From rearrangements, tinsel trees and swaps

Welcome back to Boxwood Cottage! I'd like to share you with you my latest crafts, swaps and some rearrangements in the living rooom which I just finished. Of course it is also getting Christmassy at Boxwood Cottage at this time of the year!

Above is my hallway if I can call it like this because my living room is one open space now, but in the other cottages of our row the walls are still in and this part is originally the hallway. The white door is leading down to my basement. At the right side of the door was my book shelf which my mum and I moved to the other side of my livingroom yesterday afternoon beside of the patio door and my old cupboard. My cottage is quite small, so I always have to think how I can rearrange things to fit better and still let the room look bright and wide enough.

Well this is how the book shelf looks on this side of my living rom and I like it much better there! Following I show you some pictures from the other side of the room starting with the white shelf over my couch, which I decorated with star lights and pressed glass plates and some other favorites:

Last week I made this mini tinsel tree, isn't it cute? On the left side is the other part of the white shelf and on the right side the shutter that I moved from beside of the window over here for a new look:

Following  is an overview of the right side of my living room. I also have a new old window, of which you can catch a glimpse on the right in these photos, I'll show you some more photos of that window in my next post, because the decoration of this part is not yet finished.

This is my fave corner to sit relax and read:

One of the table decorations are these papier mâché pine cones, that I wrapped in thin alu chocolate paper to give them a festive look. You can get these pinecones over in my little shop: http://www.boxwoodcottageshop.blogspot.com/

I found this sweet little putz village on etsy lately and together with my bottle brush trees it makes such a beautiful wintery scene: 

Now I like to share with you my new tinsel tree. Do you remember the wooden tree my dad build for me last year? Here is a picture:  farm4.static.flickr.com/3056/3054847777_f4bcb29b0a_o.jpg  I painted it white and than I wrapped tinsel garlands around the branches. I wanted a tinsel tree since I first saw some in the beautiful Merry & Bright book 2 years ago and so I started collecting tinsel garlands. The most beautiful tarnished looking ones I got from my friend Madai in last years swap:

The best part was of course decoating the tinsel tree! I love the whimsy look it gets with the vintage silk top hat on top. I also used the soldered ornaments I made last season as well as a Charlotte doll head, my dads old pocket watch and the felt girl I created last season as well as some silver leaves ans other white and silver ornaments and I'm really happy with the outcome :)

Madai's cute little lamb and the sweet girl ornament from Nelda Ream made it on my tree along with icy glass birds from Thuringia

My vintage mannequin got some wintery treatment with white skates and my granddads old silk to hat, so the studio is all ready for Christmas now:

And lastly I'd like to share with you the latest swap parcels I got. My dear friend Anita of My country cottage garden spoiled me with two of her beautiful cushions. Maybe you already spotted them in my pictures above. The rose cushion sits now on my white chair in the neutral colored cushion on my willow couch. Anita not only sewed new cushions and birdies for me but also treated me with some treasures from Paris, a vintage french bulletin, a pressed glass plate, sweet doll house paper and an Atelier sign. If you are interested I posted more pictures of Anit's parcel on flickr:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/boxwoodcottage/4080566912/
Thank you so much Anita a swap parcel from you is always a feast! :)



The last picture of this post is a swap from my new friend Julia. I first met Julia through an e-mail she sent me with a question on where to find bottle brush trees. We stayed in touch and meanwhile Julia opened her own blog http://www.vintagewithlaces.blogspot.com/ where she shares her lovely creations. A few days ago she kindly offered to send me a set of 3 bottle brush trees she found in a local store (they are really hard to find here in Germany) and was so nice to send me some beautiful surprise gifts along, all very creatively wrapped:

I especially love the old laces, the vintage book with silhouette pictures and the little bag with my initial letter. Thanks bunches for your lovely surprises dear Julia!

Sweet & Sinister swap reveal, Halloween decorations and more!

