Just Say 'Yes'

So on Saturday night we finally held our engagement party in Glasgow in a wee pub venue where we danced, tripped, thanked and, most importantly, ATE.

It was a wonderful night, I got to spend it with some of the most important people in my life. Old, new and ancient friends sat all around us, alongside family and the 'other halfs' which had been dragged along for the ride! 

I'm a big believer in a group effort. It may the Italian blood in me. But with the contribution of family and friends helping cook, bake and make decorations, there were plenty to reasons to be thankful, and a great excuse to publicly embarrass them with gifts at the party! 

Future sister-in-law and bridesmaid, Amy, giving my wee maw her big bunch of flowers. Thanks for giving birth to me (and making two out of four lasagna's for the occasion!)

I've been part of four weddings in the past, so from experience I know there's no better feeling than knowing you've contributed to someone's special day. This is why Iansy and I wanted to get as many people involved in this party as possible; it's how we want our wedding to be, and it's how we want to live our lives...You just can't do it alone, and why on earth would you want to? With all the amazing people who surround you everyday, it would be daft to not make the most of them - and get them working for their
buffet!

That moment when you know you've embarrassed somebody good and proper...

Big shout out for Iansy Preston! Beautiful speech, from the heart, something I know I couldn't do into a microphone. A lot of people are skeptical about an engagement party. I know I used to be. It seemed a weird  thing to celebrate something that hadn't happened yet.

But as Iansy said in his speech "It's the biggest thing we've ever done, and by far the best, and we wanted to celebrate with you all." 

 A wee cheeky cheesy dance to our song...yeah, we're one of those couples who have a song.

But we also had little paper cut-outs of ourselves on the table. 

We're happy with who we are.

My AMAZING in-laws to be! Iansy with his parents and sister Amy. 

What a good looking bunch. 

My wee da, who had a hypoglycemic attack just before the party but still managed to arrive and look damn good in that suit. The man cannot be stopped <3

 These people know how to eat a buffet. I mean, party.

I love and appreciate you all... 

My big bro Carlo and sister-in-law Laura who provided 1 lasagna and 1 awesome cheesecake (so I'm told as I was not quick enough to get any!)

Big bro Michele and sister-in-law Charlene who provided home-made sausage rolls which were NOM and are still making me happy today...

Me with top lass, and bridesmaid to be, Ayden. As well as helping out with the party baking, decorating AND looking after my presents all night, she also gave me and Iansy the fantastic gift of a wee spa session at the luscious Bythswood Hotel.

She's a good egg! 

 Iansy, his sister and her glass of wine have a wee spin on the dancefloor! 

And if there's any trouble...

BIG PHIL will sort ye! 

(Who would have thought snapping an innocent pic of my dad straightening his collar could be so dangerous?!)

We are awfully thankful to everybody who turned up and celebrated with us, and those who were made-of-awesome enough to give us the further gift of giving a gift!

Money and vouchers will keep our wee home going, and possibly go towards the big day if we can hurry up and choose somewhere.

Just some of the truly awesome and thoughtful gifts we have received from friends and family. 

And with the engagement party past it's time to get onto the real business of organizing a wedding! Something I've been warned about by all my sister-in-laws married to my brothers...but surely my experience in organizing short films and art department will give me a wee head start.

Personally I couldn't be more excited. I've got three amazing girlies to help with the journey, and an even more amazing fiance to make the scary phone-calls, horsey-pat my nose when I'm being a bitch, feed me Doritos when I'm stressed, and take them away when I'm feeling fat. 

He is a good lad, and I can't imagine anything more exciting than our future right now. Wedding, adventures, hard work, and kids are on the horizon, and all the troubles in life that you can't avoid. But they don't seem so bad with a big strong set of shoulders to cry on. 

Love you, Iansy. 

Roll on 2013 :) 

Xx

"And the old despair that was often there suddenly ceases to be. For you wake one day, look around and say 'Somebody wonderful married me'." - Cabaret

Spreading the Love (and Chocolate)

Another hugely busy week, full of baking, painting and making. It occurred to me earlier that my life could easily be described as a life of hobbies...especially this week, as I've been thoroughly bitten by the baking bug, and have used it to get me through the endless hours of arts and crafts involved in making my brother's wedding invitations. 

