Boxwood Cottage

~ Happy May garden days ~

2013-05-31T23:26:00.001-07:00

Welcome back to Boxwood Cottage dear blogging friends and readers! I can't believe my long May vacation is almost over and it's back to the office and work on Monday, but before that I want to at least share some May garden pictures with you. This was an unusual cold and wet May for us here in Northern Germany but I know it was like that for most of us even in the South of Europe and in many parts of the United States. What has happened to my favorite Spring month? Well nevertheless I used every sunny moment there was outside on my little piece of earth.

On my deck I planted lot's of Spring flowers like violas/pansies and bleeding hearts at first in April and then started to plant Summer blooms in my pots in May and I'm still not finished with it. I also sowed sweet peas, cosmos, zinnias etc. in my zinc cold frame box and pots in hope of getting pretty summer flowers to bloom all Summer long, but they're all taking longer than usual to grow:

I love to watch them grow so, don't you? The sweat peas I always leave them in the cold frame and let them climb up the trellis I put in it.

In April we still had bare trees without leaves because of the long frosty period, but came May the green literally exploded and finally every bush, rose and tree in my garden was green once again. I especially love my maple tree sitting right smack there in the middle of my back yard, blocking the view to the houses behind my garden which I think is good!

Then the sweet blue "forget me nots" started to bloom everywhere in my borders as you can see in the next photo:

And the pink tulips I planted new last autumn started to bloom in the other big border under the roses:

And it is so nice to see all the alliums and perennials grow again, after we had freed the border from weeds:

My crabapple tree got lots of buds and flowers this year, while last year there wasn't so many so I can look forward to lots of tiny red apples this autumn:

The hostas also came out beautiful again. Since I do not have enough space in my borders for these beauties I planted them in pots. This one sits on my potting bench in front of a mirror:

When the sun came out the tulips in my rose garden opened their flowers really wide:

Below is my favorite tulip called Angelique:

Of course Riley enjoyd the rare warm and sunny happy Spring garden times outside with me:

He abandoned his favorite blue chair this season and now prefers to lie on top of the blue garden table:

Our neighbors cat Tommy is never far from him, you can spot him under the table:

The next photo is a close up of my favorite little pansie the Viola cornuta:

My auricala also survived the long Winter outside and bloomed again beautifully as seen below:

A closer auricula shot:

And a macro shot, I so love this dark reddish pink color:

I found a verbena in that same color and planted it in one of my hanging baskets:

In the photo below it is wet from rain and looks like it is varnished, don't you think?

Of course I also had to take another birdseye view shot of my small garden now that finally everything is green again:

I love to see my patio and borders from above and I'm so thankful for my little paradise. Do you see in the next picture how the English rose "Constance Spry" in the white rose arc has grown all through and around it? Can you imagine how wonderful she is going to be when she opens her pretty shaped pink blossoms in June? In this rose boarder are also Heritage, Rokkoko, Abraham Darby and two big Eden roses that will all bloom very soon and I'm so looking forward to see them all bloom again:

I really like the red flat stones we put around the border last year it makes the shape pop more and is so much easier to mow around it now.

Next is a view of my patio on a sunny day here I could actually sit in my deckchair and enjoy the warm Spring sun:

And this below is the view of my garden from the back of it. All the boxwood hedges got fresh green sprouts by now and I have to cut them again soon so that they'll stay in shape:

The clematis Montana rubens below still in buds is meanwhile blooming beautifully too:

And my pure white bleeding heart also still blooms so great that I had to share another shot of it:

It's also nice to lo look right through it on to my deck as seen in the next shot:

So now tell me please how's your garden growing this season?

I'm going to leave you for today with this picture of my deck and hope to be back very soon with pictures of a belated birthday party I have had a week ago.

Until then I'm wishing y'all a very happy start of Summer in June with hopefully more sunshine for all of us!

xoxo~ Carola

About moths, butterflies and bleeding hearts ~ A short April catch up post

2013-04-30T23:34:00.000-07:00

Welcome back to Boxwood Cottage dear blogging friends and readers to a short (at least for me - only 10 photos today) April catch up post about soldered moths and butterflies in my studio as well as the Spring awakening (finally) of my boxwood garden.

I was so very inspired by a class called "The dead bug society" that my idol Sally Jean Alexander

( she always has the best ideas and imagination and I would have loved to be there in person and take her class and learn some of her tricks and techniques - oh well hopefully one day) currently gave in San Diego, that I just had to give it a try and see if I could make it and so I figured out on how to solder my own insects. I also loved how they put them under glass in old books and here are my first results. Above and below is my first soldered moth in a very old book found at one of my flea market excursions in which I cut a deep window and then I soldered a thin glass pane under the book cover . It can also be displayed standing like in the picture below.

So what do you think, did I do my idol SJ justice?

Apart from the moth I also tried my first soldered butterfly (see below) and I'm so glad that I learned to free hand cut my own glass instead of just buying pre cut glasses in online shops because there are so many more possibilities since then :)

Well that's it from the studio for now and I hope to share some more creations with you in May.

I hadn't had the luck yet in April to catch a beautiful butterfly with my camera outside in my garden although I saw some of them swirling around already but nevertheless I'd like to take you outside for a short stroll:

It has finally warmed up here and Spring has really sprung after what seemed to be the longest and coldest Winter ever to us, especially March was so cold and frosty that nature is way back in our garden and I couldn't help but buying some Spring flowers to bring in some more color and delight.

The bleeding heart is one of my many favorite Spring flowers so I had to have a white and a pink one. In the flowers beds they just came out and aren't blooming yet but these beauties from the nursery are already in full bloom and aren't they gorgeous? The spanish lavender in the shot below is another nursery purchase. I have to buy one or two of these beauties new every year because they aren't frost resisting here in Northern Germany.

The magnolia bush has just started to open its white starry flowers and all the bushes and trees are beginning to show a hint of fresh green. I took a birds eye view shot from my roof top studio window to share with you and you can see all the greens sprouting in my flower bed under the white rose arc. Especially the tulips and alliums all have buds to burst open very soon and I can't wait to welcome them back again!

It's so wonderful to be able to enjoy the garden and the warmth of the Spring sun again and since I'm off work for the whole month of May (yay) I'll be doing just it as best as I possibly can :)

May is my favorite garden month of the year and so I hope to share many more garden delights during this wonderful month with you my dear friends and readers very soon.

I'm going to leave you now with another shot of these pure white bleeding hearts:

And wish you all a very happy "May Day" and a great start into the wonderful month of May!

Hope to see you around soon!

xoxo~ Carola

I'm linking up with the following parties:

What's it Wednesday at Ivy and the Elephants
Inspired Friday at Common Ground
Cottage Garden Party @ Fishtail Cottage
Blissful Whites Wednesday at Time Washed

Spring garden~ Happy White Easter~& a surpise parcel

2013-03-30T23:33:00.000-07:00

Welcome back to Boxwood Cottage on Easter Sunday morning! Since my dear daughter did all the yummy vegan backing and cocking for today I had the chance to put a new post together. I got a beautiful surprise parcel from my friend Julia of Vintage with Laces who currently lives in Albania a few days ago, but before I share all the goodness she created for me I'd like to show you this vintage inspired cone that I made for my mum's b-day which was last Wednesday.

In used waxed paper around the whole cone and then embellished it with some of my precious paper doilies and love how it came out.

Of course I did my best to make it pretty from all sides, above is the backside. I had fun filling it with vintage goodies like an old china doll head, old cabinet card and velvet millinery as well as one of my soldered hearts.

Something else that I'd like to share with you today are a few pictures from my early Spring garden which I took during the first week of March:

This is what I think that early Spring should look like. Horned pansies/Violas and cats alike enjoying the warmth of the sun after a long cold Winter. And blue I just love a blue Spring!

Above is our Riley napping on his favorite blue garden chair and below our black neighbor cat Tommy who took advantage of my deckchair as soon as I left it lol

I also took out some Easter decor, like this wire rabitt filled with marble eggs:

the rusty iron rabbits below reside outside all year round though:

And these aqua glass bells do look so springy don't you think?

