Happy Easter and oh no we'll get frost and snow!

Thought I share with you my dear blogging friends and readers some more Easter and Spring eye candy, but before I show you more pictures from my decorated home and garden, I have to show you what I got in the mail on Thursday just in time for Easter!

It is a wonderful surprise parcel from my German blogging friend Nicole of http://www.smalltreasures.blogspot.com/!

Oh how I love surprises like this! :D

See the tiny bird cage above isn't it just the sweetest? It was in the parcel along with many other treats like lots of millinery flowers, birdies, lace paper border, Vintage wallpaper and wallpaper border which I find extremely pretty, tiny buttons in beautiful colors and a collection of her gorgeous Toile de Jouy tags! Aww I feel so spoiled Nicki, thank you so much! You can click on the picture and then on the orange button to enlarge it fully and see all the details:

In the following photo is my new birdie king along with a garden thread tin box. I found both things on the first garden fair of the season:



I decorated a little Easter display around the self made nesting box:



The golden bunnies in the glass cloche belong to my faves this year. You can click and double click all the pictures in this post to enlarge them!

This glass pott is for plants or flowers but right now I use it as a storage for chocolate eggs:

Back to my garden, here is a pink display on one of my garden tables, I just love the pink filled prime roses and bought them in 5 different shades of pink. My mum once made the pottery wreath which I decorated around the pott:

Well it looks like I started the spring season a bit too early and my poor flowers are going to freeze again. The weather forecast says that we'll get a lot of snow and frost from today on until next Thursday *EEK*!

I cross my fingers that all my flowers and plants will survive these hopefully last day's of winter weather! We had such a mild winter until today and I'm not prepared for snow and frost, I want SPRING!!!

I made a nest for the fluffy chicken from a paper egg half which I simply decorated with two different Dresden gold borders:

Happy Easter to all of you!

Hugs Carol(a) xox

A blissful Easter to you!

Hello dear blogging friends and readers,

today I'm in the mood for a real Easter eye candy post, so I've scanned some of my fave pictures/illustrations for you to see!

The picture above is from one of my older "Marjolein Bastin" Nature calendars. I love her style very much! Isn't this a gorgeous rabbit and so very Eastere!

The next picture is the cover of a very old German children book called "Die Häschenschule" which means "The little hare school":

Doesn't it have beautiful illustrations?

I was very busy and in Easter mood while working in my studio these last weeks (always after work that is). See the mess on my desk? I so have to do a big clean up there and all around it too ha ha:

It is so much fun for me to create these paper Easter and Spring egg collages:

This big blue paper maché egg (filled with a ballon) is on I made a couple of years ago and I still like to use it for my Easter decorations:

But meanwhile my style has totally changed. The first picture in this post and the following 3 photos are of my latest paper maché egg creation called "birdie egg" :

This is the back view:

And the side view:

I further have created these two paper egg collages for my new friend Jenny Holiday this week:

See the old German sheet music pages under the eggs? I've got lot's of them from a dear friend of my mum last week which has made me very happy and thankful! They are from her dad who passed away some years ago. I've already used them for the paper maché egg above and I'm also thinking of making some bundles for my Etsy shop if you like, they all look very old and beautiful!

I made one almost like this following egg before and normally I don't do the same egg twice, but because that one was already sold and Jenny liked it so much, I have changed some little things so that it's not the exact same egg as my first pink bunny egg. Dear Linda I hope you don't mind!

Lastly I like to thank all my dear blogging friends and readers who have bought some of my creations from my still quite new little Etsy shop during the past 3 weeks. It was and still is such an overwhelming feeling that you really like my creations so much that you actually buy them. That's awesome and makes me a very happy bunny! Thanks a million! :D

Now I wish you all, wherever you live, a wonderful, sunny and happy Easter time!

Back soon with new garden photos!

Hugs to you xox

Happy first days of April!

Hello dear blogging friends and readers and welcome in April!

I've had quite a busy weekend with my mums b-day party and lot's of other things to do, so I didn't get around to take many new pictures of the garden nor to create in my studio.

But I've got this beautiful parcel from Lilia over at Flea Market Studios Etsy shop last week and couldn't wait to see all the lovely vintage wallpaper pieces and millinery flowers and laces I have purchased with her gorgeous Mothers Day Packs:

The content:

Then here is a bit more of my Easter decoration to share with you:

The next pic is taken at Mum's place. I got her the delicate glass Easter eggs which are hanging from the branches for another of her b-days. (Clicking on pic to enlarge somehow doesn't work with this picture so I give you the link to the bigger version here for the case that you'd like to see more details)

Talking about my mum, my daugther has made her this delightful Birthday basket, with my supplies:

It contains her present for my mum which was this big, darkgreen, real Emu egg lying in a real moss nest:

Isn't it a gorgeous gift?

