Exciting New Arrivals!

It’s been a busy Bank Holiday Monday… but very exciting to add a couple of new arrivals to my Etsy shop!

First up I finally created the Doctor Who Bouquet I’d been dreaming up in my head. It contains 11 flowers (one for each Doctor) and I had so much fun designing paper to represent each of them.

I also finished the gorgeous Strawberry Dream bouquet that I made with some gorgeous paper I’d bought from Paperchase a while ago and some cute little strawberry buttons.

For more photos and if you’d like to buy either bouquet head over to Bright by Design on Etsy now!

Exciting times ahead!

After the Starry Eyed post last week I wanted to tell you a bit more about the exciting things coming up with the blog move.

First things first though! Drum roll! (you need to imagine me standing by a ribbon with a big pair of scissors for this bit…)

The Bright by Design Etsy shop
is NOW OPEN

Woohoooooooo!!! It’s all set up ready for you to contact me about bespoke flowers and bouquets for every type of wedding, event and occasion. There’s a couple of stock bouquets there too if you’re in a rush. Over the next few weeks there’s some exciting and inventive bouquets coming, as well as party accessories, photobooth props and invitations. Of course I’ll let you know on this blog (and Twitter & Facebook) when new things are in stock so you can take a peek for yourself!

More exciting news… and a bit of an experiment! 

As I mentioned before there’s going to be party themes… and if you head on over to Bright by Design on Pinterest you can find out what the first four weeks blogs are going to be filled with! From the 14th May a new board will be added each week!

Now for the experiment bit! I’ve noticed on Pinterest boards that you can add contributors, and that’s just what I’d like to do! If you have a Pinterest account (or sign up for one) you can contribute to Bright by Design Pinterest boards, help them to grow, discover new stuff and something you pin might just end up in a blog during the theme week!

To get involved email me with:

1. Your Pinterest username

2. If you’d like to be added as a contributor to ALL boards or just specific ones (e.g. let me know if you’d only like to be added as a contributor to the HOLLYWOOD board)

And I’ll add you as a contributor asap! Once you’re set up pin away, and we’ll see what happens!!!

Fabulous Fairtrade

It’s Fairtrade Fortnight and this years campaign is Take A Step. What better way to take a step than incorporate Fairtrade into your wedding? I have some ideas of how you can get started…

Wearing Fairtrade

You can wear Fairtrade and look amazing! Tammam are leading the way with a couture collection and bespoke dresses too. They have a very clear and detailed ethical policy so you can be sure that your dress is fairtrade. My favourite dress is the Lilly (below), but if you want something unique they can make a bespoke dress to your design.

Ethical Fairtrade Wedding Dress (Lilly) by Tammam

And if you want fabulous shoes to match then check out Fashion Conscience who have environmental and ethical policies about all the lines they stock. I love these Beyond Skin sandals (which just happen to be on sale!)

Beyond Skin Silver Poppy Heel Sandals from Fashion Conscience (£110.80)

Fairtrade Cakes

It seems the easiest way to get a Fairtrade cake is to find a cake maker you like and ask them to use fairtrade products e.g. sugar, dried fruit, cocoa and chocolate. If you want to make your cake yourself then you can find a list of fairtrade products and who stocks them on the Fairtrade website.

If you want to find a company who is committed to using fairtrade, free range and local ingredients you could start by looking at the cakes directory on the Natural Wedding Company.

Fairtrade Cake by Mrs Gatenby's Bakery (found via The Natural Wedding Company)

Fairtrade Flowers

Back in 2007 Ethical Weddings did a Fairtrade Fortnight Wedding Challenge, but they struggled to find options for flowers. Unfortunately that doesn’t seem to have improved in five years, with only one or two local florists in the UK offering fairtrade options for bridal bouquets (if you have any links to fairtrade florists please let me know so I can update this post)

Just because you can’t get fresh fairtrade flowers for your wedding doesn’t mean you can’t get a fairtrade bouquet. There are plenty of alternative options, and I’ve set myself a little challenge. Over the next week I’ll make a fairtrade paper flower bouquet and at the end of the week I’ll put it up for sale and the profits will go to the Fairtrade Innovation Fund.

Fairtrade Wrapping Paper from Traidcraft

Yesterday I started by hunting out materials. I popped into town to our local tradecraft shop in Durham and picked up some fabulous paper (above). I then spent ages hunting out fairtrade buttons, there are some gorgeous Injabulo buttons available, but they didn’t fit with the paper, so I ended up finding some handmade brass beads from Ghana.

The results will be up next Wednesday… but I’ll pop some pictures on Facebook & Twitter to give you a behind the scenes look at my progress!

Do you have any Fairtrade wedding ideas to share? Leave your comments below…