Welcome to Boxwood Cottage!

So glad that you found me! My blog is about everything I love like gardening, decorating my home & garden and crafting. Although I'm from Germany I write my blog in English so that hopefully every visitor can read it. Hope you'll stay a while and will leave me a comment so that I know that you were here! xoxo Carola

Saturday, June 05, 2010

Vintage black Friday and a garden update!


Welcome back to Boxwood Cottage dear readers and blogging friends! Today I participate in The French Cupboards Vintage black Friday and with the photo of the old window above also in Funky Junk's Saturday Nite Special Link Party - see sidebar buttons! So yesterday I shot pictures of the window and Vintage black around my living room.
I have a love for Vintage black silhouettes and got some beautiful ones in friendship swaps from Ann, Cerri and Tina this year and have them all decorated in my old rusty barn window. And although the black enamel sign isn't old I think it has a vintage feel as well.


My old black metal paraffin stove gives a great contrast to my white wooden faux mantle.


I bought thís cute pair of black vintage leather baby boots at an Antique market last January and have them decorated in a wire basket standing on an old black wood and glass tray with silver handles.


My old Adler sewing machine is another vintage black item in my living room. I'm always debating with me weather I shall paint it white or leave it like it is? I just can't decide *sigh* What do you think?



I like the reflection in my new white mirror, well yes I admit this is the contrary of Vintage black, but this is just what I like the contrast between Black and White.


The old metal box on which I have decorated the white bird cage and rusty items was once black but is now rather rusty.


I got a bunch of these gorgeous old enamel signs with black numbers recently from my friend Nicole over at Small Treasures and put some in my old white enamel candle stick holder. Thank you so much dear Nicky for sharing them so generously with me!
You can also find them in Nicoles Dawanda shop here: http://de.dawanda.com/product/10183810--Emaillezahlen-shabby-3-Stk-


Time always seems to slip away from me, maybe this is the reason why I have such a thing for old clocks, pocket watches and clock faces and watch faces in general? Did you spot my new old silver alarm clock in the first picture of this post?


My sister brought me the blackboard garden labels from a recent trip to England as a gift for watching over her country cottage and garden and tending her geese and cats this week ( I also got a goat milk soap a black wire soap holder and an English Country Living :)). They are the perfect item for a garden lover and I already used them to mark the plants in my zinc nursery.


So this is the best transition to go from the cottage outside into the garden, will you be so nice to follow me?



It's all very late this year because of the unsual long and strong Winter we experienced but finally it's coming along. I planted summer flowers and herbs in pots on one of my french iron garden tables on my deck:


I always move plants and pots and decorations around in my garden as well as in my cottage so nothing stays excactly the same for very long.


Riley always steels my comfy reading places weather it's on the bank or in the deck chair lol


I have a real passion for zinc items old or new in my garden.


And think it makes a great impact to put a lot of zinc garden items in one space:





I sowed summer flowers on May 2nd and they are now ready to get planted in bigger pots, especially the cosmos has grown very quickly and is already overgrown the other seedlings.


I´t's all very green in the garden and I'm now impatiently waiting for my roses and peonies to bloom. Last year they started blooming mid May and this year 3 weeks later they are still in buds.


At least the Alliums and Lupines and blue Geraniums have started to bloom now around my new white rose arc, which we set up in marc this year because the old one was broken down by strong winds. This one will conquer the winds I'm sure because it is attached to the ground with concrete, as well as my other rusty rose arc vice versa, which we set up last autumn. I so can't wait to see them both covered in roses!


Allium Globemaster and Gladiator are the bigger Allium varieties which still bloom after the early Purple sensations Alliums have already faded. Their purple heads are getting bigger every day now while all there hundreds of star like little blooms are enfolding.


Most of my clematis have not survived last Winter so I planted some new varieties which are more hardy like this one called "General Sikorski":


My pink Clematis "Josephine" is one of the strong survivers :)


The white snow ball " Virburnum opolus roseum" is blooming beautifully now and is lightening up a rather dark corner of my garden.


