a pumpkiny party

A few weeks ago us Bloomers had a little pre-Hallowe'eny get together with some friends. And since we like to make things purty, we decided that our table setting should look as purty as can be. This is easy in the fall, with so many wonderful things to work with - fall colours, drying flowers, and of course punkins! I found these little ghostly ones, used at each place settings, at Loblaws; the tablecloth is a damask sheet I got from Urban Outfitters that I've been dying to use for something; the antiquey tea set is from my mom's collection; and the colourful hydrangeas were plucked from the garden. Not too shabby for a quickly pulled together look! And, of course I gave the photos a spooky sort of vintage effect {photos just look cooler with a vintage effect, no?}.

Hoping you all have a wonderful pumpkin carving, candy-eating, dress-upping weekend. Boo!

boo and ew!

I just found a hot-spot of awesome Halloweeness! Check out these cool and clever designs I found over at little ant design!

Gross wormy sandwiches!

Beautiful but spooky candy apples!

Funny, scary-hand napkin holders!

And then over at Urban Outfitters they are selling this creepy, doll part chandelier! Eeek!

purty punkin' designs

In the spirit of Halloween, here are some pretty funky punkin' designs I found on the Martha Moments blog - from Country Living. I love the painted punkies. By the way, since an encounter with an Uxbridge grocery store clerk years ago, it's just too much fun to say Punkin' rather than Pumpkin! Try saying Punkin' out loud yourself...tee hee...

i have a foot duvet!

D. bought me the best surprise this weekend! He went to Restoration Hardware with M&M {his sister and brother-in-law...hee} and found me some Foot Duvets! Seriously...that is what they are called! They are a purdy grey/blue colour, lined with soft fuzzy faux fur and filled with down feathers! They are machine washable and they can even go in the dryer! My feet have never felt cozier. And I really really love the name...gives me a giggle.

j'aime aime

The other day, I noticed the Toronto designer, Aime, on my friend Darlene's facebook page - when I clicked on the link I fell in love. Especially with her dresses. J'aime the cuts of the these dresses in particular...

{all pics from Aime's facebook page)

crew cuts cute

Long gone are the days of turtlenecks and sweatshirts that I threw on as a kid apparently! I recently received a newsletter from Crewcuts {J. Crew's line of kid's clothing} and check out their kid's couture. Not 100% sure yet about dressing kids in adult-like clothing, but I have to admit...these looks are pretty darn adorable!

pro athletes wear pink for breast cancer!

I know it is kind of old news but I'm still tickled pink {hardy har har} about all the pro-athletes wearing pink accents for a game in honour of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. In fact, I read that Chad Ochocinco of the Bengals vowed to continue wearing the pink items for the whole month and when he gets a fine for being “out of uniform” he is going to match the fine with a donation to a breast cancer charity! What a sweetie!

I started looking around and found some pictures of various teams that have been involved. Apparently Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment had a Pink Ribbon Weekend on October 10th including the Toronto Raptors, Toronto Maple Leafs, Toronto Marlies and the Toronto Football Club. I couldn't find many pictures though. But here is what I did find:

John Daly wore pink pants for Phil Mickelson's wife Amy !

Chad Ochochino in his pinks!

Toronto Football Club in pink...cute!

The MLB has pink bats on Mother's Day to bring awareness to breast cancer.

I love this idea...I know it isn't new but I sure do love it. What a great way to bring awareness to a whole new demographic.

a cheerful party design

Last weekend the Bloomers' had a Thanksgiving get-together, and came up with this table design. The idea was something bright, something cheery, something sweet and loverly for the autumn, which can sometimes feel a bit dark and heavy! We used yellow button mums, on a custom made runner using Amy Butler fabric. And delicious (matching, of course) cuppies from The Cupcakery in TO. Yummy...

doily trio?! well that would have been easier!

On my weekly perusal of Urban Outfitters I happened upon their "Doily Trio" that they are selling for $20. And to think of the back breaking work my poor Grandma and Melanie Bloomer went through to connect all our doilies for table runners for the Circus wedding! Do you know how tricky it is to sew flimsy doilies together?! They do NOT like to cooperate!!

See below for a much simpler way to achieve this look...just swipe your credit card and you can walk home happy and with your back and fingers pain free!

I'm not sure I love the exact placement of the picture below {kind of looks TOO much like a grandma house} but I did like the idea of hanging them on your wall like art! I'm going to have to play around with that methinks.

my house is coming, my house is coming!

