I want an Orangutan in a tuxedo

Hey secret readers! ;)

I've been doing alot of wedding 'stuff' lately, so thought I'd give you guys an update.

As you know I'm getting married in the lovely Oakfield Manor at Chester Zoo, and we took a trip there on Saturday to collect lots of maps for the guests and dropped into the manor to measure up tables for the dessert/candy buffet.

I was previously told I was unable to hang anything in there (can't start pinning things up!) So I was a little gutted about not using my tissue paper pom poms I've been practising. Not to mention I already bought a TON of tissue paper.

But when I had the chance for a sneaky closer look, some small nails have been left in all around the tops of the panelling - I can use my pom poms!! Yay!
I was talking about alternate decorations which didn't require hanging, and could only come up with balloons, I didn't really want them as I just think they are more for 'parties' (apart from the foil animal balloons...you may see a few of those! lol) My Dad was saying he had some helium spare, but the only things I have to inflate, are some inflatable toys for the disco:

Can you imagine one of these floating around the roof of the Manor?
'Jeez how much did I have to drink...theres floating monkeys!!'
Or the staff may come barging in with nets thinking one of the chimps had escaped and is clambering around on the light fittings lol

But I'm glad we can have the poms, these are the colours of tissue paper I have got for them:

Aptly named 'Halloween' colours (its over a month before Halloween) but I LOVE that time of year. Ghouls, slashers, boney skeletons, zombies!

We also found a great plain panelled wall for the candy buffet back drop, which I'm majorly chuffed about. Until now I was wondering how to make things work, where things would fit, so I'm glad I took the time to sneak in and have a look around. The woman there (who we found out was going to be doing the decorating for our wedding) was awesome! She was so excited about our themes and ideas that she couldn't wait to get started. Its a HUGE weight off my mind.

I also took a quick picture of the face painting options for the guests on the day ;) (guests who are reading this...which one are you going to be? lol)

I know a few chimps that wont even need their faces painting ha ha.
My faves have to be the tiger and red panda.


The sun was out with a bit of a breeze, Mrs Mother Nature, can you do the same on the 2nd September please?
We had a walk round some of the hidden gardens Chester Zoo has, to look for nice picture locations. There were flowers EVERYWHERE.

They have a small 'Chinese' Garden straight across from Oakfield Manor

A roman garden round the side of Oakfield

And an AMAZING sunken garden with lots of water features which I've always heard about, but never seen! I purposely hunted it down with the map and its across from the giant otters, so just a short walk from Oakfield too!

I'm hoping for some pictures with animals as backdrop too!
How awesome are the pink flamingos on this one:

Squeeeeee!

We had more of a wander around until we came across a familiar spot. Right at the meerkats was a fence I recognised, but something was missing. A certain bench Adam had sat on 8 years ago on our very first day trip out together:

So I took a picture of him in the same spot to compare. How much has he changed (and the fence lol) in 8 years! I cant even remember going out with the guy on the left. He has no goatee, more hair, one chin and is slimmer LOL But I wouldn't change the 2012 Adam for the world...well maybe his smelly feet - but I'm living with it.
It would be great to go back to 2004 for the day just to remember what it was like, look at his little boy face :D

*sigh*

On the wedding day when the zoo is closed to the public we get to go on a little 'safari' to an animal house of our choice, and to stop at a few enclosures on the way. We are pretty much 95% decided on the Jaguar house. They said they keep a piece of meat back to throw for them to ensure you CAN actually see them! lol And the best part is there will only be the guests there, so they wont be fighting tooth and nail to get a glimpse. I had heard about abit of renovation going on in there, where they had installed an aquarium so I went to be nosey.

Its glass the entire way to the floor, and is half filled with water for the turtles to get out onto logs. The kids there were very taken with it so that should keep them occupied! They have also put the ants back in on their tree stump. But couldn't see them on the day :(

I'm torn between the Jaguars and the Giraffes, because I LOVE giraffes. Adam likes Gorilla's but Chester doesn't have them.

