Happy New Year everyone!!!

I have to apologize for having neglected my blog for a while, but my goal was to update it before New Year, so here I am!

Let me start with a picture I wanted to show you for a long time, it´s a birthday card my friend Amy made for me - a little portrait of myself and my two doggies Gustav and Snuff. I love it and decided to frame it, so now it´s part of a little stilleben showing off my collection of vintage jewellery and other treasures collected over the years.


Christmas was nice until our beloved old dog Snuff (to the right in the picture) suffered a stroke on Christmas day. It was awful, but luckily he is recovering and back on his feet again, a bit of a miracle if you know he is over 14 years old! I guess he has too good a doggy life to give it up!
Here he has a cuddle with his pal Gustav, our other dog, who was really concerned about his friend!


Here are some pictures of my Christmas decorations and the Christmas tree:

I´ve gone a bit gothic in this one with the black vase and aubergine candles ;-)

A little stilleben in the conservatory

Christmas tree in the conservatory

We had a very cold and snowy winter so far, and although it means lots of extra work with our four horses, like carrying all water because the tap and pipes outside are frozen, it´s beautiful too!

Huge icicles outside the conservatory

One of my favourite walks in the hills

Craftwise I´m already thinking spring - I´m working on this doily scarf in merry colours which is very refreshing in the dark of the winter!


I´m also working on a couple of new brooch designs for next season, for example these "Sweetheart" brooches:


Okay, that´s all for now! I´m very happy I managed to update my blog in time to wish you all a happy, creative and exciting New Year and to say thank you for following my blog through the last year! See you in 2011!

Autumn....

Autumn has come. Grey days, rain, frost and fog in the morning - time to prepare for the Christmas season, snuggle up in the sofa with a good cup of tea and light lots of candles! And craft nice things for the Christmas shows and web-shop, of course!


I have decided to make Christmas decorations for the markets I´m going to attend, I love working with flowers, making wreaths - and the garden is full of wonderful things I can use. In the picture above you see an arrangement featuring one of my small wreaths made of hops, ivy and hydrangea.

I´ve made them in different sizes, to arrange with candles, baubles etc, or to hang in a window or on the front door. Here are some more:


They make nice autumnal decorations now and can easily be upcycled for the Christmas season. Another arrangement on our dining table:


I have also made a bunch of Christmas cards which I forgot to take pictures of, so I´ll show you next time, lots of wristwarmers in nice dusky colours adorned with hand dyed vintage appliqué and lace and small purses made of vintage florals.



I love sitting in the conservatory when I´m working, especially this time of the year, as it´s so light and you almost feel you´re sitting in the garden - just with much more comfortable temperatures! Frida the Forest Cat loves keeping me company, either she snuggles up in the cushions on the daybed:


... or in one of the chairs. Look at this pretty furry ball:


Last not least I´m proud to announce that my new Fleur de Bohème website is finally finished and online, and I even created a new website for my shop La Vie Bohème. Take a look and tell me what you think - I did it all by myself, independancy rocks!!!

I´m finally back!

First I want to apologize to all my followers that I´ve been away for such a long time, thank you for not having dismissed me and welcome to my new followers!

Summer is always incredibly busy, lots to do in the garden, summershop and markets – time seems to fly. I love having the summershop, and I can´t wait the new train carriage to be ready for next season as it will be insulated, more light and I will have more space!

I even attended the newly launched local farmers and craft market, selling both my handcrafted stuff and my homemade jam. It was a very cosy thing and especially the jam sold very well, so I have decided to diversify a bit and produce more homemade jam, jelly, liqueur and even vinegar and oil with herbs to sell in the shop next season. In the picture you see me with my friend Carey who I shared a stall with.

I can´t believe it´s autumn already, the fact that we´re heading towards the dark and cold months seems unbearable. The garden was wonderful this year, my hortensia bushes are still in full bloom and the other picture shows my collection of old roses flowering earlier this year.

Of course I found time for crafting, I still have to finish a shawl for the lovely Cat that I swapped for one of her pictures, but I´m getting there as you see:

And here is the beautiful picture I got from her:

I even made these rings:

Before I go, I just want to show you two pictures of our white cat Kveiting – he´s such a character!! This seems to be his new favourite place – an old bucket we use to feed the horses!!!

Oh, and don´t forget to pop around my webshops which have been kind of neglected during the summer, too - I´m listing lots of new stuff!

My creative space

My creative space today is mostly about my summershop that I recently opened for the season.


The carriage needed to be reorganized and a lot of cleaning was involved before the funny part - setting up the furniture and decorating with my wares - could begin! I love the sofa, my sweet neighbour Helen gave it to me as she had no use for it any longer, and the shape and duck egg blue colour add a good hint of boudoir to the atmosphere which I really like. Here are some more pictures:




The peeling turquoise dresser looks gorgeous together with my selection of vintage china for sale! I even decorated the space outside the carriage with lots of flowers:


Although setting up the shop for the season took a lot of my time, I managed to get some work done. I made these summery bohemian textile bracelets:


And I needed to make more button rings as they´re almost sold out, so here is a selection of button tops ready to be glued on to the ring base:


While I was sitting in the conservatory busy with crafting my wares, our sweet Norwegian forest cat Frida kept me company, taking a nap between my tins with threads and buttons ;-)


Don´t forget to pop around Kootoyos blog if you want to explore other Bloggers creative spaces!

Spring has come.... at last!

I´m sorry for having been absent for such a long time, but things have been crazy around here for a while... Thank you all again for the good wishes for my old cat Frasse, but sadly he didn´t make it and had to be put to sleep.

