Goodbye Summer garden, a prize, paper & collaged pendants

Hello dear bloging friends and readers, before I'm off to my vacation in Italy :) I'd like to say good bye to my summer garden and share with you some new creations and a fab prize that I won!

The picture above I forgot to show you in my last post. I attended a paper making class at my sisters art studio at the beginning of August and this is the result. 9 different sheets of selfmade paper. It was so much fun to exercise with the paper pulp. My cousin Stefanie was there with me as well and we both decided that we have to do it again very soon!

Last weekend I played with water colors, chalk, ink, acrylic paints, stamps and all sorts of papers and embellishments and out came the collage above (it's just a part of the collage, which is to big to scan in one part). Then I scanned it in parts and printed it out and embellished it more and scanned it again and then printed it out again in different sizes and then cutted it in shapes for my pendant glasses and the outcome was a new line of collaged pendants

which is still in the works. I didn't really know how much fun it is to actually use a self made collage for my pendants instead of using found papers and just do some cut outs and pastings. This felt so much more like real art and was very satisfying. I haven't got around to solder them yet with all the preparations for our vacation, but I'll do that as soon as I'm back home.

A sweet parcel arrived at my door step this week from Sandra Evertson. I was so lucky to win a prize from the 1 year blogging anniversary of her inspirational art blog http://sandraevertson.blogspot.com/. It's the cute little porcelain doll head in the photo below. He was all bold and I just had to embellish him a bit for his first photo shoot so I made him a party hat and gave him a paper lace collar and stuck him on a round cloth pin and put him in an embellished glass bottle. He came in that cute little box with a darling Edwardian lady card.

Thank you very much Sandra for sending him over the big ocean to Boxwood Cottage where he is appreciated a lot!

Click on the photo to enlarge it!

Now it's time for me to say good bye to my summer garden. I guess when I'm back home in two weeks time nothing will look the same.

These pictures are from the shady part of my back yard under my trees and between the hedges. This is the best place to spend hot summer days at, because of the shade the trees provide.

These Hydrangeas, Nicotianas and Lobelias are growing in a pot on my hot patio/deck.

The Monardas and some Alchemillas are growing again after beeing cut back before.

The bumblebees are always enjoing my Verbena bonariensis, which has meanwhile selfseeded everywhere in my garden, after I first planted it two years ago.

Eden rose 85 aka Pierre de Ronsard is providing me with new buds all summer long and is still blooming beautifully:

On my deck I always have a parasol open because otherwise some flowers would dry out and die in no time:

Well now it's really time to say good bye and good night! Don't forget that you can enlarge all my photos to see more details. I hope to see y'all again mid September when I return from my journey to Venice, Tuscany and Rome.

Until then I wish you a wonderful late summer time!

Carola xox

P.S.:

A word to my nice blogging friends giving me blog awards again lately. I appreciate it a lot. I just don't like to post them on my blog. Same with the tag games, it all takes so much time, that I prefer to spend in a creative way, at least as long as I still have my full time office job. I hope you understand and don't feel ignored. It's so sweet that you think of me and it makes me very happy that you like my lil blog!

Lavender & Sweet peas

Things have finally calmed down, I have sprained my ankle and time to sit at the pc again. My dear daughter has arrived in Melbourne safe and sound and the old au pair is showing her around until she leaves and goes back home to New Zealand next Friday, then my daughter starts to take her responsibilities. The weather is cold and rainy in Victoria now, but my daughter is just happy that she saw no spider yet. Thank you all for the good wishes you've sent her under my last post. We have appreciated them very much!

Now back to the garden, heavenly scenting sweet peas are blooming in my garden now, I sowed them in March and it was so worth it for this gorgeous colors and scent:

Also my Lavender bushes, like this one, are ready to get harvested:

After weeks of gray skies and rain the summer sun finally came back to us this weekend:

I just had to snap a picture of my garden princess again, with the freshly picked lavender bouquet:

In my front garden the petunias are blooming beautifully:

When I sit at the black iron chairs above in my front yard I look at beautiful pink hydrangeas:

Now back on my patio with more Lavender harvest pictures:

Also another one of my fave summer flowers, the Monarda, is in full bloom now:

And one more summer fave, the Astrantia major, is also blooming in July:

One of my Dahlias, which I had planted in a pot has survived the mass snail and slug attackes during the wet weather period and is already blooming now:

More sweet pea photos:

And lastly I had to bring the french Lavender in the house where I can enjoy it's "Parfum de Provence" all the time hmmmmm


Hope you liked my little garden update!

Enjoy your weekend everyone! I'm looking forward to catch up with your blogs now!

Carol(a) xox