Floral Abundance, Machete Soon Needed

 The heavy rainfall and the relative warmth of the season has meant that the plants in my garden have just grown with abundance.  The borders are full to the brim and I love it.  All the shapes, colours and perfumes are a delight so I thought I'd share a few with you

 The first year my poppy has flowered.  Parts of it look just like velvet.

 My alltime favourite rose - Jubilee Celebration, I bet David Austen's sold a few of those this year :)

 My astrantias, unassuming but so exquiste, think these are Roma.

 Just a rambler from the local DIY store, so clean, crisp and perfect.

 My long awaited peony, normally well over by this time in the year.

 Pretty ground cover with this hardy geranium.

 This wonderful dark leaved shrub is flowering, no idea what it is but I love it

 My varigated jasmine is in bud.

And I had to finish with another rose, this time St Swithun, softly perfumed.  Now I just need some warm days to get out there and enjoy the garden :)

Latest Makes

I set to and made an apple cosy for my friend at the weekend. I'd never made anything like it before but it was surprisingly easy, using the pattern from Mollie Makes.

And I made a second Peonies journal for a friend to give to her sister (I'll up load more photos in another post). And as if that's not enough I've made various sample wedding invitations for another friends daughter. They are under wraps at the moment, I'll share them when I know which the happy couple are choosing, up till then Top Secret, lol.

So I may have been quiet on here (so sorry folks) but I've been a busy bee, honest. Also I want to share with you a super little Folksy shop run by Nana Gogo, aka the lovely Anne. I've been lucky enough to purchase a lovely cosy crocheted cowl from her, I've just not been lucky with the light as not been able to take a decent photo of it yet to share with you. But if you'd like to pay her a visit now her shop can be found here Photo of my beautiful cowl to follow!

Peonies Journal

I can finally share this Peonies Journal that I made for a friends mum recently. I had great fun with this journal as I just adore peonies myself.


Out came the napkins and the lace,


the vintage paper and the stamps,


a bit of Stickles glitter,

a old botanical painting of a peony from an old diary,


an illustration from a seventies gardening book,


a photo of one of my own peonies,

I had to pop in a small fabric collage, a little bird amongst the flowers,

pink sprayed watercolour paper,

and another fabric collage with vintage buttons.

Blossoms

My peony is out and blooming marvellous, sorry, couldn't resist it. I just love the big blousy flower heads. I've had enough flowers this year to fill a vase and still have flowers in the garden to hedge my bets with the rain showers that can wreck the blooms in an instant.

I thought I'd share some other blooms out at the moment, from this dark bluey-purple grannies bonnet - don't you just love that name

to my clementis and on to

a close up of a peony bloom. Planted two pink peonies this year so hoping for more blooms next year.

Talking of the future I was potting up my winter greens earlier on this week - dwarf kale, italian cabbage and rainbow chard, little pots of texture and colour. Just got to keep the slugs off them, grrrr .....

Enjoy your Sundays wherever you are. I'm hoping to get some creative work done today as not been able to get in the studio all week and boy have I missed it x

And Finally She Flowers

Finally my peony is flowering, normally she flowers in May and gets dashed to bits by the heavy showers in May. But this year she stayed in tight buds through the unusual heatwave in May and now has opened out. Hooray I thought, I'll be able to enjoy her spectacle for longer this year. But no, the heavy showers have migrated as well and as I type I can hear the heavens opening and the heaviest raindrops descending to dash her petals to the ground. Maybe I should construct some kind of peony umbrella next year or am I becoming slightly obsessive, you be the judge :)