But more of that later! Let's recap with the latest news from the Stepps Nazi bunker...

It's been another prep week mostly for me - the biggest jobs are still priming areas, artexing, and 'shuttering' concrete (adding some artex lines to the walls) I've got mixed feelings about these kinds of jobs. On the one hand, sometimes there's no better feeling than that your work is cut out for you, and you've everything you need to be kept going all day - it was a it like that for me with the pipes, and it's same with artexing. It's a low-pressure job where you can lose yourself in the work for a bit, allow your mind to wander, and I can sometimes find some peace of mind during these times. However, there is the obvious down side that it can be tedious after a length of time, and a problem perhaps more specific to this job, but staying still for too long can result in painfully numb extremities. 

But on Thursday I got a bit of a break from all that to go do a wee cheeky bit of finishing! :D I was really excited to get my teeth into something which required a bit more thought, and I was able to be fussy about what I was doing because it was the finished piece. I was, however, surprised when I got a tiny touch of 'the fear'! That moment when you suddenly become doubtful of everything about you and your abilities, and you've no idea why you're in that position of responsibility, because really you're quite daft, untalented, inexperienced and generally unpleasant. 

It passed. I carried on. 

What's life without a little panic?

One of the reasons I love scenic art is because I can usually find a lot of joy in simple parts of the job. Like how whenever I dipped my brush into this wash, a few minutes later when I glanced back, the most incredible, beautiful shapes would be slowly swirling in the bucket...

Looking at our tea breaks this week, you'd think we'd been breeding. Our scenic team went from four to ten, including some first years from the RSAMD, and my fellow scenic major 3rd year, blogger and general banter chum, JoAnne. She came for a few days to help Gary carve out a giant mine shaft, which was at the end of our tunnel of love where many hours of shuttering, and manoeuvring heaters for 'light' was had.

It was a good week. I've become a it in awe of the professional carpenters, probably because it's something which I will never be able to do. It's hard to believe that next week is my 4th...it's flown by. 

Considering the fact that I am out the flat for 11 hours a day, an amazing amount has happened in my personal life this week! The most exciting being the additions to our little family...that's right, congratulations are in order - we have two baby dwarf hamsters! 

Introducing B-Bop

and Rock Steady

A life-long dream of Iansy's and I like them too. :) I know there are a lot of cynics...but these two little creatures are really different and loads of fun! B-Bop is mental - he likes to nibble anything he comes into contact with, even his house and he enjoy gymnastics in his spare time...

Rock Steady is a bit more mellow, and a lot more skittish. He's still a bit scared of us, but we'll win him over. We like narrating their life for them :)

They're only two weeks old, and Iansy's new favourite thing in the whole world. They will be well loved and adored. 

This week I also embarked on a new baking adventure, inspired by Lorraine Pascale a la 'Baking Made Easy'   and her AMAZING looking brownies. I decided I would make some for my brother's birthday as he's a choc fiend. The recipe is perfection, easy as promised and they look as fantastic as they taste...

Nothing like ig chunks of Oreos to make you go 'OOFT'

Highly recommended to anybody with a gooey chocolatey sweet tooth...they've gone down a treat. And honestly, very easy to make, although if you want my advice I would make sure you get a good dark chocolate as it makes all the difference with brownies. Recipe! Enjoy :)

My week's also been filled with finishing the invites for my brother's and future sister-in-law's wedding. I've been working on them on and off for weeks, but this weekend I ploughed through and got them mostly finished. It's been many hours of double-sided sticky tape, ribbon, and scrapbook mish-mash invites...I think they're looking quite nice - and though I do enjoy this sort of thing, I'll be glad when they're out of my hands and I can check that one massive job well and truly off my to-do list. 

Other highlights of the weekend include a visit doon to Hamilton to see some of the Cocozza clan, and give the gift of chocolate brownies to brother Cocozza, and spend a bit of time with my newest nephew Cocozza :)

Franco with his daddy

Franco blue eyes <3

So sad to be watching football

Biscuits make it all better :)

We love a Friday night mud mask

Shall endeavour to blog at least once more before the weekend - it'll save from these mammoth posts every Saturday or Sunday :D

Up this week: back to the Academy for an Albert Herring paint call on Wednesday, and my super elite team of 2nd years come for some bunker action. 