But on a more merry note, spring has finally come and the garden is beautiful right now, so I used the blossoming fruit trees as a backdrop for some new shawls:


Here some more photos of our spring garden, taken a couple of weeks ago. This is our beautiful old beechtree with a flowerbed with lady´s mantle and roses in the foreground:


And here a peek into the vegetable garden with the greenhouse:


I´m happy to tell that my train carriage arrived a couple of weeks ago and was sound and safe put into place between the horse paddock and the beech hedge. It´s going to house my summershop and gallery, has direct access from the street and I´m sooooo looking forward to move in with my stuff - but there still is some work ahead before I can do so ;-)


The proud owner in front of her "new" vintage train carriage!


Along with the train carriage came a nest with 5 young blackbirds.... unfortunately without their parents.... we started to feed them with earthworms immediately after we had discovered them, but the next morning they had left the nest. We found one dead on the ground that hadn´t survived the jump, one in the nearby rapeseed field and another one in the shrubbery nearby the train carriage, the other ones we couldn´t find. We took the two birdies in, but the one we found in the shrubbery died later the same day. The other one is strong and healthy and we have nursed him for two weeks now, so he is rather tame:


We take him out in the garden every day so he has the possibility to train his flying abilities, and he takes a round or two and then comes back to us.... very cute. He has started to look after worms and insects himself when being outside, so he is soon ready to be released into freedom. Here he came back from one of his rounds to sit on my knee:


I even did a couple of exhibitions and markeds, the exhibition in Germany was great fun and I´m going to tell more about it next time and show some pictures. Last weekend I did a garden festival, and although the setting was beautiful and everything was well organized, it was disappointing...


The first day it was so windy that my little tent was almost blown away, my shelves and rack for my shawls fell over many times and I spent most of my time either chasing my stuff because it had been blown away or collect it from the ground.... The next day it was raining (heavily raining!!) all day, so there weren´t too many visitors. My stall looked good I think, I had really made an effort to create the right atmosphere:


A big problem apart from the weather conditions was the fact that most of the visitors were simply not my target group, the audience was slightly older and I didn´t even break even (the costs for a stall were rather high), so I spent two days in wind and rain and cold for nothing...
But you have to try things, and soon I´ll open my summershop for the summer season which I´m really excited about!

This post is linked to the creative space group, and if you want to explore other Bloggers creative spaces please go to Kootoyos blog!

Hope you´re all well and enjoying springtime!

Flowers!

It´s so nice that finally spring has come! I´ve been out gardening every day for an hour or so the last couple of weeks, with a garden the size of ours you need to be out there by now otherwise you´ll never catch up! And I enjoy it!

Even my creative space has been dominated by flowers this week. First I made these waterlily brooches, they feature burnt organza, taffeta, handdyed lace, silk and pearls.


Next project were some crocheted flower-hairpins in merry colours. I first crocheted lots of tiny flowers:


Then I embellished them with small buttons and seed beads and attached them to the pins:


I´m going to list some of them in my shops soon, if anyone should be interested ;-) And - it was so wonderful sitting in the conservatory making these colourful brooches and happy little flowerpins while the birds were singing outside!


And of course I had to try the new stuff on - remember always to wear flowers in your hair!


I made the little scarf last year and I simply love its colours, just the right thing to wear on a chilly spring day!

I´m also very happy because I´ve been invited to exhibit in Germany in May, so I´m going to be rather busy the next couple of months!

Last thing for today are these pictures from my spring garden, lots of snowdrops where the ground in the summer is completely covered by ferns:


And these small beauties that resemble snowdrops but they aren´t! I tried to find the English name, but I couldn´t - in German we call them "Märzenbecher" and I love them!


Have a wonderful Easter and don´t forget to pop around Kootoyos blog to visit other Bloggers creative spaces!

Spring....

The last couple of days you really could feel spring in the air, so wonderful after this long and cold winter. I didn´t get much done last week, mostly due to my old cat Frasse having been so poorly. But I managed to finish this commissioned doily scarf:


I´m really pleased with the result, it looks gorgeous worn as a shawl as shown in the picture before, or as a scarf:


I really want to thank all of you who left a comment or sent an e-mail wishing my dear old cat Frasse to get better soon, and although we didn´t have much hope it seems to have helped, at least for the time being. He is much better, the blood test showed that there is something wrong with his liverfunction, but he is reacting well to the medication and has started to eat again and actually gained some weight, so we´re rather hopeful. Apparently the next week will be crucial, as his dose of steroids and antibiotics has to be reduced soon and time will show if he can cope with the lower dose, but they´re is quite a chance that he might be around for a while longer, so keep crossing fingers ;-) Here he is, enjoying the spring sun in the conservatory, I took the picture this morning:


I had some great swaps with blog friends lately, yesterday this bunch of gorgeousness arrived from the lovely Cat from La Dolce Vita - lots of fantastic lace, fabric and trims and one of her beautiful artworks, based on a landscape photography:


Already a couple of weeks ago I got a parcel from another blog friend, Alicia from Altered Bits:



I had won the beautiful Frida ATC at her blog give-away and swapped the rhinesone buckle, and she was so nice to add some more nice bits´n bobs! Make sure to check both Cats and Alicias blogs to see more of their fantastic stuff.

Before I go just a couple of spring impressions, the first flowers in the garden, winter aconite and snowdrops, we have them all over the garden:


And a spring wreath for the front door I made from hop and pink organza ribbon:


Enjoy springtime and pop around the other creative spaces, you find them at Kootoyos blog!