Vintage Tea Party Photo Shoot

My very creative friend Kiah from Stephens Photography organised some local ladies to work together to help promote our businesses, so on Monday a group of us met to put together a vintage tea party photo shoot

I was asked to style the photoshoot and I was so excited!

It was fantastic getting my ideas together and planning for the big day.

Unfortunately we live in Orange and getting a nice day at this time of the year is pretty tricky so after a few postponements we finally went ahead and bit the bullet

As you can see from my behind the scenes photos it was pretty gloomy and cold! I started setting up about 1pm and I was praying for the wind to die down a bit, hanging the lanterns was easier when they weren't swinging around wildly.

Our models were all so excited, I guess for them it was like one big party and yes they did get to eat all of those yummy treats at the end, I may even have sampled an oreo cake pop too :-)

 The models were all so professional and braved the cold, mummies were on hand to wrap them up in between photos and I think they all looked so adorable.

Kiah's photos look fantastic, she has done a great job off capturing the girls having fun and showing off all of our products at the same time.

You can pop over to Stephens Photography album here to have a look at the photos so far, they really are fabulous and there is a great one of my foot stool I featured last week.

All the lovely ladies involved are listed below:

Photography by Kiah from Stephens Photography


Styling by Nellie McCarthy from McCarthy Designs & Occasions


The delicious candy bar and pink lemonade beverage stand was supplied and decorated by  Kristy from Candy Chic


The outfits were handmade by the very talented Toni from Two Little Chimps


Each individual headband was designed and put together by Kylie from Madeleine Designs Hair Acessories


Cake was made by Barb Last from Barb Last Cakes


Our beautiful models are - Holly, Abby, McKenna, Allera, Eliza and Sienna.

Blue & Green Art - Giveaway

Last night I was experimenting with some paper doilies and paint in preparation for a photo shoot that I am styling soon (very exciting!!!)

So I got through painting  the yellow doilies

Then as I was mixing the turquoise paint I got a little distracted

I just loved the colour, 

it was so pretty, 

so I grabbed some canvas and painted it, 

as you do :-)

I liked the streaks in the paint showing the different shades of colour so I left the canvas just like that and went back to my original job, 

Unfortunately I was a little distracted and tried to rush my doily painting and left the doily on the paper in the same spot I painted it so most of them have stuck to the newspaper and I will have to start again, doh! 

That'll teach me for getting distracted.

The yellow ones are ok, 

probably because I hadn't gotten distracted yet :-)

Anyway, back to last night. 

After I rushed through the turquoise doilies I grabbed some of this

Mixed in a little of the paint and grabbed some more of these

and ended up with this

I am really happy with how they turned out and I just love the colour. 

The thing is I have no where to put them. 

So I want one of my lovely friends to have them. 

Each canvas measures 15 x 15cm 

and you can have the set of three.

Just leave a comment on this post and I will announce the new owner of an original "McCarthy Design" 

:-)

on Monday.

Oh and one last thing, I usually try and spend my weekend computer free for the most part but I have so many gorgeous pics and some great quotes that I find during the week that I would love to share. So I think that I will make Saturday my "Favourite Pic of the Week" day and Sunday can be my "Wise Words of the Week" day.

What do you think?

Have a great weekend and for those of you lucky enough to have a long one. Enjoy!

xx


PS. Giveaway is open to anyone, just leave a comment and make sure I have a way to contact you.

Guest bloggers welcome!

Yesterday I mentioned that I would like to start a regular post for guest bloggers. To start with I will be asking everyone the same 10 questions so that we can all get to know you each other a little better :-)

Thank you to the wonderful ladies who have responded already and offered to be involved. That's great and I am so excited. 

You don't need to have your own business and it doesn't matter whether you have been blogging for years or you have only started, I would love to hear from you and have you participate.

If you are interested send me an email to nellie@mccarthydesigns.com.au

Thank you to everyone who had a look at my Event Styling section on my website. I really appreciate your feedback and your comments gave me a lot to think about.

Last night I spent many hours researching Wordpress and different options for hosting my blog and my store both on my own domain and at this stage I have decided to leave it all as it. I have added some pages to my blog and some new ones to the store that feature some photos of my work. I will be adding more as I go but having only just started my own business I am not sure that I will be able to find many of different events :-(

I am not thrilled with the options I have on my store to display photos but I will keep working on it. It is probably a case of the user not the website :-)

xx

PS. I have a giveaway running on my Face book page, for more details visit here 

Before and After - Dining Room Hutch

How was your weekend? Mine was lovely. I got to have lots of cuddles with my new niece Eden, She is so sweet 

Today I spent the morning getting the Event Styling Section of my website up and running and would love it if you could have a look and let me know what you think? 