I took two days off work to take full advantage of these sunny early Spring days on my patio and started cleaning of the flower beds.

I was so happy that Spring was finally here and of course was absolutely sure it was here to stay.

Ha! I was so wrong. Little did I know during these two happy early Spring days that Winter would come back full force just 2 days later.

This is what I woke up to the next Morning, well that was still some how okay with me for early Spring days since it melted away quickly during the day. But since then it kept snowing every second day at least and not only that, we got an icy cold east wind along with another period of strong frost which lasts for 3 weeks already now and there is still no end of it in sight. Yesterday I heard in the news that this March is the coldest March ever since 130 years here in Germany brrrrrrrrrrr

Well my dear blogging friends and readers I think we better go back into the warm cottage:

Just two more pictures of the cone because I think it looks so pretty in front of my white glass cabinet and I also wanted to bring your attention two my cute new birdie stamp door knobs. Aren't they just too cute and springy?

Okay but now it's time to share with you the handmade goodness that came as a belated surprise parcel for my big round birthday which was two months ago. When you get a parcel from Julia you just know that you're in for a real treat because everything she creates is just perfect in my eyes. Below is an overview about all the loveliness dear Julia has sent me before I'm going to show you some close ups:

For me a beautiful parcel always starts with beautiful packaging and wrapping and Julia really is a master in doing this. I'm really smitten with the way she's making it all so personal like the parcel below with my first names initial C in the gorgeous heart with the stitched edges:

Or with the stamped and aged paper envelopes she makes:

It's all in the details like in the gorgeous round tag below:

Or in this pretty bow with old lace and an aged button on top of a fabric rosette:

I also love her stamped tags and below is another personalized gift package with small fabric stamped tag:

of course inside of these parcels you'll find true treasures. My heart skipped a beat when I opened the large one and found this fabulous, dreamy, fabric Easter/Spring collage inside:

Isn't it a wonderful piece of artwork? I'm so happy with it! I love the image Julia has used from Karen our Graphics Fairy and also the tiny number tag she glued on the egg in the image and the springy light pastel blue border and of course all the lace and the details like the button flowers and the pretty edging. For now it found a perfect place hanging from a white wooden shutter in my parlor where I can see it and marvel over it all day.

Julia owns the most beautiful stamps and uses them so well in her creations like on the reading mark above which she has also personalized with a C at the back side.

The sweet paris inspired lace note pad above has a great way to stay closed with an elastic rubber band which is inside the lace wrapped around topped of with a beautiful flower button.

Oh and I love this all white fabric heart in the picture above. It looks so very fresh and pretty the white really kind of shines!

Thank you su much sweet Julia for making my week in this cold long Winter which is supposed to be Spring.

If you happen to not now my friend Julia yet, hop on over to her blog and be sure you're in for lot's of eye candy and beautiful inspiring ideas: http://vintagewithlaces.blogspot.de/

Well my friends I'm going to leave you now with these last two pictures of a vignette in my parlor. For the black chalkboard egg I used a candy box which already had a cut out bunny shape and I glued a wooden bunny I had in the same size, which I glittered with silver German glass glitter before, beside of it.

Wishing you all FROHE OSTERN ~ HAPPY EASTER ~

See you again when real Spring has finally sprung around here. Fingers crossed that will be very soon before we all end up with a depression. Who would have thought that we'll be having a White Easter this year?

xoxo~ Carola

Sharing with:

Becky's Blissfull Whites Wednesday at Timewashed blog
Debra's Inspiration Friday at Common Ground blog
Vintage Interior blogs VI ~ God helg
Angies Knick of time Tuesday at Knick of Time blog
Paula's and Pattie's What's it Wednesday @ Iviy and the Elephants blog

The bunnies are loose ~ pre Easter deco ideas & a winner!

2013-03-12T07:18:00.000-07:00

Welcome back dear blogging friends and readers to Boxwood Cottage in March which of course means it's all decorated for Easter by now and I like to share with you this years ideas for my Easter decor and going to reveal the winner of my Valentine's Day Give Away at the End of this post.

At this time of the year you'll find signs of Spring and Easter everywhere you look around here

Easter is my favorite holiday to decorate for well apart from Christmas that is. The crate shelf above looked like that for the last two or 3 weeks, but last weekend I redecorated it again as you'll see in my pictures further down this post. Oh btw did I mention that this is a long post with 35 pictures? So you better make yourself comfortable and go get a cup of tea before continuing ;-)

The mantle is always the first piece I decorate and I like to decorate it differently each year so I really had to think twice this time until I came up with the idea of putting the two wooden brown bunnies under my two higher glass domes which I really like now and also to embellish the goose eggs (of my sisters geese) with cut out letters spelling Frohe Ostern/Happy Easter. I'll show you more close ups of the top of the mantle later.

I cut some pussy willow branches from my garden to decorate with the chicken blue eggs which I handpainted and decorated with wire and beads many years ago:

Around the rusty crown ( a gift from my colleagues for my b-day in Jan.) I put some of my old wooden Erzgebirge German folkart (ore mountains in East Germany) bunnies.

Below at my window sill sits a plaster hare from my friend Anja of Mathildas Design which I also put under glass with another goose egg. I just seem to have a thing this year whith putting hares and bunnies under glass and I just like the antique apothecary bottles in front of it.

Below is my small wall shelf invaded by sheep/lambs and bunnies too:

Crocheted eggs, white birds and an old bunny candy container as well as an iron stone egg are decorated on my white three tired iron chandelier:

And another plaster bunny and plaster egg I sat in this glass terrarium (which is a fabulous b-day gift from my dear neighbors and was filled with blooming bulbs when I got it in Jan.) along with nature materials like moss, birch bark and feathers:

Oh and last week we finally had some days with sunshine as seen in the photo below:

Now we come to the close ups of the mantle and of course as always my pictures are really large and you can click on them and then right click on show graphic to see the original size with even more details.

The glittered Happy Easter garland from my dear friend Madai of course is a must on the mantle at this time of the year. I also love the white hare in front of the white urn with the ostrich egg. And here you can see the letter decorated geese eggs much better:

The sewing machine table is also decorated with a variety of eggs most of them decorated by me. The red eggs in glass box I hand painted over 10 years ago. My favorite is the large pink foil egg in the back which was an antique market find:

Before we come to some close ups of this wall in my parlor I show you this wider view of it:

You can very well see my compassion for black silhouettes in these pictures so of course I had to make some more silhouette Easter eggs, this time I embellished the huge paper maché eggs. The one in in the old wire basket with the stick in the hand is my favorite.

I also painted some cardboard eggs and paper maché eggs with black chalkboard paint, like I did with the big hanging bunny last year and it's fun to write on them also my chalk lettering isn't very pretty I must admit.

I just like to spell words with my Anthropologie letter cups like HARE and then I used them as nests:

Some of the smaller eggs I glittered with the silver German glass glitter and embellished them with silver Dreden borders. All in all the neutral colors rule my Easter decor and I really love it, don't you?

I think the huge egg needs some more embellishments, or what would you say?

The big and quite heavy white plaster hare in the middle shelf looks as if he wants to jump out of it. I hope he's not gonna break my glass box then ;-)

Now I'd like to introduce you to my latest antique market find!

Please meet Manni my new old Steiff bunny! Isn't he just the cutest pet?

A white Easter bunny also sits on top of my topiary on the kitchen window sill:

Last week I really thought that SPRING had sprung here after 3 warm and sunny days in a row and that my cups under the kitchen cupboard spelling it had helped, but I was so wrong, because last Saturday we woke up to a new blanket of snow outside and since then it is here to stay along with heavy frosts again.

Since I never showed you these sweet antique iron stone cutting boards that my mum gave me for Christmas before, I thought I'd share a close up of them today. Aren't they just wonderful with the fairytale silhouettes?

From a close up back to some wider views of my parlor - both photos taken this Sunday:

With all the snow outside it was at least very bright inside too.