Happy first days of April everyone! xox

P.S. I can't wait for all of you who were at Artfest over the last few days to come back and show and tell everything about it on your blogs!

More eggs on another sunny spring Sunday!

I feel so lucky that we have such beautiful sunny spring weather again since yesterday and it is forecasted to stay like this the whole week ahead yeah! :D Of course I’m trying to spend most of my spare time outside at the moment, but I still managed to finish some more Easter egg collages. I’m quite happy with the way they’ve turned out. I chose my favorite papers & borders & embellishments etc. as well as my fave colors aqua/turquoise/blue and I hope they’ll please you too! Just click on the pictures to see the bigger version with more details.
I'm going to put them into my Etsy shop tonight.

I’m back to the garden now taking some pictures for my next post. I've got myself a pretty and practical new potting table which makes potting a lot more comfortable! This afternoon I’m off for a walk in the woods, we had the change to summer time tonight and today it will be daylight until 8 pm which I love!

Have a gorgeous spring day you too, dear blogging friends & readers! Read you! xox

Birds & Easter decorations

Update Sunday March 18th 2007:

I've just added 7 Easter egg collages to my little Etsy shop (see side bar mini etsy and link) and I hope you'll like those too!

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Welcome back to Boxwoodcottage everyone!

I hope this find's you all in best spring mood!

Wow what a gorgeous week I had, the weather was beautifully spring like and I could even take my deckchair out and read my favorite home & garden magazines in the sun. Also I could welcome my first two customers at my brand new little Etsy shop. :D Thanks a lot to Allie & Louise you've both made my week! It's such a wonderful feeling that you like what I've created!

Today I've added these little bird nest ornaments to the shop, aren't they cute? Unfortunately I've found out that it is quite expensive to send them overseas to the USA because they are not flat enough to send them as a letter, but if there is something else you'd like from the shop I could put it in your parcel too without any extra mailing costs and I also have a little surprise gift for every customer. For my future German & European&UK customers the mailing is much cheaper though.

I think my little bird nest sets make such a delightful spring decoration and a beautiful adornment to your Easter table setting! They are made of thin twigs and filled with delicate quail eggs & feathers. In one nest there even sits a cute tiny hatchling in a quail egg! I only have 6 of these sets in stock and if you place your order fast enough you'll have them at your home before Easter!

I was quite happy to take these pictures of one of my fave little garden visitors a titmouse (chikadee) this week:

The decoration in the cottage is slowly changing to a more Easter like look as well, as you can see in the next 3 pictures:

´

This Easter egg collage was a gift for a friend's birthday this Monday, but I'll make some more Easter egg collages this weekend and hopefully add them to the shop on Sunday night or Monday morning, so stay tuned!

This was my fave place after work this week! Unfortunately the good weather is over now and they even forcasted that it is going to snow next week oh noooooooooooo!

I wish you all a happy & creative spring weekend and a wonderful week ahead dear blogging friends and readers! xox

More fabric hearts and spring flowers

When I came home from work on Thursday afternoon I found this lovely vintage swap heart from Ginny over @ Twinkle Pink blog in my mail box:


Isn't it gorgeous? I love all the details, like the little baby heart with the tiny crystal, the beautiful rose buttons and the pretty pink spotted bow and of course the vintage linnen she has used and then that it is filled to the brim with real Lavender and it secents just heavenly! Thanks a lot dear Ginny!

I have just realised that I have never posted the lovely fabric rose heart which I've got from Anita @ My Country Cottage Garden for my b-day in January:


I have now attached Ginny's heart and both of Anitas hearts, the one from my b-day and the one from our swap, to my mantlepiece and I really like the look of it! How do you like it? (Click on picture to enlarge)

Oh and look what I found while shopping for spring flowers on Friday afternoon, delicate little birdies sitting in tiny nests with tiny eggs and feathers, awe I just had to take them home with me:

Of course I found some beautiful flowers too like this pansy with its pretty rippled border:

I also had to take a picture of it with my favourite garden model the terracotta princess:

Further I bought this wonderful pink filled prime rose:

and lots of my fave spring flowers which are Viola Cornuta (Johnny jump-ups):

Oh and there is more like lots of pink Bellis perennis and lots more different Pansies in gorgeous shades of soft pink and terracotta and more Johnny jump-ups in beautiful colors!

The weather this last weekend wasn't really gardening weather, it was rainy, cold and windy with an exception of yesterday where I had to cut back all the shrubs and bushes and perennials from last year and had no time left to plant my new flowers before the dark, so hopefully I'll get around to do it sometime this week.