Summer Time

It sure is summer here -birds are singing, flowers are blooming, butterflies are fluttering, and I am getting ready for Easter. Easter falls in our early Autumn but Easter display colours tend to be summery or spring-like, pastel eggs and bunnies hopping everywhere, green grass and fluffy chicks. So I have decided to make things for my Easter Open House (date still to be finalised) in both gentle colours and others in more earthy shades.
Above is a lovely summery-spring basket, decoupaged in colourful pansies and decorated with 3D pansies, butterflies and bows, a perfect small basket to gather those easter eggs.

Spring/Summer Dries -Potpourri -part 3

A useful way to use your flowers for potpourri. Today I picked some spring/summer flowers from the garden. I placed these in a vase without water and there they will remain until the flowers and leaves are dry to make a new batch of potpourri. Some flowers will dry beautifully this way, without tying in a bunch and hanging upside down. I now have an arrangement of fresh flowers for quite a while and at the same time adding to my dries for potpourri.
In this batch I picked bougainvillea, green foliage which has a tiny flower and sprigs of rosemary to add a lovely scent.

Spring/Summer's Potpourri

Today I made my first batch of Spring/Summer Potpourri, a mixture of rose, rose geranium and lavender. The room is filled with the beautiful scent but it will take a few more days before its ready. This past winters dries were the best as we had a long dry winter and not too cold.

Summer in Winter

Its winter here in South Africa, we are having a good cold spell, I say good because often our winters can be too warm and at least we can now make a lovely log fire on days like this.

I was looking through my collection of cards from many years ago. I love those delightful character animals by Noel Tatt. I have quite a collection of them and will show you a few one day. Today I singled out two of my favourite original watercolours depicting a lovely summer's day in the country, a summer in my winter.