This small and very old, already glued together candy container bunny was another recent antique market find, that I just had to give a new home:

And of course I changed out the vintage postcards in the iron card holder from Winter ones to Spring and Easter ones:

Another cardboard egg which I embellished with a white bunny and gold Dresden foils hangs from a window up in my studio:

Talking about my studio I just have to share with you some pretties from other artist friends that I got recently. Dear Tina from Tinybears in Denmark surprised me with this beautiful fabric book for my birthday in January:

Thank you so much sweet Tina, I absolutely love it! :)

Then this week I got an e-mail from another dear friend, Julia of Vintages Laces, who now lives in Albania and she wrote me that she also has sent out a belated birthday parcel to me. Wohoo Julia I'm so looking forward to another surprise! :)

And before I tell you the name of the lucky winner of my Valentine's Day Give Away I have to share a give away that I recently won with you. It's the wonderful lace cuff from artist Sandy Babb over at Quillcottage that my wooden hand is modelling here for me. Isn't it gorgeous with all the intricate details? I feel so lucky to have won it! Thank you dear Sandy!

Well and finally without further ado the winner of a soldered arrow and heart made by me is:

Miss JENNIFFER!

Congratulations Jenniffer! Please email me your address to Carolinchen39athotmail.com!

Thank you very much to everyone who played along!

Since I probably wont get around to do another blog post before the official beginning of SPRING next week and Easter just around the corner at the end of March, my mums b-day and many other things inbetween I'd like to wish you all a happy beginning of Spring and a very Happy Easter Holiday!

xoxo~ Carola

Sharing this post with:

Blissful Wites Wednesday at Timewashed

What's it Wednesday at Ivy and the Elephants

Inspired Friday at Debra's Common Ground

http://vintageinteriorblogs.blogspot.de/

Knick of Time Tuesday

New V-day creations & a Valentine's day give away!

2013-02-13T13:51:00.002-08:00

Happy Love Day dear blogging friends and readers and welcome back to Boxwood Cottage on Valentine's Day!

I'm still in this red and pink mood and still creating Valentines in my studio and this what my studio table looks like right now:

So what did I create with all that stuff apart from the chocolate or candy heart boxes and silver glittered love birds that I showed you in my last post you ask?

Well there are the soldered heart charms in the photo above for example and also the the cupid arrows and the quiver for my mannequin that you can see in the photo below:

Well actually I was waiting for natural light to take theses photos but I had no luck, when I had time to shoot it was always cloudy or dark outside, but I still wanna share my cupid with you, so here it is in it's full glory and flash light:

A close up of the arrows:

Another thing I made are these sweet candy cones:

They are so fun to embellish:

I hung it with a hook from my new favorite studio toy:

Which is my Räskog cart from Ikea, one of my best birthday gifts that I had on my wish list and got from my dear sister:

It's such a handy thing to have when creating and gives me more free space on top of the table

Since it's made out of metal you can pin all kind of things on it simply by using magnets.

Now to my little love day give away:

If you are faithful follower of my blog or will become a new follower and will leave me a comment under this post telling me which was your favorite of my V-Day creations from this post and the last one and also leaving your e-mail addy so that I can get back to you, I'll put your name in one of my top hats and will draw the winner of a prettily wrapped soldered heart and arrow parcel within the next two weeks. Of course internationally friends are more than welcome to play along!

Good Luck!

If you like to share the love you can use the button above and post it at your blog or side bar.

I hope you liked the photos and creations I shared with you today and wish you all a fun and lovely Valentine's Day and I'll see you again soon, probably already with some Spring & Easter decor and creations since Easter is only a mere 6 weeks away from now!

~ Happy Love Day to you ~

xoxo~ Carola

Sharing this post with:

Be Inspired #126: Celebrating Love on Debra's Common Ground blog

Some early Valentines & 2 January birthdays 25 + 50

2013-01-31T23:02:00.002-08:00

Welcome back to Boxwood Cottage dear blogging friends and readers at the very end of January. January always is a very busy month around here, because it kinda starts with my daughters birthday and ends with mine. Can't believe she's 25 years old already and even less that I'm the double of her age, well of course I always was, but that new number just sounds so old *EEK*

I also was busy putting all the Christmas decorations away and starting to craft and decorate for Valentine's day as you can see in the picture of a corner of my studio below:

I just adore vintage paper honeycombs like this pretty red heart and bell (see above) I once got from sweet Ann Perry:

Of course V is for Valentines!

As for every season I loved decorating my blackboard in the studio for Valentine's day and since I'm still in the glittering mood I glittered hearts and arrows and cut out cardboard birds:

I also created two new cardboard Valentine's boxes like the pink one below with that sweet lady embellishment I got from Julie Collings etsy shop last year:

and for a change I also created a white Valentine's box. Loved making the arrow from a paper straw:

Further I embellished these two tiny cardboard houses with Dresden foil trims and borders and some charms as cupid homes:

The cone in the middle of the two glittered love birds also got some red and silver embellishments and I filled it with all things red I could find in my studio. And of course I needed some paper hands for my blackboard vignette:

My vintage china doll got the glittered top hat already as her New Years attire so for Valentines she needed something new and I soldered her a heart necklace:

Well my dears that's about all for now and next time I'll share with you some of the beautiful birthday gifts I was lucky to get.

So how about you, have you put all signs of Winter and Christmas away already and did you craft something new for the month of hearts?

The weather is very mild here for Winter right now - after two weeks of heavy frost and snow that is - and it now raises falls hopes of an early Spring. As most of you I also can't wait to get back out in the garden.

I wish y'all a very Happy February my dear friends and readers!

xoxo~ Carola

Sharing this post with:

http://www.timewashed.com/2013/02/blissful-whites-wednesday.html
What's it Wednesday @ Ivy and the Elephants
http://www.commonground-do.com/2013/02/be-inspired-126-little-romance.html
http://www.funkyjunkinteriors.net/2013/02/sns-174-its-all-about-valentines.html#more
http://sew-licious.blogspot.de/2013/01/valentine-showoff-party.html

Vintage new years eve vignettes ~ Happy 2013 ~

2012-12-31T12:37:00.000-08:00

Celebrating New Years Eve in the studio tonight and thought I'd share some vignettes around the studio with you my dear readers

As you can see I had fun playing with my old top hats, vintage suitcases, dolls, chalkboard and silver German glass glitter again

I made the big 2013 with silver pipe cleaners

Of course clockfaces some soldered, some real and others out of cardboard play a role in my new years vignettes as well as vintage old new years cards

Happy New Year to the world :)

My old dressform got a vintage velevet top hat for the celebration adorned with a big black millinery flower, a silver border and and some vintage bling

I think the black and white maskes are appropriate for the new years eve ball

Since it's Winter the snowmen are celebrating too ;-)

The paper maché balls and pine cones that I glittered are hanging from the studio chandelier adding some sparkle to the festive vignettes

I also glittered the small top hat for the china doll

Now after all these close ups I give you some wider views

Hope I brought you in the mood for a great party with these new years eve vignettes from my studio tonight and I'd like to wish you all good luck for the new year 2013!

Happy New Year 2013!

xoxo~ Carola

Sharing this post with:
Debra's Be Inspired Friday at Common Ground blog

Christmas 2012 and the upcoming new year!

2012-12-28T01:18:00.001-08:00

Welcome back to Boxwood Cottage at Christmas dear blogging friends and readers! I hope you all had a peaceful Christmas time and could or even better still can enjoy some quality time with friends and family before all the hustle and bustle of the new year begins.

I'm quite excited about the new year and can feel a lot of changes coming, hopefully for the better, but you can never now it exactly which is making me a bit restless these days. With the bad economy here in Europe I have reason to fear for my job of 27 years and on the other hand my daughter is going to finish her studies and ready to begin something new too. Please wish us luck!

A new period in life will start for me anyway because at the end of next month I'm going to be half a century young *EEK*!

Well let's change the subject to something lighter and brighter shall we? I played around a lot with silver in my home during the last few weeks. I had fun glittering lot's of items like the wooden fir trees right and left on top of the mantle with real stuff: German silver glass glitter.

And I glittered stars which I cut out of cardboard to hang in the tree and make it shine:

For the first time ever I have not a green but a silver fir tree with it's blueish needles. I was thinking to put string lights in it this year but then it just didn't feel right and I used real candles again like I always did.

