I´m finally back....

Almost two years ago to the day since my last blog post.... I gave up my part time job and took the plunge into being totally self-employed, which has meant lots of work and even less time than before. Of course I´m still creating and I run my shop in the summer, and I´m also working as a freelance translator, so if you´re in need of a skilled German or Danish translator you know whom to get in touch with!

I will continue to write about my craftwork and little shop, my passion for vintage stuff, our life in an old farmhouse in the Danish countryside, my big cottage garden and our efforts to live a sustainable lifestyle.

Today I want to write about my chickens. We´ve made some additions to our flock recently and currently have 9 hens and a rooster. Most of them are bantam breeds, but I also bought two Easter Eggers, and look what beautiful eggs I get from them!

I love my chickens, and everyone who has the possibility should consider getting their own little flock. Chickens are entertaining, lovely to watch when free ranging in the garden, the amount of work they cause is manageable and nothing can beat the fresh eggs from your own hens! My chickens often wait by the front door begging for treats (oatmeal or sunflower seeds are very popular), which is so cute and makes me smile every time.

I believe that chickens should be allowed to free range under controlled conditions - ours have a safe run where we keep them when we´re out, but they roam the garden and horse field when we`re at home. This arrangement seems to work well and we haven´t lost any to predators yet, although we live very rural. Here you see them foraging on the horse field - this is how chickens should live in my opinion.

At the moment we get around 5 eggs per day from our 9 hens, as the bantams are not high perfomance layers and some of them are 4 years already so only lay every couple of days. The Easter Eggers are laying every day, so eggs in pretty shades of turquoise, olive green and cream are piling up in my kitchen.

And sometimes, you can be really lucky and get a double yolker - our Easter Egger Emma is laying them from time to time, not unusual for young hens who have just started to lay.

Do you keep chickens? I would love to hear about your flock then, so feel free to leave a comment!

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!

Peacockblue Surprise

Yesterday I had quite unusual visitors.... these two beautiful peacocks!


They first landed on the roof of our conservatory......


Then I served them diner in the courtyard and tried to persuade them that they had found the perfect home...


After that they took a rest on the roof of our vintage train carriage....


And then they spent the rest of the day wandering around the garden (and, although I loved them, I was slightly nervous what they might do to the vegetable garden - but they didn´t touch anything!)


Unfortunately they left our garden in the evening, but tonight I saw them on the roof of our neighbours house, and not only two but actually three peacocks!! It seems as if they have "adopted" the village, and no one knows where they are coming from. I hope they stay around, I always wanted to have peacocks! (And I hope they drop some of their beautiful blue feathers next time they come into my garden)

Busy Springtime

I can´t believe it´s three weeks ago I published my last post!! But it´s so much to do right now -my parents are coming next weekend, so I had to tidy up the guest room and I even moved some furniture around and re-arranged some of my still lives. Here you see a collection of ceramics made by a friend of mine (and my cat eye glasses from the 60ies - I love them!!).


I also gave my beloved collection of vintage jewellery a good clean up and picked some flowers in the garden - the result turned out nicely I think.


There is still a lot of work in the garden, although I have to say the garden really looks great this year, espacially my vegetable patch. Took this picture in the greenhouse today, lots of flowers waiting to be planted in my flower tubs.


I have been a bit frustrated lately because I can´t exactly say that I sell massively well on etsy... I really make a big effort to network, take good pictures and upload new items regularly, which is quite time consuming, because I both have to supply my Fleur de Boheme shop with my own work and my Extravaganzza shop where I sell vintage clothes and jewellery. I sold my first handcrafted pieces a couple of days ago to Canada, the lace scarf and matching brooch shown below.


Of course that was nice, and the vintage shop is doing slightly better, but still....
I find two things difficult, the first one is to get enough traffic on the sites and the second one is the fact that I live in the most expensive country in Europe (probably one of the most expensive countries in the world) and I feel I just can´t compete with American prices at all!! We pay 49% taxes in Denmark, the prices for food are hideous and supplies are expensive too! I like where I´m living, but I find the fact that everything is so expensive really hard to accept!

Anyway, I reduced the prices on most of my items on etsy a while ago to see if that would make a difference, and I want to ask you a little favour: Would you take a look at my shops and give me feedback concerning my pricing?
I booked a few showcase spots to increase shop awareness, and the storque and accessories showcases were quite successful and gave me new followers, whilst the vintage showcase was a flop I would say. I also tried two snatch a treasury many times now because I think that´s a good way of networking, but it just seems impossible!

My newest item in my shop are these whimsical flowerbrooches - they´re almost like butterflies and I really like the picture ;-)


Well, to finish the etsy talk - if anyone out there has more tips concerning how to become a successful etsy seller, I would be grateful!

Talking about my work - I didn´t get done too much but I finished another brooch and I am now working on a bracelet, both for my summer exhibition - that´s the reason why they´re not in my etsy shop yet ;-)


Last year I started an education in creative embroidery, it´s a mixture of short courses and distance learning and it takes three years. I did the second module a couple of weeks ago, and now I have lots of projects to finish before the next module in september. The topic of the last module was nature, and one of the pieces I did was this embroidery inspired by birchbark. It includes printing, different layers of fabric, machine and handembroidery. I´m not sure if it´s finished yet, I might embellish it with beads in some places.

I even saw a fascinating exhibition while I was away for the embroidery course. It featured the work of the Danish artist Marie-Louise Otte who creates the most scrumptious ballet costumes made of paper, gold leaf, svarowski stones and other vintage materials. I hope to be able to write more about her next time and to show you some pictures of her amazing sculptures - I´m waiting to get her permission to show pictures of her work here on my blog.

