Happy New Year 2015!

Hi everyone, Happy New Year - Here's to a shiny bright 2015! 

I've had nearly 2 weeks off work and spent it holidaying at home, dividing my time between engagement and wedding planning, painting and wallpapering, catching up with friends and family and welcoming the hot summer weather that seemed to take forever to get to Perth but now that it has man it has been hot hot hot!!!

We spent Christmas Day with Mr P's family which was great and much less stressful than hosting Christmas Day lunch like we did last year and then spent Boxing Day with my side of the family.

We had some hot summer days that were spent inside in the air conditioning searching Pinterest for wedding inspiration until I was completely overwhelmed and Mr P would start to answer any question with sounds great babe ... but where do you come up with all these ideas! 

Obviously Mr P isn't as caught up in the wedding details as I am, pretty much all he's asked about is whether the venue stocks his favourite beer - which is Little Creatures by the way!

The good news is we have set a date for the Engagement Party, booked a venue with a stunning river view, have sorted out all the food and drinks and I'm now getting to the fun part of decorating for the party - I have so many ideas and excited to get creative and DIY most of it which I will of course share with you guys here on the blog.

I'm also in the process of designing the stationary - engagement party invitations and save the date post cards which I'll share with you soon.

As for the wedding plans, we've set a date and decided on our honeymoon destination (USA here we come!) but we haven't found a venue yet, although I've contacted a zillion of them and we have some viewings set for this month so hopefully we find the perfect place and book it in the next few weeks. 

Not bad going considering we got engaged less than 2 months ago and already I'm full steam ahead into the planning, I just can't help myself I'm a natural born organiser and I'm truly in my element right now.

We have been busy working on the house - we wallpapered a wall and door in the laundry with some  wood look wallpaper we picked up for a bargain price last year. We accidentally hung it vertically instead of horizontally, but I still love it and will share it with you on the blog soon. 

The house was rendered just days before Christmas and while we had to hire a scaffold to do the job we figured we might as well try to paint the exterior of the house before we return the scaffold - we had to paint the eaves and scotia, sand back, seal and paint the window and door frames, and paint an undercoat and top coats of classic cream on the rendered walls .... We managed to finish all of the above on our holiday at home other than 2 top coats on the rendered walls which we should finish this week.  

I forgot how much harder it is to paint the exterior of the house because the walls are so porous and you're up against the elements too the hot summer days, wasps, flies, you name it, it found us! It has been tough but so rewarding, wait until you see the before and afters!

If Mr P and I ever do an engagement photo shoot it would have to entail a paint fight like these crazy kids, we are forever painting our house it seems so we might as well paint each other!

Speaking of paint I'm kicking off the New Year with a Giveaway for you guys for some Dulux Duramax spray paints so you can do your own painting (or paint fights!) like I have been, details on how to enter will be on the blog very soon.

How was your Christmas and New Years?

Did you go away somewhere? Or did you holiday at home?

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[All images via my Pinterest 1, 2, 3, 4]