Style Cinderella Pretty

Oh hello there...remember me?

I once used to write this pretty little blog and lived in a little ramshackle farmhouse with my high-school sweetheart, baking, sewing and gardening my way to be a good little farmer's wife.

We completed our fairy tale and were married on our farm last year. Remember all that planning? I shouldn't say completed, for really it was only the beginning! Since then we've hit the road for an outback adventure honeymoon - working and travelling our way around Australia, discovering our country, ourselves and where our home really lies. We're still not sure. I'll keep you posted. 

I bet you are busting to see some wedding photos, no? Apologies for the silence but I have been waiting for a very special place on the internet to feature our very special day. 

Tomorrow is the day. Tomorrow our little rural soiree, our simple ceremony in a little country chapel and marquee reception with hay bales in the rolling green Gippsland hills will be featured on Style Me Pretty.

My baby, our wedding, is all grown up. From humble beginnings of lists and sketches in the middle of the night, to sourcing fabric overseas, finding the perfect florals, the props, the kraft paper invites...

You can see it all tomorrow, my friends. For now here is a sneak peek from the lens of the amazingly fantastic best-photographer-in-the-world, the lovely Louise Buma.

Until we meet again xxx

  

three bags full + a wedding snippet

I couldn't resist, two things actually. 

One...sharing a snippet of our wedding day joy, made all the more joyful by our fabulous photographer Lou. Honestly, she is the bees knees. People gush about their wedding photographer and I think it's a bit ridiculous to be honest. But she nailed it. Thank you, amazing Lou. Thank you.

Copyright Louise Buma / sunny + scout photography

Secondly, I am already experiencing withdrawal from being a homebody. I love to nest. It's my thing. I bake, and sew, and ok I don't clean too well...but I love having a home. Now we don't. And it is slowly driving my creative mind mushy. I don't like creative mushy mind, so I decided to do something about it. Enter Three Bags Full. A new blog to release some of that creative energy, pent up and frustrated. Three Bags Full won't be a blog like Cinderella at Brindabella has been. There will be minimal, to none at all, photos taken by myself. It is about what inspires me, things I like, catches my eye. 

I can hear you from here though: "We've seen it all before." You'd be right too. There a million blogs out there sprouting about products they want to buy, 'wish lists' and Pinterest finds. All a bit self-indulgent and consumer-gone-mad isn't it? Well I truly am hoping Three Bags Full won't become one of those blogs. Also, I might not even have the time/energy/internet service to blog on Three Bags Full as well as The Happy Campers. We'll see.

If you'd like to, pop over to see what I'm up to over there. If not, that's fine also.

farewell brindabella

Let's cut to the chase here - moving sucks. Enormously. I have moved too many times to count. Ok maybe that's exaggerating - three times when I was at uni in Melbourne (all on scorching February days), then home to Thorpdale, then to Glenburn, within two weeks, when I moved in with Mr M and followed him to 'the bush', again to the cottage at Ythanbrae (also known as paradise/our other happy place) and then to Brindabella. Where we said we would be for a long time. Never again, we said to moving. 

Well things don't always turn out the way you plan. And that's ok. It's all a part of my new mantra: change is inevitable, fluidity is fine and progression essential. Onwards and upwards.

After our wedding, we spent three nights and four days at Sorrento on the Mornington Peninsula. It was blissful, as a honeymoon should be. A beautiful hotel room with a balcony overlooking the ocean, lazy evenings drinking champagne and eating leftover wedding cake, bike rides around Point Nepean, perusing the pretty shops and galleries in the afternoons and lovely dinners by the sea with my husband. 

 

We came home to Brindabella and began to pack. And pack. And pack. It seemed neverending. The stuff. It spewed from our little ramshackle farmhouse. From my sewing room. From Mr M's shed. From everywhere. With the help of Mr M's hard working parents we managed to get everything sorted. The problem was some things were going into storage, some things were going into the new house at Inverloch, some things were being stored at my mum's for easy access (like paperwork and clothes and art pieces we didn't want in storage) and some things we were taking away with us. So. Much. Sorting.

We planned to be on the road to Boort, where we were headed to help friends with their grain harvest, on the Sunday after the wedding. We didn't end up leaving Brindabella until the wee hours of Wednesday morning after that (12.17am to be precise), we fell into bed at my mum's, got up a few hours later and hauled out headed for the Mallee dust and heat at 4.50am Wednesday 21st December. The next four days were spent helping finish off harvest before Christmas, then turning around and heading the almost 5 hours back to Gippsland for Christmas. Madness.

We're now back in Boort and the holiday/honeymoon/reality really starts now. All we have is packed in our camper. We really have no fixed address anymore, no more clothes other than what I packed (very minimal). Is it liberating? Amazingly so. Scary? Not at all, which surprised me. Exciting? Yes!

Was I upset leaving Brindabella? Not at all. Yes, we worked our tails off there in the past year. But it was not home. We were not happy there. At all. I didn't blog about the trials of the past year (who wants to hear about that, really?!) but we honestly had a pretty crappy 2011 - minus our beautiful wedding day, quite simply the best day of my life for the fact that I married my best friend. But take that away, and I'd really rather forget 2011 ever happened.

So, all good things must come to an end. This blog is one of them.