Update: I'm linking this post from last year up today with Joanne of Anything goes here for her Vintage Halloween Blog Party! So welcome party people! Grab yourself a drink and stay awhile!
xoxo~ Carola

Welcome back to Boxwood Cottage dear readers and fellow bloggers and to my first time of decorating for Halloween here ( it is no tradition in Germany to celebrate Halloween as you might know) and also to my first Halloween swap, as well as to some other news that I'll reveal at the very end of this post, so I hope you'll stay with me until the end, because I have around 20 photos to share with you ( which is also to make up for my long blogging absence again).

The orange candle light in the picture above is the only orange you'll find in my Halloween/Autumn decoration, this year, because firstly it is not one of my favorite colors and secondly it is all about black, white & cream, which pleases me much better, as you will see in the photo below which was my sneek peak photo for my Sweet & Sinister 2009 Halloween swap partner Heather Rowley of Speckeled egg:

I had a tremendous fun in creating pretty Halloweenish items like a goody filled fire cracker, a cone, a black masque, black birds, tags and a soldered pendant etc. for my swap partner and decorated everything that I finished on my vintage mannequin in my attic studio:

I loved the Halloweenish look of my dress form so much that I started making things not only for Heather, but for me too.

And I also decorated one of my vintage silk top hats in Hallween style. Maybe this will attract my favorite vampire Edward? ;-)) Just rightclick on the pictures to enlarge them if you want to see more details.

And closer:

After I finished gathering and creating Halloweenish items for Heather I wrapped it all as sweet & sinister as possible. Heather also wished for some thick German crepe paper and German decorating magazines.

I love silhouette pictures and recently found some pretty old fairytale silhouettes and silhouette postcards at our local flea market so I incorporated them in Heathers swap parcel too.

Below are most of the goodies before the wrapping. I also found a vintage enamel night light candle holder for Heather at our flea market which has a bit orange color around the edges which I found so suitable for Halloween and I thought a tiny bit of orange couldn't hurt he he:

Two weeks after Heather and I had sent off our swap parcels over the big ocean, they arrived at our homes, whoohoo I am so happy with all the great goodies Heather has found and made for me :)

Above you can see the whole lot (click on pic to enlarge) and below some close ups. Sweet Heather has got me everything I wished for, like a cute white feather tree and a beautiful cream colored pumpkin as well as a frozen Charlotte doll. Just look at the sweet little owls the pretty frame and cameo and the gorgeous bracelet with a black rose that Heather made for me:

And I also got one of these fabulous black crows that I just couldn't find here in Germany, but I so wanted one and she didn't even know this, but still send me one, this must have been telepathy :) Thank you so much dear Heather!

In the photo above I have already incorporated some of the goodies in the Fall & Halloween decoration around the mantle in my living room. I love the speckeled egg that she embellished for me with a gorgeous black velvet flower and a fabulous rhinestone button. The girl silhouette that I framed is a scan from a real cut out silhouette from my daughter, made when she was 4 years old.

Lastly the gorgeous white feather tree found the right spot on the left corner of my mantle. I looks almost a bit Christmassy already and I think this photo looks so pretty when enlarged:

And the wonderful cream colored porcelain pumpkin box from Heather got a space on the right side of the mantle:

Following I show you some more photos of my autumn decorations around the mantle:

As you can see it is all about silhouettes and neutral colors:

The mantle is lit by the afternoon sunlight and candles only in these photos:

The day I took these photos the light was so beautiful that I had to take some more photos like the one below of my white glass cabinet:

Here is also a picture of an autmnal vignette on one of my iron tables on the patio, which I created after a walk in the woods:

And now I like to show you something else, we change from Halloween to Christmas decorations. The Christmas ornaments in the photo below are made from paper maché containers from Thuringa in Germany. If you love these nostalgic paper maché Christmas containers as much as I do, I can offer them to you here now: http://boxwoodcottageshop.blogspot.com/ Just in time for Christmas 2009!