I already planted summer blooms in all my hanging baskets:


The picture of the view over my willow fence I took 10 days ago before I went to my sisters cottage and the Lilacs and Clematis montana in this picture have already faded by now because we have enjoyed a very sunny and warm week so far.


Well that should be enough for now from my garden, I'll show you more garden pictures when my roses are in bloom, but I like to share with you a sweet little price I won for participating in the French cupbards 'Mad about Alice Party' last month: It's a beautiful candy cone made by a paper artist as well as a packet of cosmos seeds and a gorgeous hair band with a cameo.


Also included were these beautiful magnetic postcards that I put on my fridge door:

A big thank you to the lovely ladies from Counting your blessings and The French cupboard!

Next time I'll also like to show you some pictures of the rearranging I did last week in my living room which now has a very summery feel to it, but for today I think this post was already long enough.
Enjoy the beautiful month of June everyone!

xoxo~ Carola

Saturday, May 01, 2010

May basket swap & Vintage cushion swap & latest flea market finds


Update:
A note to all the the Alice muchness tea party people please visit my party post here:
  Simply Mad about Alice tea party !

P.S.: I also participate in Kathleen's (Faded Charm) "White Wednesday" with this post for the time!

 


Welcome back to Boxwood Cottage my dear readers and blogging friends!
I can hardly believe it's May already. I wanted to post more often really, I had so many Easter pics to share, but somehow it just didn't happen. Time flies as you all know and even more when you have to work full time like me. Anyhow today I have 2 gorgeous swaps, pretty flea market finds and a bit of my Spring garden to share with you. 28 yummy pictures if I dare say so, so you better make yourself comfortable in front of your screen. Aren't these two pictures already delicious? Above is a picture of my wonderful May basket from sweet Tina of http://www.tinybear-dk.blogspot.com/ and below is my latest friendship swap from my dear buddy Anita of http://www.ein-stueck-garten.blogspot.com/ .


I start with Anita's swap because I got it already over two weeks ago and wanted to share it as long. My flickr friends may have already seen these gorgeous cushions that Anita created for me. After I saw what some other talented bloggers made with these pretty vintage graphics from Karen the Graphics Fairy I asked Anita if she could create a cushion for me ( I still can't sew myself *sigh* I gotta find the time to learn it one fine day!) with the French Paris graphic in my fave neutral colors and so she kindly did, seeing it was a new challenge for her, because if you know Anita, you know that usually it's all about soft pink and roses for her and then she got on a roll and made more and more of these gorgeous cushions and I just can't resist them. I generously got two of these beauties from her in the swap and bought another one.


I had to take some pictures to show you and Anita how pretty her cushions look on my willow sofa





This is the one with the Paris graphic that started it all:


Pretty huh? After she showed it on her blog Anita quite quickly got more orders fro the Vintage inspired cushions from her friend Vanessa for example and others.Well of course there was more in Anita's parcel than the beautiful cushions, I also got this huge beige yoyo with the pretty mother of pearl flower button which for now I added to this rather boring lampshade that I still want to embellish more once I found the right piece of lace for it. But I also like the yoyo decorated under one of my glass domes:


Dear Anita also added a Tilda cards and labels stack and all these pretty tags she made. I especially love the one with my initial letter C - such a pretty stamp! The punched french lily sign tag is also an instant favorite of mine:


Oh and I also got some of her soft pink sweet peas seeds, a gorgeous scenting rose soap and one of her lovely sewed roses. Thank you again for everything dear Anita, I love it all!