On the way back to the entrance I spotted the most awesome little hut in the Zoo....the 'Animal Workshop'.
Its JUST like Build-a-Bear workshop!

Build a bear workshop:

 For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, you choose an unstuffed bear, and you literally build it! You stuff it, put special things inside, it gets stitched up and then you choose from a TON of outfits and accessories for your new creation along with its 'birth certificate'.

 The Zoo's version was just as cool (if alot smaller!), and I spotted THE most cute Orangutan and Zebra ever. As I was browsing a few of the outfits on offer I spotted a white wedding dress and a black tux! So Adam has been told we WILL be building soft toys on our wedding day ha ha. Its such an awesome keepsake for the day, and I'll be sure to dress the Orangutan in the tux, and not the dress ;)

We headed into Chester centre after that to have a look around. We were looking for 'Mother of the bride' outfits that were abit more casual than all the taffeta stuff (aswell as them being cheaper too!) Our groomsmen are hopefully going to be comfy in their outfits. We are aiming for relaxed and not too formal, like this:

So we don't need the mother of the bride in a giant hat and taffeta that makes her look like shes off to eat caviar with her little pinky finger stuck up at a royals wedding. She will stick out a mile against the informal feel of the day :)
But as she's so picky, its going to take a while for us to find her something.

I still have LOTS of wedding stuff to do. Seeing as I'm making everything single handedly and most of it DIY I'm trying to fit jobs in here and there between cakes. Yesterday I got on with making some signs for the candy buffet. Hopefully you will see things like this crop up:

Just to fit in with the day :)

My next job is making all the order of service packs, making more animal chocolates, cupcakes toppers, more pom poms, no doubt more invites, spraying wicker baskets, photoframes, wedding cake, and then will probably have to help Adam with his ONLY ONE JOB he has been allocated.....writing his speech! Just a never ending list.

But the service packs are the fun part, adding maps, bubbles and one part of the favours in etc. Should have pictures of those for you soon :)

But for now I will leave you with some pictures I have saved on my comp as a kind of 'mood board' for the day:

Bye guys! xx

Dirk

It was Adam's birthday on Sunday! and that can only mean one thing.....more cake!

I had 3 designs in mind, one of which was to revisit a really old cake design (Adams 21st birthday cake infact) It was Bender from  the show Futurama. I would love to see how I made it now with the skills Ive learnt since making him the first time. My original Bender was unstable, leaning, and he eventually fell backwards with a 'thump' off the cake.

The 2nd idea I'm going to have to keep to myself just in case I use it for next year ;) lol

And the 3rd idea which won, was a zombie cake. Now regular readers of this blog, or people who personally know Adam will know he HATES horror, hates any sort of horror related programme and film and his worse nightmare (has admittedly said) Zombies are his phobia. Chalk and cheese comes to mind - I cant get enough of horror!
So wouldn't it be really cruel of me to make his nightmares come reality in cake form? mwahahaha.

In my defence though, I made it for a reason. Although he poops his pants at every zombie film going (when I can force him to watch one - which is not often) he actually became really fond of the show 'The Walking Dead'.

Now I found this REALLY weird. Out of all the other horror things like vampires, werewolves, slashers and monsters he chose to watch a programme containing his most hated undead friends.
I think he enjoys following the storyline more than anything (whereas I'm the opposite and just want to see someone get their stomach ripped out lol) and the episode where Dale gets attacked has been the one with the most lasting impression on him. So much so that even when the scene changes from people sat at camp, to them walking in a field it will make him jump!? WTF?! lol

Anyhoo, we haven't missed one episode,  he cant wait for season 3, and I wasn't passing the chance to make a zombie cake.....so Dirk was born.

I went on such a journey creating Dirk, I turned bipolar and went through every emotion possible.
I hated him, then I loved him, then I wanted to rip his head off and dropkick him out the front door, then I wanted to eat his brains....

Its not something I would do again in a hurry, but I would try something similar again one day - hopefully when I have more time to work on it properly and not 1 day!