These are just a few paper maché ornaments that I embellished to show you what you can make out of them. You'll find many more examples and shapes here:http://boxwoodcottageshop.blogspot.com/ I'd be happy to see you there!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lastly I wish you all a great countdown to Halloween week and of course a very fun Halloween day and I'd be glad if you could find some inspirations in todays post and if you'll let me know what you think of it and leave me a comment.

xoxo Carola

http://www.commonground-do.com/2012/09/vintage-inspiration-2-year-anniversary.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:%20blogspot/bCGJMl%20%28Common%20Ground%29&utm_content=Google%20International 

Halloween swap preparations, painting activities and our new kitten

Welcome back to Boxwood Cottage dear blogging friends and readers. Once again I have to apologize for my long blogging absence. There was so much going on at Boxwood Cottage I'm not sure where to begin. Well I guess I start with the activities in the studio. I signed up for a new swap through the Year of color blog, it is the Sweet and Sinister swap. Seeing as I'm not that fond of the color Orange and the Sweet & Sinister Swap is all about Black, White & Cream colors it is the perfect Halloween swap for me. I started by embellishing some of my little top hats and decorating them in the studio, but for now I can't show you more of the things I prepared because I don't want to spoil the surprise for my swap partner Heather of Speckeled Egg. One thing I can tell you is that it has a lot to do with Silhouettes, because I love them very much and so does Heather :)

I also soldered some pendants for Halloween that I'll show you in my next post, as well as what I sent to Heather. One thing I can show you today is my first pair of soldered earrings. I used small, old glass marbles and really love to wear these.

For the next finished project that took some time we have to go downstairs into the living room.

The painting bug has bitten me again. I remebered an old 3 pieces shelf lying around in the basement, which I had hanging in my former kitchen in the old cottage. I had not found the right space for it since I moved to Boxwood Cottage in 2005. Well suddenly it came to me that it would look great painted in white and I also had an idea on where to hang it up, so I started painting:

I also painted a brown letter white and placed it on the shelf and tried to hang it all on the screws from the mirror that hung on the wall before, of course that didn't work out lol

So I needed the help of my Dad to hang it up on the space over my willow sofa:

Thank you Dad for hanging it up for me! Then the fun part was to decorate it. I'm not sure if I'm done with it yet, but for the moment I think it is okay and I'm happy with the look of it. My eyes really needed a new sight in the living room.

Here is an over all look of the redecorated sofa corner:

I also painted the shutter in the corner beside the window:

You can even see the reflection of the shelf in the golden mirror over my faux wooden mantle (made for me by my Dad in 1999) which was the first piece I painted white in 2006. Since then I have to paint something more white every few month lol it is like an addiction.

Beeing in paint mood I continued and painted a small round wooden table, also made by my Dad and the little shelf in the shady corner, which was made by Dad too and the plant stand below in white and I think it was all worth the effort because it all fits together now. (Right click on the pictures to enlarge them and see the big version with all the details if you'd like)

So now we come to the little thing that took up most of my spare time since my last post. 5 weeks ago we got a new kitten. He was only 8 weeks old when we got him, but his mama didn't want her babies anymore, she was much too young when she got her babies, still almost a kitten herself with 6 month of age.

I present to you our new family member Riley. A few weeks ago he was not more than a hand full of fur:

But meanwhile he has almost doubled his weight. And he loves to discover the cottage.

Of course I made him a cosy bed in a basket, but he always prefered to lay in one of my boxes with craft supplies when he took a nap in the studio so I gave him his own cardboard box cover to sleep in and he loves it better than any other place lol

Thing is that at the beginning he used only half the box, but meanwhile he's almost growing out of it.

Say bye bye for now to our dear readers little one!

So what have you been up to since the beginning of August?

Today is a wonderful late summer day and I'll better go out in the garden now, before it is getting dark again.

Have a wonderful end of summer anyone!

xoxo Carola

P.S.:

Thank you all very much for the congratulations on my Artful blogging article, your comments were a pleasure to read and very much appreciated!! I further wish a warm welcome to my new readers , I'm so glad that you found me through Artful Blogging and I hope that you are here to stay and follow the activities at Boxwood Cottage!