For a change of things I didn't put the tree in a tree stand this year, but in my pleaded white zinc barrel, which I got as a gift for my last birthday:

See the blueish white and silver glow of the tree?

Gotta show you some more close ups of my vintage glass baubles and ornaments which I collected over the last 25 years from flea and antique markets. I used a lot of them already to decorate the french zinc bottle holder which I showed you in my last post, but still had enough for the Christmas tree.

I didn't feel like putting out the colored ornaments this year (or for the last 5 years or so lol) only the white and silver ornaments did strike my fancy again.

And it looks like the same applies for my gift wrapping, I used only neutral colors of paper and lot's of silver glittered stars and ornaments to embellish the parcels:

If you would have had the choice, which gift would you have chosen?

We also had yummy vegan treats for Christmas this year like the absolutely delicious Christmas cake in the photo above or the Christmas cookies in the picture below and no poor creature had to suffer for out Christmas meals either.

We didn't see much of the sun over Christmas, because it was mostly cloudy and rainy here and unusual warm, but I catched the low standing winter sun in the next photo shining on to my Christmas decorations, doesn't it look beautiful?

Well we had our share of snow for all three Advent weekends before though and I built some kind of Christmas tree with the old white wooden growth support on my deck:

And with this Winter picture my friends I want to thank you all for your faith and for still coming to see me here at Boxwood Cottage in the over 7 years that I blog now and I hope that you'll continue do do so!

Wishing you all the very best for an auspicious new year 2013!

xoxo~ Carola

Sharing this post with:

Debra's Vintage Inspiration Friday - Holiday review- at Common Ground blog
http://www.timewashed.com/2013/01/blissful-whites-wednesday.html

White Advent Sunday ~ Holiday Home Tour

2012-12-04T23:19:00.000-08:00

Welcome back to Boxwood Cottage all decked out for Christmas dear blogging friends and readers on a blisfull white Wednesday! Yes indeed this morning we woke up to fresh fallen snow again.

Dear Tina from the Tiny Bear blog in Denmark told me in the comments under my last post that she missed seeing my white feather tree. I think she was referring to this champagne colored tree which I hadn't yet put out in November, but of course in time for the first of Advent Sundays I had to take it out and I decorated it with all my white cotton batting ornaments, old and new ones this year, The clipped on cotton batting snowmen I made last year and still love them:

Zinc letter stencils are hanging in front of the white mirror. The higher one spells "Frohe Weihnachten" meaning Happy Christmas of course. And I love putting old Christmas cards whereever I find a space at this time of the year, like this sweet girl on her sleigh with a wrapped present in her hand:

I also took out my old champagne colored honeycomb paper bell an etsy find from a few years ago and some honeycomb paper balls that I bought last Summer:

The tiny white shelf is also decked out for the holidays:

Just in time for the first Advent we woke up to this sight last Sunday morning:

The zinc star wreath and black iron trumpet angel are both hanging outside in front of my parlor room window.

Yes indeed it snowed all morning, such a cosy feeling to stay warm inside the cottage and watch the fresh snow falling outside:

As soon as it got dark in the afternoon I lit all my candles like those on the mantle:

and inside the mantle where the fire should be anyways

Doesn't it look so cosy?

I love the starry lights and stars, one can never have enough stars and snowflakes around during the winter months me thinks. If you read my last post you might remember that my mantle was decorated with a Christmas Winter village but I also told you that I would change that again and put my collection of old silver glass tree toppers on top of the mantle instead. I used old apothecary bottles as tree topper holders.

If you'd like to see more details of my pictures, they are all quite big and you can always right click on the photo and then click on show graphic to see the original size.

Black and White X-MAS spelling mugs in my cupboard above and a huge black star in front of my transom window the room divider between dining room/parlor and kitchen (below):

I also made an Advent calendar this year for my very grown up daughter (24) and she still loves to open a paper bag every day. Since space is rare in my tiny cottage the Advent calendar can only hold 4 days at a time. It's just a plywood board which I painted with black chalkboard paint.

I saw a calendar like this on pinterest here: http://pinterest.com/pin/283515739011458449/ and was inspired to make my own version of it:

I like how you can see the white paper star which hangs on the black wall over my kitchen stove in the mirror (photo above).


Some closer looks of this wall with the mirror of lights and my old trumpets below the Advent calendar:

The brass trumpets do really shine in the candle light!

I think the photo above came out quite interesting, alsmost black and white looking.

I used a tripod to take all of these photos btw.. I tried without it before but all that came out of it were very blurry photos, but by using the tripod to hold the camera steady you can even see all the glitter of the Merry Christmas glass glitter sign which I hung onto the door again:

Of course you have to have Advent wreathes with 4 candles symbolizing every of the four Sundays before Christmas on Advent Sundays, well kind of wreathes anyway lol like the pudding mold I used in the photo below:

I made the number tags for these Vanilla scented candles (photo below) by punching out the shapes of sturdy cardboard which I painted black with my trusty chalkboard paint and then used white chalk to draw on the numbers on by hand:

I have so many candles that I totally forgot to light the first one of these duh me lol

On top of the glass box I put that cute little, very old ,German feather tree that I found at the antique market last season and I adorned it with the cute tiny old German glass Christmas ornaments which I also found last season. Into the gass box I put some of my clear glass baubles:

In the following photo you can see my attempt of making angel wings with wire and old tinsel garlands, which I must admit do look far more than butterfly wings. Gotta work on that shape again lol

And here is a wide view of my parlor in the cosy candle light:

I hung a paper garland on the vintage cupboard spelling C H R I S T M A S

I also took my Christmas pillows on the willow sofa again and hung pretty silver and aqua glass baubles from the chandelier above the seating area:

The old wooden church which I still had on top of my mantle last week now found a new place on top of the white wooden window sill:

Another wider view of what you see when you sit on my willow sofa:

My very favorite decoration this season is the french zinc bottle holder decorated with starry string lights and lots of old silver German glass baubles.

I think the next photo, a close up of the above, is my favorite of this whole Advent Sunday photo shoot:

I so love the old tiny glass wind intruments and the glass bells and of course the glass baubles with the light reflectors inside (photo above) all made over hundred years ago in Lauscha/Thuringia/Germany don't you?

I really hope to come back again with another Christmas post before Christmas but since there are only 19 days left and just incase that things will get crazy around here and I won't make it I'd like to wish to all my dear blogging friends and faithfull readers very

HAPPY HOLIDAYS 2012!

xoxo~ Carola

Sharing this post with:

Blisful White Wednesday at Becky's Time Washed blog

What's it Wednesday at Ivy and Elephants blog

Vintage Christmas Inspiration Friday at Debra's Commom Ground blog

Vintage Knick of Time Tuesday at Angies Knick of time blog

Christmas decor link party at Marianne's Songbird blog

Jennifer Rizzo's Holiday Housewalk party 2012

It's beginning to look a bit like Christmas!

2012-11-19T22:49:00.001-08:00

Welcome back to Boxwood Cottage dear friends and readers where it's already looking a bit like Christmas these days :)

So I thought I might as well share with you these beginnings, which are in no way finished yet. The Christmas decoration evolves a bit more with each day we're coming closer to December.

Love my old flea market trumpets in the photo above especially at this time of the year!

Ann's gorgeous paper cone above finds a home in my house every year at Christmas time!

Silver, snowy Whites and Glitter are my favorites this time of the year.

Some of my soldered ornaments hanging in front of a mirror!

Stars dangling in front on my mantle and a winterey village on top of it with the old wooden church a flea find from ages ago.

Since we already had some frosty nights I had to bring in some of my plants which is how Miss Petunia got a new hair do ;-)

A little vignette with an old Santa postcard above and a vintage opera glass.

Only the white pumpkins are still left from the Halloween decor and I think I'll keep them a bit longer. Notice the Anthropologie cups in the white cupboard spelling x-mas and the burlap cushion spelling "The bag of Santa Clause" in Dutch language.

Some close ups ( the first taken through my chandelier) of the mantle winter village, although I think that I'm going to change the mantle decor again soon and put out and on my collection of vintage silver glass Christmas tree toppers instead.