I drove past my house yesterday and it is now officially a HOLE in the ground. YESSS! I've been waiting for this moment. To know that it will be a home one day, very soon, for me and Craiger, and that we might get to move in in March as scheduled! So more pictures of purty rooms that I like...I have to start thinking about kitchen / dining room, family room, then bedroom and office inspirations. Whew, there's lots to think about! So for the kitchesn above, here are two pics I absolutely love. I love the raw wood antique table mixed with the stark white modern elements in pic 1. I like the cleanliness too...not too many things to collect dust on! I also like the light fixtures, and Iike the dark wood vs white in picture 2. Mix this with the kitchie in my last blog post and I think this is what I want to do - take some elements from each! Do we like??

next stop for miss cuppie: the cupcakery

Miss Cuppie was at it again, and this time I checked out the cupcake goodness at The Cupcakery, near St. Clair and Dufferin in Toronto.

Again, I was really impressed with the sweet decor of this cupcake shop! I loved the pink and black touches, the displays, and the marvellously {is that a word?} coloured icing in bright blues, pinks, and yellows. And were the cuppies delish? You bet ya! I chose a chocolatey treat with caramel icing and was really quite in love. I even bought half a dozen lemon poppyseed cuppies for a cute yellow table design we did on the weekend. The store owned was very sweet and gracious as well.I'll give The Cupcakery 5 out of 5 blooms across the board for all of the important cupcake criteria - visual appeal, eatability and tastiness! Is there really such a thing as a bad cupcake? And the store owner will get 5 out of 5 blooms for niceness too.

If you have any cupcake shop suggestions in and around Toronto, let me know and I will add it to my list!

Wishing you a wonderful weekend!
~The Bloomers

october e-news!

It's that time again...e-newsletter time. Yippee! If you are not on our newsletter list, you can see the latest and greatest here {including the latest installment of Bumbly Bride!}. And if you want to start receiving our newsletter, send us an email and we'll be happy to add you to our ever-growing mailing list!

you, me and dupree wedding dress...how it was made!

I've been meaning to do this post forever! We documented the creation of my Kate Hudson/You, Me and Dupree inspired wedding dress and wanted to share it with you all. It was a long process but the end result was absolutely perfect...besides having to walk a bit like a geisha...and everything I imagined for a breezy beach wedding!

{SIDENOTE: Since it was a dance costume shop that my seamstress worked at, the only time they could fit me in for fittings was around 8:30 am on Saturday mornings...please excuse my ugly, pale, pasty, tiredness...you wouldn't look good either after driving 40 minutes through snow and rain storms to get to your appointment at 8:30 am on a Saturday morning!!!}

So, to begin, after I initially went to talk with my very pregnant seamstress, Kristen Whitham, at Unique Dancewear & More Inc. about my desired dress, she took measurements and then I went in for my first fitting. Gotta say, was not quite the dress I had in mind!! She assured me this was trial of the lining of the dress in a very inexpensive fabric. Basically this was the template to make sure the structure would support the rest of the dress. Phew...

But then she showed me the fabric and I was happy and was able to imagine what it was going to end up looking like! It was a shiny silk lining with a very light, matte, sheer silk top layer. It was so beautiful!

Then came the second fitting. The right fabric, the right idea, but a little bit too much material! I felt like I was playing dress-up in someone else's dress!

So this was where I got the geisha idea!! Yes it looks good in the pictures, but a nice straight line does not make for easy walking! Oh the price we pay for fashion...

Third fitting...we added some sneaky straps that I could tuck into the dress in case I needed the extra security when dancing. In the end I didn't need them but I thought we were pretty clever!

In this fitting I still felt like there was too much fabric in the lower half, and also in an effort to put as little fabric as possible into the dress due to the impending Israeli heat, we attempted a shorter, thigh-length lining. However we noticed that you could actually see it and it cut-off the beautiful line of the dress making it yucky...crap!! So I ended up paying more money to have them add more expensive silk material to the lining so it went down to the floor.

I don't have pictures of the fourth fitting unfortunately but with the added length to the lining, as well having the excess fabric taken out, it looked like the dress I had wanted. However, when I got it home and tried it on again, I realized how hot that floor length silk lining was and started to freak out! This wasn't the light, airy dress I had in mind! But then Grandma Bloomer saved the day...taking a huge risk, she cut off the silk addition they had just added and re-attached one of those $5 flimsy slips with the bit of lace at the bottom that you can buy at Walmart, and low and behold it did the trick! No ugly line, light and airy and a whopping $195 cheaper than the wasted fabric addition!! Oh Grandma Bloomer, you're my hero. Totally wish I had mentioned this problem to her before I paid the $200 extra for fabric I didn't need!

Voila! The finished product...light and breezy and perfect! Couldn't have been happier...