Pictures from my fall garden

Once again I have to apology for the lack of postings to you dear readers and blogging friends, I hope you'll forgive me again! My sister has finally moved into her new house and needed me a lot as a babysitter for my niece and nephew in the moving process as well as a moving helper, also I had a lot of work in the office and tried to use every spare moment I could find to create. I have further had a very sad case of death in my family lately, my mums dear sister, my fave auntie died after she broke her leg and had to have 2 surgeries which was to much for her, so I also needed some time to spend with my mum and my close family and of course time to grieve for her.

I know that I owe you all a big garden update having not posted for so long, so here are my fave garden pictures of the last 4 weeks:

The red Admiral (Vanessa atlanta) seem to love my garden very much this season and I love to take pictures of him.

Above is a combination of Pelargonium with vanilla scenting Heliotrop on one of my patio iron tables which still looks and scents very well.

Some beautiful roses are still blooming like the English rose "Wenlock":

My fave plant in my fall garden is the redish "Sedum spectabile", blooming together with the purple Verbena bonariensis and a pink Chrysanthemum which is not yet blooming:

Some roses are still blooming in my little rose border too.

Like the gorgeous "Augusta Luise" See close up they look much better and scents so good:

Another favorite in my fall garden is the Snapdragon which literally glows in the sun:

Oh and not to forget my darling Eden rose 85 (also called "Pierre de Ronsard" in some countries) which blooms and blooms:

Another shot of the Sedum border:

The honey bees loves the Sedum too!

And the bumblebee enjoys some late blooms of the "Buddleja davidii" :

The Admiral is sipping sweet nectar from the "Verbena bonariensis" also called "Verbena Argentina":

I bought this enchanting Penstemon last month and hope to get it through the winter this year it has a very delicious purple color:

Lastly a picture of my sweet grape vine:

If again I should not get around to post for a longer period for whatever reason it may be and you are interested in my latest pictures and crafts you can always have a look in my flickr pictures (just click on the little flickr mosaic that you see in my side bar here to get there) because I upload pictures there quite regularly.

I have started to create for Christmas now seeing that we don't celebrate Halloween here in Germany and I think you can never start early enough.

Have a fabulous new week everyone and hopefully you can enjoy some golden fall days too!

Hugs Carol(a) xox

P.S.: I hope to find the time to visit all your beautiful and inspiring blogs in the next days and I also have some swaps to finally send off, please bear with me!

A good mixture!

Oh my goodness like every time I can't decide what to post on my blog. I'm torn between pictures of my garden, decorations, swaps and crafts. What is it that you like to see best/mostly? Well for this time I decided to make this post a good mixture out of it all lol

Okay so I've started with a decorated corner of my deck in the picture above!

Followed by a photo of a wonderful royal mail parcel that I had in the mail last weekend from Chantal of the blog http://celestinemusings.blogspot.com/

Chantal e- mailed me through flickr that she saw a comment that I made weeks ago under someone elses picture of a book called "The Country diary of an Edwardian Lady" and that she had a spare copy of that book which she'd like to send to me just because she loves my blog and cause she wanted to share it. Wow random act of kindness (RAK) or what? Of course I was delighted and I still am! :D Thank you so much Chantal, you and another kindred soul have made my weekend! I was suffering from a bad migraine and couldn't do much, so your parcel was very soothing for me!

It is such a beautiful nature diary through a whole year with the most enchanting pictures of plants and butterflies etc.pp all hand painted by the author Edith Holden back at the beginning of the last century. Im so happy to have my own copy now! The gorgeous foxglove below is just one example of the prettyness of the pictures, I'll sure post more pictures out of this treasure book from time to time:

See the beautiful metal birds in my fave colors hanging from my blue parasol?

Well they came in another wonderfully lavender smelling parcel last weekend from my dear friend Nature Girl from Canada. We had a magazine swap and the sweet heart that she is she has popped some more goodies in the envelope. I love everything but the birds really make me happy! I so love birds and she just knew it! Thank you so much NG! xox

Click on picture to enlarge and see more details!

Further I like to share with you some pictures of what is blooming in my little garden at the moment:

Above you can see "Lavatera arborea" a real big plant, almost to big for my border, but it has so many beautiful blooms!

Above is Clematis "Cardinal rouge" which is still blooming pretty as well on my blue trellis and my "Augusta Luise" rose in the photo below is still having pretty flowers too:

Then there are the magnificent sweet peas blooming in my border close to the rose arc now:

The collage on canvas below I've made for Jenny's bits and pieces swap. It's going out to my swap partner Anastasia in Sydney this week. If you are interested to see the collages of all the other participants of this swap go have a look at the flickr group here

See a bigger more detailed version of the picture above here!