Sweet white gifts from sweet friends hanging from a chicken wire frame on the wall over my stair case, like the sweet angel bust and the stocking from darling Paula:

The last picture of today probably is my fave shot and my fave vignette so far. Love the beautiful bottle brush star with the silver tinsel wreath on top and the glittered Merry Christmas sign which I got sent from dear Christmas Carole over at Maynard Greenhouse last Christmas. And there are more sweet gifts from dear friends in this photo like a putz sheep and a glittered cone from Madai, a tag and bottle brush trees from Ann or an altered tin box from Lisa and I treasure all these gifts from my lovely far away blogging friends very much!

Wishing all my American readers and blogging friends a wonderful Thanks Giving feast this week!

Will be back soon with more Christmassy inspirations if you still want me too?

Hugs to you

xoxo~ Carola

Sharing it with:
http://www.timewashed.com/2012/11/blissful-whites-wednesday_20.html

Sharing it with:
http://www.songbirdblog.com/2012/11/the-countdown-has-begun-christmas-inspiration-linky-party/

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Halloween Party & Fall Garden

2012-10-31T23:40:00.001-07:00

C'mon in if you dare!

Welcome back to Boxwood Cottage dear friends and readers!

Today I'd like to show you the pictures from our little Halloween party and of course the promised Fall garden photos, but let's start with Halloween:

I had the cottage all decked out for Halloween the night before Halloween on Halloween eve and took some pictures to share with you. Unfortunately Halloween is no holiday here ( it is in some states of Germany though called "Reformation day" and the first of November lot's of German states with mostly catholics have another holiday called "All Saints" but we poor people here in Bremen got none of these holidays *sobs*) and so I had to work the whole day and therefore didn't get around to post these earlier.

The table is set and ready for our little Halloween party with my daughter, niece and nephews and friends of them. We do this together for some years now and the kids always love my decorations so of course I love to craft things for Halloween and decorate for them.

We don't like it too spooky though, but still my daughter had fun mixing some poison green....

as well as poison blue and blood red drinks for the party. Everyone tried the red and blue stuff but for some reason nobody dared to try the green frog gall drink he he. I don't know why, it's only Vanilla soy milk mixed with green Matcha tea he he ;-)

I also love to decorate my mantle for all seasons so Halloween is no exception:

The silver Dresden foil letters which I glued to the black paper cone spell "All Hallows Eve!

I also framed some spooky pictures from Karen's Graphics Fairy blog and printed out the skelletons and top hats (I'm a huge top hat lover as most of you may know by now) from Karen's DIY blog, glued them together and hung them on the felt ball garland which I made last month.

Further I cutted out a couple of bats from black cardboard and embellished some papier maché houses. The "Haunted House" in the middle is a white cardboard house with a battery light inside which I found at IKEA during my last visit there. I painted the roof with black chalkboard paint, added the silver Dresden letters as well as some polkadotted black washi tape and a black ric rac border etc.. Then I made a tiny white felt pumpkin and a ghost from a white Christmas ball glass ornament and a bit of cotton batting. The white and black card board houses have the house numbers (wooden bingo numbers) 31 and 13! Spooky isn't it ? ;-)

I was lucky to have found a couple of white glittered bottle brush trees in tiny pots in our local hardware and home improvement store called Toom and added them to the scene aka my Halloween village. The black one I had already before. I really like how the village looks at night with only the candles lit.

Before I decorated the village on top of the mantle, I had a little photo shoot with the "gentlemen treat ghosts" that I made for the kids. I used peat pots, black paint, white paint, papier maché egg boxes, little black top hats, silver pipe cleaners etc.pp to make them and had so much fun! What do you think, do you like them? Luckily the kids did! :)

Of course you can take the skelleton heads aka the egg boxes out and open them. I filled them with yummy treats for the kids.

The white papier maché mask that you see in the next photo I found in our local craft market and just had to have it. I think it looks great over the white pumpkin, wouldn't you agree with me?

My daughter who loves to bake and cook (lucky me!) baked the ghost pumpkin cookies and I captivated them in this glass jar:

Oh and of course we had friendly ghosts and bats everywhere around the living room:

Wanna see my party guests? Here is the gang:

My nephew who is a cool teenager of couse went as Joker:

He even got the mask from his enemy batman EEK! My niece is a Vampire girl, what else ;-)

The kids had fun playing "Batman and Joker":

and I'm sure they will love to find their pictures here on my blog!:)

Here is me (sporting my white mask) with the girls:

Well now Halloween is all over again for another year, but before I start to craft and decorate for Christmas, to which I'm really looking forward too btw, I'd like to share with you some garden pictures which I took in October. Actually only less than two weeks ago we had a lovely warm and golden weekend with Summer like temperatures over +22 °C again and then suddenly last weekend the first frost came with temps under minus -4°C which was quite a shock, because I wasn't ready for it yet. I took all these photos in the week before the first frost though:

The grapevine over my living room window and around my deck was ripe and tasted very sweet. This is the view I had when looking out of my living room window over the deck into the garden:

See all the flowers still in bloom? Zooming in a bit closer for you:

If you are a regular follower/reader of my blog you may have noticed that suddenly you can see my garden tool house in the back of my garden. The one with the two round windows:

I think I told you before that we removed a lot of high cherry laurel busches last month at the end of my garden. They were growing behind the maple tree and blocking the view, but now that they are removed I'm glad that I can see my garden house again and I also gained back lot's of garden space for a better use. I have lot's of plans for that area which I hope to realize until Spring well at last until next Summer.

Here's a close up of my decorated garden tables. I love the decorative cabbage in the wooden box:

and closer:

Anual Summer flowers still bloomed beautifully too before last weekends first frost came:

A closer view over the flowers on my deck down to the garden tool house in the back of my yard:

White Dahlias and pink Snapdragons were still blooming so prettily together and attracting the bumble bees:

And also the pink Echinacea was still in bloom:

Oh well all this beauty is gone again now just one week later. Last Sunday the clock/time was changed an hour back here and now it is already dark outside when I come home from work.

One more picture I'd like to share with you is this one which I called "Nature beeswax collage":

I had such fun playing with the clarified white beeswax and found nature elements in my sisters art studio during my Fall vacation in the first week of October and coming home I gathered all the pieces and clipped them on one of my skirt hangers.

Well now since October and Halloween are past and over again

let's say bye bye to them and hello cosy winter time!

xoxo~ Carola

P.S. Geez this was a long post again, I never seem to get around doing just several short posts. Oh well but I hope you don't mind and that I'll see y'all again for a Christmassy post in November.

Until then Happy November everyone!

Black & White Fall~Halloween decor & Kitchen glimpses

2012-09-30T23:14:00.001-07:00

Welcome back to Boxwood Cottage dear readers and blogging friends! I hope that you can still remember me, although I haven't got around to post on my blog for over 7 weeks again. To make up for it I brought lot's of photos to share with you today. Summer was quite busy around here. We did some major changes in the garden and in the kitchen, sold our old car, bought a newer one and so on. All things that took more time than I expected, but I also had to work all Summer long. My last vacation was in May, so for that I think that we accomplished quite a few things. My daughter was a great help with the kitchen renovating and she's always doing the cooking lately, but more about the kitchen things later in this post. Today I'd like to start with my black & white fall decorating which is already going over into Halloween decorating by now.

It's still hard to believe for me that a couple of years ago I didn't even like Halloween but at that time I still thought that it always has to have to do with lot's of the color Orange, which I'm not so kean on, but since ca. 4 years ago I discovered white pumpkins here in Germany too which I love and so I started to love decorating for Halloween too ;)

They are still not that easy to find though, at least here in the Bremen area and that's why I started by painting orange Hokaido pumpkins white, back in August already lol and I had an orange clay pumpkin which I painted black. But then at the beginning of September I found some white Lumina pumpkins at a pumpkin farm and around 3 weeks ago I was finally lucky enough to also find the little Baby boos which are my favorites and so very hard to come by here.