I got inspiration from the new season 2 special boxset which I came across:

I didn't want to make him the same though as I was excited about making my 'own' zombie :D

So lets see some progress shots....there aren't many! I was too busy stamping up and down the kitchen between stages. Here he is 'padded' out with collar bones etc and just started ripping his lip off :)

Next I added clothes and started abit of shading along with his 'open' eye :)

For this eye I was inspired by what I would say was the freakiest zombie in the entire 2 seasons. It wasn't the huge fat one down the well:

It wasn't the iconic half a zombie:

Nor was it any of the really gruesome ones:

It was this dude:

Not many open wounds, no disfigurement and not much gore....but that face, the painful expression, skinny body and the way he walked aimlessly with those very much soul searching eyes made him one of my favourite zombies from the show.

*shivers*

I would have probably had an eye very similar as when I was making the zombies ragged shirt I bent down and almost skewered my own eye on the stick protruding from Dirks other eye socket! Can you imagine walking into A&E with me carrying a zombie and a stick connecting us both by the eyeball, I wouldn't have known how to explain that one!

So after much more painting, blood splatting, and adding drool to his mouth Dirk was complete.

The Walking Dead Cake

Some close ups too. If your already grossed out and a nervous wreck from all the above I don't think you should scroll down lol

Dripping blood and smashed up cheek bone:

Ripped lip

Mine would have probably looked like this on the end of a stick! lol

What did the birthday boy think of his cake?.....

eating braiiiiiiiinss

Then I decided I was going to create a video, so I shot some footage of Dirk, closeups, moving round the cake etc But by the time I had put it into the computer, I didn't have the software to work with AVCHD. Bummer....so I just put together a slideshow instead :

Abbi is TERRIFIED of the zombie noises he he he

Then Dirk took a knife to the shoulder...

This would be me carrying it into A&E....if you were doctor what the hell would you say to this walking through the door?!

I would change loads of things if I ever made him again, but I always do that with each cake!

The best part? Giving Adam a nightmare about Zombies, and Dirk - even in cake form give Adam the willies when he turned the kitchen light off, looked back and saw Dirk sat in the darkness with just the outline of his eye staring back at him. It was one of those *I'm the last person downstairs at bedtime so turn the light off and run up the stairs as fast as you can because something might chase me* moments :D

Dirk was given his name by a lovely lady on my facebook page, so many suggestions rolled in which nearly made me spit my Vimto on the monitor. Jeeves, Fred, and Seymore Brains were among the suggestions, but Dirk won....he just looks like a Dirk, and reminds me of the word dork :)

SOOO the next day (now Sunday) We headed to Blackpool for the circus (Remember Kai's birthday letter from March? Yep...killing two birds with one stone)

We headed to Coral Island for a carvery, one of the best carveries ever, followed by a treat of melted fudge cake = stuffed!

Then we had a bit of time to kill in Blackpool tower, so we headed to the balconies of the ballroom

I found this painting on the roof rather freaky! A hazy blue pointed hat wearing demon looking creature at the side of the Olympic torch holding couple (yes sarcastic!) with a Wizard holding a flaming bowl of soup warding away 2 evil spirits.

Kai's big head

Circus time! We found some seats and took a couple of sneaky shots

This next picture was my mum being threatened by Adam. 'You better have not told Mooky (the clown) its my birthday, I'm not getting up...they are not singing to me, I will kill you if you've done anything, have you done anything?' Then he turned to me waggling his finger and saying the same thing 'I will seriously fall out with you if they come up to me!' ha ha ha

The interval arrived and it was 'birthday shout out time' The whole time Adam sat looking out the corner of his eyes and drumming his fingers. He was safe, though now I'm wishing I really HAD told Mooky about his birthday :) lol

£1.50 facepaint...I could have done better with my eyeliner and lipstick out of my bag

Here are the stars of the show Mooky and Mr Boo. Adam loves these two more than the kids :S

Awesome show at the circus, you all need to go and check it out!
Then we had just enough time to ride on the donkeys! (well I didn't...But Abbi and Kai did)

And no trip to Blackpool is complete without a face cut-out

Right that's me done for today...I'm off to eat the rest of Dirks Braiiiiiinnnnnssssss