Stay tuned :)

Xx

"Cos without love, life is like the seasons with no summer. Without love, life is rock and roll without a drummer. Darling, I'll be yours forever cos I never want to be without love. So darling, never set me free."

- Hairspray

Artex, Artex, Pipe, Artex, Biscuits, Artex, Artex < 3

Greetings from Outpost 2!

 

I've had a really brilliant time on my work placement this week. Give me artex, pipes and poo-lookalike paint everyday of my life and I'll be a happy, happy lass. 

The majority of work so far has been prep work: priming and basing paint, initial texture coats which will be worked into later with washes, sprays and dry brushing. Boring or tedious work to some, but I actually get a lot of enjoyment out of priming set. Sometimes it's lovely just to have your work cut out for you, everything you need to get on with a job, and the only thing to think about is how much you can get done

This was the first half of my week, with a hundred million pipes to paint. (OK, fine, but there's was at least over a hundred) Most were old cardboard tubes, and all had to get their first coat of 'rust' - brown paint which looked remarkably like sewage pipes had got confused about how they work...

It's paint and sawdust, I swear!

Poop Pipes...

Pre-poo pipes

 Rest assured! They're going to look amazing when they're finished - but that's still a bit away. The foundation of scenic art is layers. It was a big job, but I was not alone - I had Christine there for moral pipe support, although it was mostly too noisy to chat. I sang the entire score of Evita to myself several times like the happy bunny I was. Sometimes I replaced words with 'pipes'. Sometimes I sang to the pipes, they sometimes would duet with me. Maybe Lynsey was right to take me away from them...

More pipes

Christine gettin' in aboot some
pipes

As the chippy's fire up walls all around us, we're chasing them brandishing our buckets of artex and massive scrapers. There's a huge amount of set still to be erected and it all awaits our magic artex touch. The original set from Outpost is almost finished, and soon it'll be onto the super-secret new sets. I'm constantly really impressed with people on this job, and a bit in awe of the sheer skill, knowledge and competency I'm seeing all the time. It's amazing how much happens in one week. I'm proud to be part of it for my work placement.

Which is why I was unreasonably excited when Lynsey asked me if I would want to do a little bit of set by myself! YAY. Can't disclose too much (hush hush, secrets and lies) but it's the little project a girl on placement sings about! A good opportunity to take something from start to finish, and I'm so excited to get my teeth into it. Did give it a wee start on Friday, and it should be finished on Monday. 

Geeze a wash!

The warehouse is still cold, and I'm still rocking the multi-layers, but the temperature is increasing slowly as more walls and ceilings go up. Good news, because last weeks paint was taking up to 5 days to dry, which simply isn't good enough! But we all agree the best part of the day is unpeeling all the layers of clothes and feeling very good about how thin we look.

This Wednesday we also had a little birthday celebration as Iansy turned 24! Ooft, he's a real sugar daddy now. A budget birthday was in order. We were both working, but in the evening I gave him a wee prezzie, and took him out to the City Merchant, Glasgow's oldest seafood restaurant (he got the chicken, grr) and then back home for a pot of tea and a batch of special banana and walnut birthday muffins.

Every boy's dream

I don't take the paintstains
with me when I leave :)

Happy Birthday Iansy! <3

So it's been a packed week for me, I thought I would be able to blog a few times a week but I've literally not had a single night to myself until now, hence the marathon post. So get oor it! I've a busy life these day. 

I'm on t'telly!

Amy and Maw Preston over to
shower us (him) with gifts as I showed
off new camera photos

Other highlights include a visit from Maw Cocozza, and JoAnne, the eating of fajitas, and Friday night dinner at SoHo for Franny's birthday. Which I think was possibly one of fifteen birthday celebrations of hers I've attended! Ian lusted after her boyfriend's cardy whilst I caught up with folk I haven't chatted to since high school (a distressingly long time ago now) it was a really lovely night! And what's that? Finishing it all off at the Polo Lounge? Don't mind if I do... ;)

I'm off now, to tan a whole bag of doritos and watch Iansy fail at Crash Bandicoot. Feels like I'm twelve but without a bedtime :)

Big love and painty jeans!

Xx

"Put me down for a lifetime of success! Give me credit, I'll find ways of paying..."

- Evita