I also love crafting for Halloween. I embellished and collaged the black BOO box and the Halloween book in the picture above for example and painted the once very colorful mask, which I brought home from a vacation to Venetia a few years ago, black with the matt black chalkboard paint that I so like to use.

I had fun shooting the black feather crows and ravens, which were posing for me on several pumpkins. Mr. Crow is quite a dapper btw and loves to wear his top hat!

and from another angle:

Isn't Mr. Crow just too cute the way he's peeking over the pumpkins?

Do you love the baby boos as much as I do?

For the mantle I made a black and white felt pompon garland and a black wooden boo sign with silver glittered letters:

Let's have a closer look at the mantle:

The pumpkin in the middle is the Hokaido which I painted white and embellished it with velvet leaves, some wire spirals and a printed 31 sign.

I further made a black cardboard witch hat for the faux cream colered pumpkin that my daughter bought for me when she studied in Buffalo N.Y. almost two years ago:

And I also made the black cardboard mask with nose for the big pumpkin:

I think I never showed you my Adler sewing machine table since I painted it white:

Mrs. Raven loves to sit on top of the vintage black camera (a gift from a friend) and was happy to get her picture taken:

In the next photo you can see close up of the clay pumpkin which I painted black:

On the white and rusty garden urn sit's another lumina pumpkin which also got a round printed 31 paper tag with faux stitches and of course one of the ravens thinks that it is a fabulous spot to sit on and get photographed:

I love that it looks as if the pumpkin had taken over the rust of the urn, can you see what I mean in the shoot below?

Well now I think it's enough of my black & white Fall and Halloween decor for today and I can show you a glimpse of my freshly painted kitchen. It is not easy to photograph because it's just a small space and we are not really finished with it yet.

We did not only sanded and painted all the Ikea beech wood cabinet doors and drawers but also removed the fume exatractor hood and added 4 big wipeable melamine resin tiles instead wich gave us more space and we never used the fume extractor hood anyway and I didn't really like the look of so much alumium anymore.

Although I quite like the black & white look I still would love to get a new wooden counter top one day and of course I still dream of a white porcelain farmhouse sink but these kind of things I cannot do alone or with the help of my daughter so they still have to wait.

I know I mentioned already here on my blog that we eat only vegan food and since this involves a lot of fresh cooking our kitchen is quite important to us and in daily use and the new look of it also gave us the power for a new step or better said level in vegan cooking. Until some days ago we only had american vegan cook books, which are good, but also most of the recipes are quite complicated and require lot's of different pots and pans to cook. My daughter who is doing a lot of online research on this matter purchased the latest book of Attila Hildmann last week and this is a very good vegan cook book with easy and still very delicious and healthy recipes written in German language since he is a German cook and with brilliant photos:

Since this book is called "Vegan for fit" (his other great cook book is called "Vegan for fun") it means that you will lose weight and feel fitter and healthier when you cook by following his tips and recipes by still having 3 delicous meals a day and that is what we ultimately wish for. This also means no more pasta for us for at least 30 days. We love eating pasta dishes but the recipes in this book are making it easy for us to quit because they are so delicious, healthy and nourishing. We are doing it for 5 days now and I would already recommend it. One advantage we have is that we already own a Vitamix blender which is needed for many of the recipes in this book and a Vitamix is not a cheap kitchen aid to buy. It costs around 600 Euro. We bought ours last Spring and never regretted it ever since. It is such a fabulous tool and you can make your own almond milk or almond butter or cashew ice cream and lot's of other fabulous yummy and healthy food with it.

Well to close this post I have another pumpkin picture for you but this time it is of my garden table with the greyish green Australian pumpkins that I purchased at the pumpkin fair we visited last Sunday:

I'll show you more photos of the autumnal garden and decor in my next post.
Until then I wish you all a

Fabulous Fall!

xoxo~ Carola

Linking up with:
Knick of Time Tuesday
Vintage Inspiration Friday 108 at Common Ground

About painting black & white, repurposing & crafting

2012-08-07T04:59:00.000-07:00

Back in my May vacation I decided that it was finally time to paint a wall in my house black. You may have noticed (apart from the obviously white love) my love for black as in black chalkboards, black silhouettes, black birds and vintage black things like top hats, typewriters, telephones etc., that all makes such a beautiful contrast to the white walls and furnitures, so why not try a black wall? Well up to then apart from my very light blue bedroom all the walls in my house were white so black makes quite a difference and of course it can make a room very dark, so for the time beeing I just tried it on the small potruding chimney wall in my parlor.

It was quite a quick paint job that still brought a great change to te room which I like.

Actually it's not really black, it's called dark grey/gray, but against the white wooden mantle and in the evening light it looks very black and I find it quite dramatic looking, don't you think?

I'm probably going to ad some kind of a closure edging to it soon.

The fun part of course was decorating the mantle and surrounding so that it's all matching to the new black wall.

I found this small chalkboard in Sweden last August in a great shop called Granit and think it fits perfectly into the small corner between the mantle and the old armoire. The small old black travel typrewriter was another flea market find and fits on the white painted plant stand which once was orange lol

My bargain crystal chandelier ( a flea find for 5 bucks) also looks great against the black backdrop and adds to the dramatic feel.

Isn't it beautiful? I thought of painting the golden brass over in white quite often ever since I bought it but somehow couldn't get myself around to do it, would you do it?

I'm still so glad that I bought the pair of huge wooden pine cones, many years ago when I still lived in my old cottage. They always fit so well on the mantle edges which ever style I decide to decorate it and in this case I think along with the black wall and the chandelier they give a eal classical feel to the whole vignette.

And I'm still fond of my 3 compartments mirror another bargain flea find (20 bucks) and the reflections in it, in the above photo it's the old transom door on the other side of the room with my antique black silhouette collection inside of the single windows.

I added the letter C to the mantle since it's my initial and the numbers 6 and 3 together are giving away my birth year ~ oh well.

And even my old black petrol stove with the silver accents matches very well with the black wall and white mantle.

When you stand in front of the mantle and look to the left side there is my dining corner and behind the dining table hangs a glass cabinet which I painted white from the outside many moons ago but never found the time to paint it from the inside too. Well that I finally changed in my May vacation too and painted it from the inside which looks so much better now. Meanwhile I have also painted the wood of the old Adler sewing machine table below the glass cabinet in white. Now in the dining room corner there are only the old chairs left to paint white one time.

I also put out my collection of antique rose coffee and tea service for a change and brought it in a cupboard down in my basement. The pink roses didn't suit the new feel of the room. Instead I added some of my old and new jugs as well as old and new backing moulds and also the old soup toureens and pudding moulds.

Next thing to paint are my Ikea cabinets and drawers like the ones of my kitchen island that you can see in the photo below. Actually we already started doing it last weekend and I'm quite excited of the change it will bring to my cottage :)

While grocery shopping two weeks or so ago I came across the fabulous clothes hanger for skirts that you see below and instantly knew that it would make an awesome inspiration board:

I pinned all kind of things that I found in my studio on it with the existing brackets and added some more things with small wooden clothes pegs and black office clips. Then I hung it on the handle of one of my attic windows for now.

Btw. that sweet open bird book with the waxed pages was a dear gift from my creative blogging friend Lisa!

I also started to punch out sturdy scalloped cardboard circles and then painted them with black chalkboard paint and wrote on it with white chalk like the "Happy Day's" "Boxwood Cottage" and "Summer" signs.

Another hanger that I repurposed (meanwhile replaced with a white one) is the belt hanger below. It's great use for hanging all kind of necklaces and soldered pendants from it too, but in this case I used it to hang the wire ribbon holder on it and the Atelier sign and slate heart that I once got from my dear friend Anita.

The last thing I wanted to share with you today is the little wire bird cage that I saw in a German magazine from "Land Idee called "Wohnen und Deko" lately and just had to try to make one:

For a first quick try I think it turned out quite pretty, non?

So now I'll go back nesting, but not inside the house yet, nope the garden is calling!

A big thank you btw to all the kindred souls that commented on my last XXL garden post, it was a pleasure to read you!

