Shayna Bloomer's Kate Hudson Wedding Dress

Mazel tov to Shayna and Dan - the second time newlyweds!! The wedding in Shonit was breathtaking lovely stunning - the venue was a grassy cliff overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, with waves lapping at the rocks all night long. A cool perfect breeze, a perfect sunset, an emotional aisle walk song (The Book of Love by Peter Gabriel), delicious food...and, of course, Shayna Bloomer's much sought after wedding dress - her "Kate Hudson" wedding dress! She looked STUNNING. After a 4-hour hair and makeup session, she looked like a true celebrity. You are all dying to see pictures, I know! But it's so hard to get our pictures downloaded, then uploaded to the blog while we travel around Israel, but we managed to give you all a sneak peak at Shayna's dress, which was modelled after Kate Hudson's wedding dress in the movie You, Me and Dupree. So...without further ado...here it is!! She was a fantastic bride for the second time around. More pics to come when we get back of her dress, hair, makeup and the decor!

Off to the Dead Sea and Mesada tomorrow...then to Jerusalem the next day. We'll be home soon bloggees!

funny signage

I've been meaning to take a picture of this forever. Each time I come to Israel and stay with D's parents this sign outside their condo cracks me up. Its just so graphic!! The straining dog and the pointy poop is funny!

seating plan...OY VEY!

So in November when we came to Israel to plan our wedding in 10 days, we had a little disagreement with D's mom over seating cards. I could not even imagine the chaos of not having one with 200 guests, however I was told that Israeli's don't have seating cards as they would think they were silly and wouldn't do as they were told and would sit wherever they wanted anyways. I conceded...against my event planning and organizational genes...to have a free for all for the tables. What the heck, it was definitely easier on me!! I figured I'd just use my cute ideas for future clients. Thinking all the planning was finished and that D and I could enjoy a little pre-wedding break on the beach, we were told on arrival that in fact Israeli's were now having seating plans at their weddings and that we too needed to have one. OY! In a whirlwind of 2 days, with zero preparation and no clue where to find supplies here, poor D was dropped smack in the world of event design! Here is what we came up with...not the ideas I had originally but we think it looks good in the end. Luckily I had the little tags for the wedding favors which were easily converted into place cards. I wish the board had been that easy!!!

wedding favors...check!

We spent pretty much all afternoon making them, and our fingers are kind of gnarled and sore from tying all the knots but we think they turned out pretty darn cute!

some design inspiration

I've been so wrapped up in the details of actually getting to Israel that I forgot that I might get inspiration from some actual Israeli design there - it was my lovely friend Jen who pointed it out. So I got excited the other day, jumped the gun and googled interior designers from Israel, and there I already found inspiration on this super cool blog! There, I saw lots of clean white decor, nice lines with elements of rough wood and a bit of pattern here and there. The apartment of an architect, Guy Velikson, who lives in Tel Aviv, caught my eye- I like, I like. And the other thing I keep seeing? Carpet tiles! I have never seen this here, but it looks like a super tasty floor to me. Imagine this was your bathroom floor?

what is this strange thing called carpet tile?! I hope I see it there!

{all pics above from this awesome Tchochkes blog here}

here i am...in the holy land!

I've made it! The wedding is on Sunday and it is now Tuesday and I have to say after the last 2 days of utter stress and chaos it looks like I might be on my way to having my loverly Israeli beach wedding. Wedding Planning 101 does NOT teach you how to navigate the wedding world in another language and culture! I think I'm ready for pretty much everything now...the biggest lesson ever...never assume anything and expect the worse...ha! Oh and if you think you are both talking about the same thing, find a second person to translate because chances are you are not!

On a positive side, I did have a great hair trial with the hair stylist I booked that I never met or tried out...phew! He came highly recommended from my makeup artist who gave me the much anticipated vogue cheek so I figured I was in good hands {only 5 more days until my vogue cheek and I are reunited!} We are going to go with the braided Molly Sims hair-did but he is going to gather it up in the back for the ceremony and when the sun goes down and its less hot he wants me to let it loose down my shoulder like in the picture. I like the versatility of this!

And I promise to finally post the pics of my Kate Hudson dress as soon as the wedding is over. It is still being hidden from the eyes of my D. He got all superstitious on me.

So today I think after a couple more errands this morning we will take some time for ourselves and do a little sunbathing on the beach. Yipppeeee!

cupcake greatness

The Bloomers love a cuppie...well that's no secret! But what the Bloomers love even more is enjoying a cuppie in a beautifully designed location. H e a v e n.

Check out the digs of Enjoy Cupcakes, in California. Their location is as delightful for the eyes, as their cupcakes are for the tastebuds {or in our case tasteblooms!}. And once again I am smitten with the vintage trailer that owner Amber Vander Vliet uses for events and farmer's markets - much like this little cutie. Ah trailer envy.

Hope you are able to enjoy a cuppie this weekend! Have a good one!
{found via Design Sponge}

doily jewelry holder anyone?