I am no longer Cinderella at Brindabella. I am, however, still a keen blogger. Mr M and I plan to blog our way around Australia, where we can. I'm not going to blog about pretty homewares or gardening or renovating anymore. I'm not going to blog to get readers or hits, not that I ever really did, but I think I do write consciously for the readers of this blog. No, from now on I we are going to blog for ourselves, for our friends and family who want to track our travels and share our adventures. You can most certainly come along for the ride also, but if it's Etsy purchases, baking recipes or things I've blogged about before you are after, perhaps that chapter in my blogging career has closed for the moment. 

Our new blog, The Happy Campers, can be found here. It's a work in progress so stay tuned for active links, photos of the camper and oh yeah...some actual posts! 

Cinderella at Brindabella will remain open to read the previous two + years of posts. I will also post on here some wedding photos and a re-cap of the day and details when I can. And you know that as soon as I can I will :)

Thank-you to my lovely and loyal readers, some of you I have come to really know like 'real life' friends, all of you I have appreciated. The blogging community is a beautiful place in the world wide web because of the people and the connections we create. I hope you continue to follow my blogging journey, but if not, thank you and farewell...

Images by Emma Steendam for Cinderella at Brindabella

a nomad's christmas

What's that you hear? Deafening silence? Sorry about that...been a bit busy! You know how it is - getting married, having a mini-honeymoon, packing up a life, sorting through a life of where it is to be stored (note: all over the countryside?!) and somewhere in there shoving my face full of turkey, ham and pudding. Ah the joys...

We spent Christmas at home in Gippsland - our last hurrah before heading off into the sunset on our around Australia honeymoon adventure. Christmas Eve was spent at my Dad's new house having a pool party with all five of my nieces, my two sisters, my brother-in-law, my brother and my sister-in-law. Oysters and champagne were called for, as well as copious amounts of prawns, crayfish fresh from Flinders Island my Dad flew down to get a few days before and loads of watersliding antics. All followed by traditional Christmas Eve mass at our local parish where we all grew up, and my niece is now going to school.

 

Christmas morning at my Mum's was met with squeals of delight when Scarlett and Ava found Santa's beer had been half drunk (who choose the dodgy beer?!) and the carrots nibbled by the reindeer, leaving a big mess on Grandi's box hedge!

Cousins arrived from next door to more squeals. So much squealing with five little girls! Santa was generous, as was Mum/Grandi with the traditional Christmas lunch spread. Roast turkey, roast chicken, a leg of baked ham and a buffet roast turkey. Followed by plum pudding with the most brandy-infused sauce we've ever had - woooo!

 

In the afternoon we headed down to Mr M's family by the sea to spend our first Christmas in the new and improved 'Shirwell' - a home that has been in his family for generations and has just undergone a serious renovation and extension. Floors had just been sanded and there isn't any furniture in yet but we enjoyed a (somewhat soggy) Christmas dinner on the new deck.

We set up our camper (our new home!) next door at Mr M's mum's cousin's house (confused yet?!), the beautifully restored 'Charnwood' - quite possibly the oldest house in Inverloch. This is our happy place. Mr M's parents are building a new house just in front of 'Shirwell' which will be our new family home. All this will happen this year whilst we're gallavanting about the country, which makes Mr M a tad sad that he'll be missing out on the action. But we're so looking forward to returning and having so many more beautiful meals with beautiful people on the deck at 'Shirwell' and the new house. 

I know most of you are all busting to see wedding photos, hear about our movements, how we left Brindabella, where we are now, what our plans are...but that will have to wait for another day. Right now I just wanted to share some love from the past week :)

We're off to Mildura to ring in the new year with friends and waterski to our hearts content. Until then...

Images by Emma Steendam for Cinderella at Brindabella

christmas blessings

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Hug your little ones closer, eat far too much pudding, believe in the magic of Christmas.

Most importantly, remember the reason for the season. Give. Laugh. Love. Count your blessings.

xxx

little mrs emma

We did it.

We're married.

Happily.

Finally.

Exhausted.

We are packing up Brindabella as I type, in an empty study, just my computer left. Surrounded by boxes and packing tape and newspaper and bubble-wrap. The moving truck comes tomorrow. And then we hit the road on the weekend. Just each other. The husband and the wife, chasing the sun and our dreams and our unknown future.

I will check back in soon, promise xxx

Image by Louise Buma for sunny + scout photography

signing off

Ok so I thought I could keep blogging in the lead up to the wedding. Turns out I am an insane person who has bitten off far more than she can chew.

This week I have been...

taking people to hospital

sourcing antique jewelry

organising church visits for nervous kids

editing a huge photography job

shooting another photography job this morning

selling my car

selling our kelpie bitch

printing ceremony programs

picking up suits

returning shirts

finding new shirts

writing speech

delivering decking boards

picking up trailer from decking boards mission

giving pony rides

dropping off 100 + jars to my florist

inspecting the progress on the camper at the welders workshop

constant delivery to op shop

listing 'stuff' on ebay

Christmas shopping, wrapping and storing gifts

cutting and posting fabric sold on Craftumi

packing

packing

packing.

So...I have decided I must sign off from the blogosphere until after the wedding day (10.12.11)

Thank-you all so much for your words of encouragement in the planning and lead up to our big day. I will 'see' you all on the other side, when I am Mrs Emma!

Image by Emma Durkin Photographics at Walkerville beach last week