I can´t give you any update about the article in "Isabellas" yet. I bought the newest magazine and was sooo disappointed because there wasn´t any article featuring interesting craft and vintage shops in Denmark - until I found out that the article is first due in the next issue which doesn´t come out before july ;-)

So, enjoy this lovely springtime - see you soon!

Springtime

I think it´s time for me to write on my blog again - I´ve been so busy in the garden I haven´t had time for much else really. We have a huge cottage garden with many roses, hortensia, mixed borders, fruit trees and a big potager where I grow our vegetables, so there is plenty of work in the spring - but I love being out there digging, sowing and planting! My granny had a big garden and I loved being there as a child, the garden was next to a big field full of pansies that belonged to a nursery nearby, and pansies still are my favourite spring flowers.


Every spring I´m so looking forward to see the fruit trees in full bloom, and I especially love our old japanese cherry tree with the beautiful pink flowers that look gorgeous with the ferns in the border in the background.


My next garden project is getting chicken and building a little hen house, I think it´s so cosy with chicken in the garden but we have to build a solid hen house and chicken yard as we have many foxes around.
I even want to show you a picture of our three horses, they are grazing on the little field by our house right now, but soon they are going to their summer grazing - I´ll miss having them so close and looking at them while I´m gardening.


Although I have been very busy in the garden I managed to do some creative work, I´m still working on the Marie Antoinette theme that is going to be exhibited in the summer. The first piece is a pendant, made of vintage lace, tulle and applique, some of them hand dyed, and embellished with pearls from a vintage pearl necklace, glassbeads, a mother of pearl flower and hand embroidery. I´m not sure about the chain yet, might be either vintage lace or beads and pearls - I have to play around with some ideas!


I also made this neckpiece, a combination of vintage lace and a beautiful hand dyed vintage applique adorned with lots of glassbeads, pearls, sequins, mother of pearl buttons and hand embroidery.


A couple of days ago, something really exciting happened! During the summermonths I have a little shop in our old train carriage where I sell my craft work, vintage dresses, vintage china and tablewear and things from the garden - flowers, jam etc. When I checked my mobile, there was a message from an editor of the Danish interior and lifestyle magazine "Isabellas".


She asked me to call her back because she had found my website and asked if I could supply her with some pictures of the shop as she was writing an article about craft- and vintage shops in the countryside and wanted to include me!! I sent her some pictures of the shop and my work and now I cross fingers she really writes about me - that would be so fantastic as it is a great mag and would give me some extra customers!

Last not least I was awarded the lemonade award by lovely Nicki from "Curious Me" (http://nicki-curiousme.blogspot.com/) - check her blog, it´s full of gorgeous pictures and beautiful crafty things! It´s my first award and I´m really happy about it - thank you, Nicki!


A Lemonade Award is given to bloggers that you feel show a positive attitude and/or gratitude. Here's how it works:

1.Put the logo on your blog or post
2.Nominate at least 10 blogs that show great Gratitude and/or Attitude.
3.Be sure to list and link your nominees within your post.
4.Let them know they have received this award by leaving a comment on their blog.
5.Nominate your favorites and link to your post.

These are the blogs that I want to nominate:

1) oldflowers4me (http://oldflowers4me.blogspot.com/)
2) The Silly BooDilly (http://thesillyboodilly.blogspot.com/)
3) Hens Teeth (http://hensteethart.blogspot.com/)
4) Boboho (http://tracy-boboho.blogspot.com/)
5) Roses Radishes and Rubbish (http://rosesradishesandrubbish.blogspot.com/)
6) Edera Crocheted Jewelry (http://edera-faerie.blogspot.com/)
7) Kaylovesvintage (http://kaylovesvintage.blogspot.com/)
8) Katinka Pinka (http://katinkapinka.blogspot.com/)
9) Babaprincesse (http://babaprincesse.blogspot.com/)
10) Sticky Kitten (http://stickykittenz.blogspot.com/)

Well, I´m off now to do some gardening ;-)

Neglected Treasures

The birds are singing, the days are getting longer - spring is on its way!! Made me want to redecorate a bit, so I changed the outfit on my dummy:

I love the hat, it´s so springy I think, with the vibrant pink and the flowers! It´s a fleamarket find from Germany and it´s very small, so I only use it for decoration purpose.


Even in the garden there are signs of spring, I´ll have to give the garden a good clear up over Easter.




I still fetch fresh vegetables from last years growing season, mainly green cabbage and leek. They are great winter vegetables - I didn´t even cover them over winter.



But let´s come to the neglected treasures.I had a little raid around my favourite vintage shops on Saturday, and of course lots of things made it home with me!

Some nice tins (again ;-) - but can you ever have enough??), an old sewing box like the one my granny had, a charming old mirror, lace, fabric and some small bits´n bobs.

In the second shop I found a whole box of sewing equipment - thread, embroidery yarn, crochet yarn, needles, fabric and these adorable needlecases!

I even found some unused stockings from the 60ies with the most delicate pattern! So naughty ;-)

Isn´t that beaded lace gorgeous? And the buttons will make beautiful centrepieces for a brooch or a pendant.

The woman who owns the shop where I found all the sewing equipment, some nice fabric, buttons and the stockings told me it all came from the same old lady. She had stored everything carefully, neatly wrapped and put away, there had even been old fashion magazines from the 30ies and 40ies and vintage slips but they were sold already (AARRGH - how annoying!!!). And although I was ever so happy having found such beautiful and useful things, it made me sad to think about the fact that this old ladies life now was for sale in a vintage warehouse, that none of her relatives appreciated the treasures she had collected and stored so carefully for many years enough to want to keep them. Well, at least some of it found a new loving home!