Also on my lunch break, in addition to Kensington Market, I tend to frequent Urban Outfitters {what can I say...I'm in a very central shopping location!} which can be a bit dangerous sometimes, especially around pay day. Today when I went for a look-see I found one of the craftiest and cleverest things I've seen in forever! Just this very morning I was looking at my pile of jewelry scattered messily all over my dresser and wondered what I could do to solve this situation. I have very limited surface space in my condo and trinkets and nic-nacs just aren't welcome until we have a larger house one day. But then low and behold someone created this loverly idea...put my jewelry on the wall...WITH AN OLD FRAME AND A DOILY!! So obviously right up my alley...hello circus wedding decor! I think I might make me a few of these beauts!

i hoot owls

I was shopping in Kensington Market on lunch {it sort of happens a lot} and I took a boo in the Blue Banana which is a cool shop filled with various artists' booths - like a permanent one of a kind show! I fell in love with the most adorable owl pillow by Hilary Cosgrove. I absolutely love my new owl friend and we watch tv together almost every night. My sock monkey family have also become quite attached! My owl is the one in the right of this picture...but I would buy them all if I could!

picking house colours? done!

I have finalized my house colours...this means they are going to start digging soon! Some of this will be a recap, but I thought I'd share the final choices:

The Kitchen: "Limestone" Coloured Countertops, dark espresso brown cabinets, taupe tiles...

This is what the colour of the cabinets will look like...the ones on the bottom (not the windowy ones on top!):

I like this colour for our hardwood floors in the living room and family room:

With a teal piano sitting atop the chocolate floors please for a pop of colour (tee hee):

The Bathroom Upstairs: Granite looking counters, dark wood cabinets, white tiles

The carpet (these were our only choices...can you imagine!) ... the most plain colour we could find:

beachy wedding favors

For our upcoming Israeli beach wedding, our colour scheme is aqua and orange. The table decor is inspired by this picture below that we found in Bride and Bloom magazine. I loved the all layers, the natural fibres and the accents of aqua and orange. I also loved the hanging jars of aqua coloured water hanging above the table.

Considering we won't be having a structure over each table at the wedding, I decided to use the idea for wedding guest favors when I saw these small aqua coloured fishing floats at a market in Yaffo during our 10 day {How to Plan a Wedding in 10 days!} trip in November. We will also hang a few larger glass balls from the chuppa which overlooks the sea...can't wait to see how it all turns out! The smaller glass ball favors will be at each place setting to add a little splash of aqua. We chose a cream coloured linen as the under layer, and a mocha coloured linen for the top layer. Our napkins will be orange. For centrepieces we will have orange bougainvillea filled pots lined up in a row down the centre of the tables with candles scattered between them.

Each favor will have this adorable little tag tied to it. Thanks to Joelle Bloomer and inBloom Studio for making them! The same little birdies kissing on the tree are on our invitations!

my new hairs!

I did it, went back to dark hair last night! It was a hard decision, but I think I'm happy about it...

bring on the weekend

Have you ever had one of those weeks where nothing worked? This week was like that for me - my hard drive died and my computer didn't work. My bank account didn't work. My phone didn't work, and Canada Post didn't work {they lost one of my packages in the mail}. And then I burnt myself making soup. Bullocks!

I for one am glad this week is over. And this beautiful wedding photographed by Jose Villa is making me feel a whole lot better! The simple and elegant decor, the photography...it has taken me to a land far away from multiple trips to the Apple store and lost packages. I hope its beauty takes some of your week's stresses away too. Bring on the weekend! Zen...zen... {found via Design Sponge}

going dark ... again

I've been going back and forth and back and forth about whether or not I should dye my hair back to it's natural darkness, and I think I've decided to do it! I was originally inspired by this glorious dark hair I saw in Glow Magazine (in an article about banishing bacne, funny enough!) but I can't find the image anywhere online to share it with you. However, I'm equally inspired by two celebrity hair colours as of late - Rachel McAdams' hair and Kristin Stewart's hair. They are both pale with dark hairs, so since I'm pretty pale, hopefully it will look nice on me too! Hoping hoping....So yah, wish me luck. And goodbye to my bubbly blonde days!!

koda the dwarfed dwarf horse

So, after Spyke, the beautiful dwarf pony, attended Shayna Bloomer's vintage circus wedding, us Bloomers fell madly and deeply in love with little horsies. Perhaps it's because we are so little ourselves! But now look what has come to our attention - this cute little mini dwarfed dwarf horse, named Koda, from England. He is so small that he's been mistaken for a stuffed animal! Apparently he's survived lots of surgeries, and has to get some adult teeth removed because they don't fit in his mouth!! Oh dear, he's just too cute for words (and I'm a big fan of the Fuck You, Penguin blog). Koda sent Shayna Bloomer into an absolute desparate tither to figure out how she can own him!

it costs a fortuny!

When I go to see my chiropractor {aside: her name is Rachel and she works at Totum Life Science and she is the best chiro ever and you should totally go see her if you are in any kind of pain!!!} she happens to work right beside Toronto design shop Design Within Reach and I always go in to take a boo at one thing in particular....the $5000 US Fortuny Lamp they have on display. I pretend I'm checking out everything else and because I'm such a nerdy, I make myself start on the opposite side of the store, make my circle around so I can end with the Fortuny Lamp. It's a little present to myself. But honestly I don't think I'll really ever be able to afford such a lavish purchase. Luckily, there is just the thing out there...it's called the Alcatraz and it's a pretty cool replica for $400 US! I think that might be worth it!
I also like Pottery Barn's Photographer's Lamp which is $300 US and I super duper like this awesome Foto Lamp from Sweden...but it's 350 pounds and I think that might convert to be out of my price range. Poo. I'd like the yellow one methinks.

{Alcatraz Lamp}

{Foto Lamp}

{Photographer's Lamp}