Now before I reveal more from Tina's May basket I'd like to share my latest happy flea market finds with you:


On Sunday the 18th of April the outdoor flea market season finally started again and it was a wonderful sunny and warm day. I met up at the flea market with my dear cousin Stefanie (who btw also had a lovely swap with Tina lately) we both share a love for crafting, blogging and flea marketing and we found some great old treasures. I was so happy to have found another old black silk top hat. Quite crumpled and torn, but for only 5 bucks and I love it's whimsy look. It's my third one already, after my mom gave me the one from my fathers dad and I found the other one at the flea market two. It's so fun to play around with them and decorate them for the different holidays. I also found a cute vintage black suitcase, with purple silk inside and lot's of beautiful lace pieces.


That old framed behind glass photo of the siblings is another favorite as well as the old doll cup and plates and the crotcheted collar.


Oh and not to forget this sweet smoked baby blouse for just 1 Euro and the white & gold soup tureen also just 1 Euro and all the old Christmas paper bags and the Christmas postcard.


The  embossed roses & doves postcard was another happy find and so were the thin copper clothes stencils in a silver box:


Okay now, seeing that today is the first day of the merry month of May I'd like to show you more of the super gorgeous May basket of  Miss "Tiny bear" Tina which arrived just yesterday from our neighboring country Denmark:


I must say that Tina and I are 100 percent on the same wave length (hope that's an English saying too). She threw everything I love in the basket, started with the gorgeous neutral colors, all cream and sepia beige with a splash of silver *sigh* and there are lovely old paper items with numbers and silhouettes, a sewed & stamped lavender bag and heart, danish sheet music, old book pages, danish post stamps so pretty bundled, cute cake molds, an optician lense, silver wings, gorgeous lace, a delicate beige silk handkerchief oh just look for yourself!


See the sweet egg shaped tags in the left pic that Miss Tina made? They are even two sided and so pretty, you can enlarge the pictures by clicking on them to see more details. Oh and I also got one of Tina's most gorgeous paper garlands. I decorated it on my mantle piece where I can admire it all the time. I have to show you a close up, so that you can see all the layers, topped with a piece of lace and a button:


Isn't it just so enchanting? I'm totally in love with it!
And look at the hand stamped bird ribbon in the next picture. Aw I never really thought about stamping on cloth myself, but seeing this I really should give it a try. I'm so inspired by Tina's swap in many ways!


I love the tin mold and the cream buttons, the lense and the stamps and also the pretty turqouise cigarette tin and the jewelry supply pieces like the flower bell blossoms:



Thank you sweet Tina for creating and gathering all these beautiful treasures for me, you were a true pleasure to swap with!
~*~*~*~*~
I also like to show you a bit of what I sent to Tina, although I haven't heard back from her yet if she already got my parcel, which I hope because we both sent if off the same day. Seeing I could not find an old basket like I was hoping and searching for Tina, I created a Vintage inspired Paris hat box instead of a basket to fill:


I embellished the box with very old  sepia aged sheet music pages, vintage lace borders, white Dresden border, Bonjour satin ribbon, an Eifel tower stamped milk bottle cap and an Eifel tower charm, cream colored millinery flowers and a vintage mother of pearl brooch and one of the pretty birdie cup cake cuffs from Andrea's One hundred wishes boutique (the Bonjour ribbon was also from Andrea). I sealed the box with a gorgeous hand dyed cabbage roses ribbon from Marilyn Healey and a scalloped paper tag with a punched out sheet music lace heart (from my new Martha punch) as well as a silver soldered initial tag which I created especially for Tina:


On the other side of the hat box I also added one of Anita's white french lily tags.


I won't reveal too much of the inside in case Tina hasn't got her parcel in time and I don't wanna spoil the whole surprise, but I chose and created only things that Tina had wished for and think I covered it all and I hope very much that she will like it!


Now my friends I'm off ínto my garden to admire my new pink tulips and sow some pretty summer flower seeds. The bleeding hearts, lilacs and clematis montana rubens are just starting to bloom and I'll share pictures of these beauties in my next post.


Until then I hope you'll all keep enjoying Spring!

xoxo~ Carola

P.S.: In case you are wondering about the baby pictures in my blog banner, the vintage baby is me lol
A family friend recently scanned all of my parents old photos and among them were these.

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