And I made another crown, or this I think it became a bit more tiara like. My swap partner Ele had the choice between 3 crowns now and has decided she wants the golden King crown I've shown in my last post though. I'll show you pictures of what I'll get from my swap partners when I've received their parcels. There is also a flickr group for this swap of Holly Doodle, see here

See a bigger more detailed version of the picture above here!

Lastly can you spot me in the next picture?

Sure you can lol

Have a fabulous summer time everyone oh and winter time of course for those of you living down under! And leave me some comments please so that I know that you were here! Thank you and see you in July!

Warmest wishes

Carol(a) xox

Crafts, Swaps & Roses!

Hello dear readers,
I know it has been a long time again and my only excuse is that we have too good weather to stay in the house, oh and I'm back at work since last Thursday too and in the late evenings I was busy crafting. Please be patient if the pictures are taking long to load, just open another window keep surfing and come back here when they have all loaded, sometimes it helps to refresh the site too. I promise you won't regret it! Also if you don't like "eye candy" you don't have to wait ;-)

Click on the picture above to enlarge it to it's full size and see all the details, I took it yesterday!

This is what NG's friend and neighbor TWT has sent to me for our magazine swap! Thank you dear TWT the magazine is beautiful and I also love all the extras you've added! They are perfect for a gardener! Not sure if I'll ever be able to touch dirt with those gorgeous party garden gloves ;-) Btw your's and NG's swap enevelopes are on it's way to Canada!

Then I'd like to show you what I was busy creating lately! These are magnetic 3 D collage tins, which I'm going to add to my little empty Etsy shop this week! They will add a nice romantic touch to your fridge or any other place where magnets will hold!

I did my best to make them look pretty from the in- and the outside, using German Dresden borders, satin ribbon and vintage lace borders etc.pp!

I'm going to take close up pics of every magnetic tin for the Etsy shop descriptions though!

Then I was experiencing what else I could create with paper and mixed medias that I haven't seen around the crafting and blogging world before and I came up with the "apple collage" above and the "Victorian shoe" below which I could add to Etsy too if someone is interested in it:

This next picture I took at my mum's last week, just because I thought it's pretty eye candy:

Well then in the here calles "rose month of June" I can't resist but posting more actual pictures of some of my favorite roses in my garden, cause I feel they have just reached the high point of their beauty:

Eden rose 85:

"Augusta Luise":

Leonardo da Vinci:

David Austin's "St. Cecilia":

I'm looking forward to discover what's new in your blogs now! Have a happy week everyone! Carol(a) xox

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P.S. Have you seen the new little banner pics on the right, in my side bar? I've signed up to two fabulous new swaps this week. First is Jenny's "Collage bit's and pieces swap" and the other one is Holly Doodles "Crown and Tiara swap". Can't wait to find the time to start! :D

Clematis & Roses

The weather was splendid this week so I've spend it mostly outside. The garden is slowly becoming the paradise I wish for. New flowers are blooming everyday and I took hundreds of pictures, so it's hard to choose what to post, but for today I decided to show you some of my Clematis & Roses which are in bloom right now:




Above is "Auswife", called "Rosarium Glücksburg" in Germany and below is "Constance Spry" which is now growing on my rose arc. Both are English David Austin roses:

"Constance Spry" is a climbing rose and has a wonderful strong but lovely scent which makes me want to smell her all the time when I pass by:


Next is "Wenlock" also an Austin rose, she scents very good and doesn't the raindrops look good on her?

Next is "Clematis Pilu" climbing up on one of my little trees:

"Pilu" close up, after a warm summer rain shower:

Now this "Augusta Luise" a wonderful scented rose which I bought last summer and she's coming along so fine, see she's just unfolding her petals:

Climbing on the blue trellis (my dad made for me) is Clematis "Rouge Cardinal":

I love catching rain drops on my flowers, can you tell? ;-) This is "Rouge Cardinal" close up:

One of my absolute faves blooming right now is my "Eden rose 85", she has such big buds:

and unfolds her petals slowly as well:

She is voted for the world's most beautiful rose this year!

Then I have Clematis "Angelique" planted in a pot on my deck 2 years ago and it is still blooming very well also I think I should change the soil for the next season:

Here is "Angelique" up close and personal:

I did show you my Clematis "Nelly Moser" already in my last post she is still in full bloom:

Well I guess I better stop here or this post never ends lol!

In the next picture you see a little bouquet from my garden and one of the magazines I've offered to swap in my last post:

I'd like to thank all my blogging friends who have offered me to swap magazines, you are all so very kind! I swap Somerset Life with Jen Duncan and some other mags with Nature Girls lovely neighbor and friend TWT and with Andrea Singarella now, because they were the first to offer/answer, but there is always next month and new issues and I hope that you, who I can't swap with this time will still be up for a swap next time! It's so nice to meet bloggers more personal through real mail and swapping and have I recently told you that I love to swap? In my next post I have to show you all the gorgeous things I've got from a swap with the lovely Cari Craft today!

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Happy weekend everyone! Carol xox