Wishing you happy late Summer days my friends

xoxo~ Carola

Linking up with my favorite blog parties:
White Wednesday
What's it Wednesday
Vintage Inspiration Friday
Feathered Nest Friday

A giant Cottage Garden post April to July 2012

2012-07-28T04:42:00.000-07:00

High time for a garden post I'd say! It's my first one this year so I have lot's of pictures to share with you dear blogging friends and readers, so you better make yourself comfortable. The first photo is an up to date one taken a few days ago but I want to start back in April when the garden really awoke and then going forward until today.

April still had many overcast days and yet I like the photo above. You can see the early clematis montana rubens in full bloom and the high old lilacs of my neighbors blooming in the back as wll as the pretty broom beside of my white scrolly iron table.

I love it when the soft pink clematis montana rubens blooms especially on a sunny day against the blue sky.

And I bought another early Clematis this Spring, it's the gorgeous white one in the photo below . It has meanwhile found a new home at my new fence, but more on that later.

Another favorite Spring flower of mine whas this beautiful soft creamy pink ranunculus:

I also started potting summer flowers for my patio in April like the pink Diascia below:

and hanging baskets always are a must:

I further finally found an affordable french bottle drying rack from a Dutch blog and online shop called Fort Lapin. I use it as clay pot holder in my garden for now:

More garden accessories are in my vintage garden tool corner:

that I installed between the old ladder and the iron shelf on the patio wall next to my deck chair:

The deck chair is my favorite relax and reading spot after work. On the white painted flower shelf I potted 3 gorgeous thymes. The high blooming one is my fave:

Another plant that moved into my garden this Spring is the red broom seen below, which also meanwhile has moved in the new garden bed under the new fence:

And here you'll see my little garden helper Riley sitting on his favorite garden chair, photo taken through the parlor window:

A little bit closer:

Now comes the merry month of May in which I had 3 weeks off work and 24 free days in a row alltogether, so no wonder that is was my favorite month of the year so far. To celebrate my vacation and the beautiful weather I hung the fabric bunting which my dear friend Anita made for me a couple of years ago under my white garden umbrella/parasol. See how it is lit by the evening sun and kinda glowing?

It also looks very happy when you look from inside my parlor outside on the patio:

And notice the gorgeous clematis montana rubens still blooming beautifully in May:

Another May beauty and absolute favorite of mine is the elegant chinese snow ball shrub:

and of course and always the Alliums:

In the next photo the lovely May evening sun has lit my garden chandelier:

and then it also shone on my snowballs and gave them a gorgeous glow too:

It was a true magical evening and when it got darker during the so called blue hour of the everning my solar light lampions began to glow:

and everything was literally bathing in a pretty blue light.

I really love all these solar lights from Ikea attached to my grape vines, the little balls as well as the birdies:

Don't they look pretty?

Then came June and with June not only the beautiful roses but also the rain:

In June all my alliums and roses and foxgloves and bellflowers etc. were on it's best but exposed to the constant rain not for as long as they should have bloomed.

I had all colors of foxgloves this June and especially loved the white one. Hope it will selfseed well!

The pink peonie Sarah Bernhardt in the photo above did not like the rain either.

And neither did the pink bellflower Campanula medium.

I left the parasols open to protect at least some of my patio plants like the pelargoniums on the table from the rain.

More pretties in pink above and below:

The rain is dripping from my lovely Constance Spry rose on the scrolly white rose arc, forcing the flowers to hang their heads down:

There were not many dry days in June, especially not at the weekends, but on one of these rare days I took the next picture of my beautiful Constance Spry:

This wet beauty is called the Queen of Denmark:

and the next one is another long time favorite of mine the Eden rose:

Here is a picture from the right side of my garden in a wide angle, so that you cannot only see Constance Spry heavy of rainwater more hanging then climbing in my white rose arc, but also my my new fence on the right. Unfortunately the willow fence I had there before did not hold together anymore so I had to look for a more sturdy compensatory:

Also in June I purchased the pretty wooden seed trays and a new wooden round clay pot cleaning brush which were nice additions to my garden tool corner:

And now we are finally here, welcome to July!

I do not only have a new garden fence, but also a new garden border below it and both, the new and the old border got a new edge for easier mowing and I think the red edging stones do look very good and they also match with the red brick stones on my patio/deck/terrace however you call it lol.Wait, I'll give you a better look from above:

See my new mow edge border around the border under the right side rose arc and now also around the new garden bed under the new wooden fence? On the left side of my small garden the bordes have a natural edge from boxwood hedges. I really think that both edges are giving my garden a better structure.

The birds eye view above taken out of my attic studio window shows very good how well the new red border edge stones do match with my patio bricks.

If you have followed my blog for some years and are an observant reader you may also notice the new parasol over my patio table. The old one got so dirty over the years that I had to have a surrogate. But I didn't just throw the old one in the trash, no I gave it a new job to protect my black french iron table under the maple tree from bird's dirt and droppings:

This is the shady space right at the very end of my yard where I sit on hot summer days when the air is just getting to stuffy on my patio. I still love the white gravel here but it is also a curse because you can't just clean it with a broom stick, nope i have to bend down and pick up every single leaf falling from the tree by hand.

And for those of you who a fairly new to my blog and still didn't get while it's called Boxwood Cottage I took these pictures of my freshly cut boxwood hedges above and below:

I also took gravel on the ground here a few years ago when we installed my rusty rose arc and I'm still trying to grow another, smaller ball on top of the the big boxwood ball on the left in the back.

Next you'll see a close up of my left hand border behind the boxwood hedges and see the rusty rose arc from the side. I still had no luck with roses climbing high enough to cover it yet but at least the blue clematis is doing it's job now.

Phloxes and pink cone flowers Echinacea and Agapanthus have started to bloom now in this border and below is a picture of my sweet scenting sweet peas which are growing in a pot on my patio right now:

We just enjoyed a full week of really sunny summer weather over here (it's back to rainy days today though sobs) so all the flowers are doing well now:

Abraham Darby an English David Austin rose blooming in the foreground and my garden window in the back and here more close and personal with my sweet terracotta girl peeking through it:

Another star on my July patio so far is the true white Dahlia that I planted in a white enamel bucket. It kinda glows in the dark:

Oh and takling about stars on my patio I'm now finally coming to the very best to me and that is my new pair of old blue shutters salvaged for me by my darling sister while I was at home and couldn't make it there quick enough when my parents called me to come over to save me a pair of shutters because my daughter was away with my car. They are from an old cottage across my parents home which unfortunaly got teared down a few weeks ago.

I just love their color and they match so beautifully with all my patio pot flowers don't ya think?

On the right side of my patio are more blue flowers in bloom like bellflowers, Verbena bonariensis, Allium Christophii, blue hydrangea, Delphinium and more:

And now I'll finish this long post with one last shot of my favorite Summer flowers (annuals) and my old blue shutters in the back, then I'll let you go ;-)

Thank you my dear readers, who made it all to the end of this very long post, for staying with me through 54 photos which was my longest post up-to-date, but I really had to make up for not posting any garden pictures earlier this season. I hope you enjoyed this post and liked what you saw and will perhaps even gain some inspiration from it.

So now you please tell me what's new in your gardens?

Here is wishing you all a fabulous high Summer time!

xoxo~ Carola

4th annual Where Bloggers Create party ~ New Boxwood Cottage studio shots!

2012-07-13T12:07:00.000-07:00

Having not blogged for 3 months quite frankly I wasn't sure with what and when to start blogging again and Karen Valentine's 4th annual WBC ~ "Where Bloggers Create party" just seems to be the perfect start back to blogging for me because I never missed it since the first party in 2009 so of course neither could I miss it this year.

So welcome back to Boxwood Cottage and my Vintage inspired studio dear readers and blogging friends!

I took lot's of pictures and hope you'll enjoy them and find some inspiration here and don't feel that your time here was wasted. I'm so glad that you're here I missed y'all and hope you'll leave me a message and let me know what's new.

I did some rearrangements and new vignettes to inspire me and you and I'm sure you'll easily see my love for the contrast of black and white like the vignette on the blackboard above that I made from a kitchendoor that once belonged in front of a dishwasher. It now is a focal point and instant eyecatcher up here in my rooftop studio.