Please?

http://www.mccarthydesigns.com.au/collections/event-styling-services

Lately I have spent a lot of time planning and thinking of what I want for the future, for my business, my blog and me personally and I have decided on a few directions I want to take. As I go I will be sharing them with you and I would love to hear what you think as I do :-)

Firstly I thought I would start a regular guest posting series, a get to know you and what you do post. I want to start doing these on a fortnightly basis but you never know if I get a lot of interest, I may run them weekly ;-)

So please if you are interested in participating and promoting your blog send me an email to

nellie@mccarthydesigns.com.au

I would love to feature all of my friends, old and new so please don't be shy. I promise I won't ask you hard questions and it will be fun :-)

The photos, above feature my dining hutch after I painted it white, I have a thing for white just in case you didn't realise

Now the before.........

What do you think? Original (timber) or after (white)? 

I love the after myself but what do you think?

Have a great week and please let me know if you would like to guest post for me on my blog, I'd love to hear from you. 

xx

I couldn't finish without sharing a photo of my beautiful niece Eden, so sweet.

Green and White

Thank you for your lovely comments on my new mixer yesterday.

I was very spoilt and I am very thankful. A few of you noticed that my mixer has a glass bowl. I believe you can upgrade to the Platinum Collection and it comes with the glass bowl. I asked for this one as I often forget to take the butter out of the fridge so it can soften and being lazy I can pop it into the glass bowl and straight into the microwave to soften rather than having to use another dish.  I know, I am very lazy.

Not only did I get very spoilt on Sunday with my lovely gifts but my wonderful husband and son hosted Mother's Day lunch for some of our family. It was really lovely to sit back and catch up with family while the boys cooked, served and cleaned up.

My contribution was the table setting and decor. Last week I mentioned that I had decided on a green, white, silver and a bit of black for my theme.

It turned out beautifully and the Chrysanthemums are still going strong and looking lovely except for where they got burnt by the candles :-( 

Definitely need to keep that in mind, don't have the candles too close to the flowers.

I experimented with my place cards/tags and used some leftover chalkboard paint. I painted both sides of the cardboard tags and they worked wonderfully. You can wipe them clean and use them again and again.

I used some mason jars as vases and decorated them with some paper doilies then placed them together onto a silver tray for my centrepiece.

 What do you think did it turn out ok?

xx

Mother's Day Inspiration

Earlier in the week I popped into the florist and spotted theses gorgeous large white chrysanthemums. I am sorry I can't remember the name of them but they looked like this.

http://www.lovelyfotos.com/p-white-chrysanthemum/

Aren't they beautiful? On the spur of the moment I ordered some for our Mother's Day lunch. I had no idea what I was going to do but they were so pretty! To be safe I ordered white and figured that when I decided on a colour I could just see what the florist had on the day and add them.

http://flowerpics.net/chrysanthemum-flower/white-chrysanthemum-flower.html 

I went searching for inspiration and have decided on white and green, silver and a bit of black. 

Classic, stylish and green is my favourite colour!

http://pinterest.com/rachelrechner/  

Nick & Nicholas get to cook and I get to decorate! 

Best combination if you ask me :-)

http://www.marthastewartweddings.com/231097/white-wedding-centerpieces/@center/272498/centerpieces 

http://www.doityourself.com/stry/creative-wedding-decor#b

http://www.projectwedding.com/wedding-ideas/diy-wedding-challenge-2010-fabric-flower

What are your plans for Mother's Day? 

After church we are hosting lunch for my mum, my sister and her family, hopefully my other sister and her boyfriend, possibly Nick's Sister and her family and maybe Nick's Nan & Pop.

Life happens and unfortunately some may not make it but it will be nice if they can.

We picked up my nephew last night and he is staying with us until Sunday so I am looking forward to a few busy fun filled days!

Enjoy the rest of your week.

xx

Rich and Pip's Wedding Day

I had the pleasure of decorating my friends wedding reception on the weekend, I think I may have been more nervous than the bride but it all worked and it was a wonderful day.

Despite the nerves I had a wonderful time and I am so thankful that it is something I can do for a living.

If you like what you see and you have an event coming up please contact me.

Now that I have done my little promo enjoy  the photos :-)

and the happy couple

If you want to see a little more pop on over here to check out Jo's blog - Country Life Experiment.


I just discovered Jo's blog as she was at the wedding!


What a small world!


xx