing several decades ago, we have continued the tradition. The photo does not show it, but the blade has the most delicate engraving over its entire surface.

I printed the invitations on white pearlised paper, punched the edges with my Martha Stewart 'Iron Fence' border punch, then adhered them to ruby pearlised cardstock.

Guests' names for the placecards were printed on lightweight card, then cut out with a Spellbinder 'Labels One' die, then adhered to the next size diecut of Bazzill cardstock. I didn't count how many flowers I punched altogether from heavyweight gold wrapping paper for all projects, but believe me, there were lots!

I experimented with the size of the tiny baskets for each guest, so that a Rocher chocolate would fit perfectly.

The serviette rings were so time consuming to make. I covered little strips of white cardstock with the gold gift wrap, then added the red bands, gold border stickers, and triple layer flowers. The reverse side of the gift wrap was white, so I coloured the back of every flower on each of the projects with a red Promarker - very messy and fiddly ! It was worth the trouble though, as the red was reflected in the gold of the layers below.

Because of safety restrictions, the restaurant did not allow real candles, so I searched for, and found these little battery operated tea lights. They actually flickered like real flames, and looked so pretty among all the red and gold on the table.

While we waited to board our flight to New Zealand the morning after our celebration, I wrote a "Thank You" to all our guests, then posted them at the Airport P.O.  Because these were being posted, I used red 'Stickles' in the flower centres, instead of the beads in all the other flowers. I used my 'Jamara' embossing folder, and gold peel-off stickers, on red Bazzill cardstock.

I made several floral arrangements, and kept them fairly simple. My original bridal bouquet was red carnations, so carnations were my obvious choice for our 40th celebration. These blooms were so beautifully perfect, many guests could not believe they were real.
(The pretty paper place mats were only $2.50 for a packet of 30!  -  I love bargins!).





This has been a long post, so thank you for looking.
Until next time, hugs,
Jennifer. x