The mirror in the black vintage frame seen below is hanging on the wall oposite of the little vignette with the crumpled and torn vintage top hat that I tucked on top of a vintage globe in the picture above.

Very much to the chagrin of my daughter I just love having vignettes to inspire me everywhere in my home and of course especially in my studio. My daughter (24, student) would prefer if I'd hide all my treasures in drawers and behind closed doors, because she likes it all clean and orderly, but that is just not me. I cannot stare on to bare walls, I need eye candy to get inspired. I'd really love to know your opinion on this issue.

Like all collectors of old treasures I love to go to flea- and antique markets to find the things I love like old suitcases and vintage top hats which I both collect.

To solder is one of my favorite creative past times so you might discover little things that I soldered behind glass every where in my studio like the house shaped soldered glass with the cute boy in a top hat in the picture above. Below is a wider shot of that vignette above and I'll give you some even wider views in the following photos:

The vintage black sewing machine and the old brass trumpet are some more of my favorite vintage posessions. In the wire basket behind the sewing machine I store some of my raw paper maché boxes in all kind of shapes because embellishing these boxes is another favorite creative thing that I love to do so I always have to have some boxes close by.

And like you see in these pictures they aren't the only things I'd like to have in sight and handy lol

If you want to see bigger versions of my photos with more details you can always righ click on the pictures, then click of show graphic/photo and then double click on the picture again to see the original size.

In the next photo you can see 3 of my 4 studio tables:

Next is a close up of two of my tiny drawers chests to store tiny treasures like Dresden foil trims and borders and such goodness and you also see part of my studio chandelier with some soldered pendants I created and other sweet things hanging from it:

You might also spot some of my studio dolls in these shots:

In the old cream painted printers tray I store most of my tiny treasures:

Two of my soldered trinket boxes are standing in front of the tiny drawers below as well as a sweet note from a dear friend tucked in the brush and more sweet gifts of blogging friends are displayed here.

On the oppsite side of my studio I have a couch to relax and here is also the stairway to go downstairs where I hung two of my old silk top hats on the wall:

as well as the huge wooden pair of scissors that I bought last Summer when I visited sweet Guá and her wonderful Mor Agustas garage as those of you who read my last post might remember:

Vintage inspired wall art I call this old lace children blouse and the big paper cone I made from vintage German sheet music paper, same lace pieces etc.pp:

Some more of my vintage sewing machines big and small that I collect. This is one of the collections I really have to stop collecting because I'm running out of space to display them:

Now let's have a wider shot again and onto the area below my two big double roof top windows:

I have a day bed over here and also my beloved vintage dress form and a few more top hats from my collection.

A close up of the vignette under the window:

Love my vintage black typewriter

as well as my latest flea market find from last Sunday the black vintage telephone. You had to turn that crank around to call an operator to connect you just imagine those times!

Below is a magnet board which I recently painted the frame white and some of my embellished bottles and a small aquarium I soldered and in the cream white wire basket some rolls of my favorite papers:

They look so pretty close up with the vintage angel scrap inbetween don't you think?

Some more close up shots of which I think they came out quite pretty:

another tiny chest of drawers that I painted white with an inspiration cork board on top which I also painted white and pinned on it another thing I love to collect: Black Silhouettes! If you also love some of the things I love and collect you might like to check out my pinterest boards where I collect pictures of things I love and collect that inspire me here: http://pinterest.com/boxwoodcottage/

Old sewing supplies, wooden rulers and stamps also belong to the things that inspire me

and scissors, old tape measure, silver glitter and so much more and I think my love for top hats always shows

And lastly a pic of a cute old suitcase in which I collect happy little things for a swap that I owe a dear blogging friend for some time now:

Phew now I just hope to have broken my blogging blockade with this post and will be able to do another post soon. I have so may pictures to share that it is quite overwhelming.

Wishing you all a great Where bloggers create party this weekend and don't forget to visit Karen and all the other creative bloggers sharing the inspiring spaces where they create here:

http://www.mydesertcottage.com/

xoxo~ Carola

P.S.: If you are new here and like to see more photos of my studio space please visit my flickr photostream here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/boxwoodcottage/sets/72157603980980932/with/7563836318/
and if you also have a vintage inspired creative space I'd be delighted to welcome you in my flickr group here:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/vintage_inspired_studios/

My visit at Mor Agusta's garage in Sweden ~ Gúa's wonderful sanctuary

2012-04-22T23:10:00.002-07:00

Welcome back to Boxwood Cottage dear readers and blog friends!

Well I wanted to show you some beautiful and inspiring photos from my garden today, as promised in my last post, but sadly the weather is not cooperating with me. Since yesterday it's grey and rainy outside so I didn't get around to take pretty pictures of my cleaned & pruned Spring garden yet, but since it occured to me earlier today, that I never showed you pictures from our vacation in the South of Sweden last August I'll share these with you today instead and I promise you that' you'll not regret your visit because I'll show you my favorite place of all I've seen in Sweden and I know that many of you know it already from the beautiful blog Hvitur Lakkris (translated White Licorice), it is Gúa's Mor Agusta's garage and the next photo is the first thing you'll see of it when you arrive at Gúa's shop in Harlösa:

Öppet means open and so we stepped into Gúa's wonderful sanctuary named "Mor Agusta's Garage" because before Gúa and her husband transformed it into a beautiful shop it was a garage and Agusta is the name of Gúa's dear mom who sadly passed away early last year before the opening of the shop. She told me that she can feel her momma's spirit living in the shop and that she can even talk to her, isn't that beautiful?

Gùa is a natural talented interior designer and she arranged her shop of vintage treasures and finds like a home with a living room, a kitchen and a bathroom and that is exactly how I felt in there right at home!

The table was laid as if she would just await her guests. Well kind of she did, because she knew I would come for a visit that day with my mum, daughter and sister because we emailed before so that I was sure that Gúa was home and the shop was open.

Isn't it gorgeous how she filled the glasses behind the bathroom door with old lace?

I was so excited to be there in person that my camera was sometimes shaking a bit and not every photo came out crystal clear, but I had to share this idea in the picture above with you on how to hang a chandelier on a door if the ceiling is to high.

See everything get's really used in Gúa's shop like this kitchen sink and that is why you feel so homey there. Below is a picture of a lovely old wash stand in the bathroom.

To proof that I was really there and had not just dreamed it I took this photo of me in the bathroom mirror:

I had an instant crush on this huge pair of scissors:

My sister cheking out something in the beautiful living room area:

I asked if it was okay to go outside and look at her gardenhouse which is right beside the shop and at her lovely garden and sweet Gúa said of course it is, so come along with me because if this is possible at all it get's even better outside:

Isn't this a wonderful paradise?

I totally love Gúa's gorgeous garden house outside as well as inside:

There is a very cosy vintage living room like corner at the right side when you come in and a great outdoor kitchen corner at the left side and a daybed right in the middle:

Real grape wine is growing inside of it and you can litereally pick the grapes and eat them right from the gardenroom ceiling. The old transom windows and views are all spectacular. Notice how gorgeous the clear glass bottles in the window do look in the sunlight:

This is the view from inside out in Gúa's fantanstic white garden and we where so lucky that late August day that we had the most beautiful warm weather and sunshine:

Inviting isn't it? I could have stayed forever just sitting there and soaking in the serene and calm atmosphere and all the beautiful inspiration around me. It was also laundry day and of course Gúa had only the most beautiful white laundry hanging from the old fashioned white wooden drying racks:

My sister took this picture of dear Gúa and me before it was time to leave. See how happy I look with lovely Gùa at my right side and my beautiful pair of huge wooden scissors in hand to take home with me?

I'll sure never forget this wonderful visit with Gúa. She is such a sweetheart inside and out and I was so utterly excited the whole time I was there and just wish that one day I can visit her and her sanctuary again. Gúa has plans to transform her shop into a holiday home if one still far away day she'll close her shop and I told her that I would love to be the first to rent it! She even gifted me with a large beautiful embellished papermaché egg which I'll always treasure.

Above is a last photo of the side garden of the shop with hollyhocks in bloom.

Just this last weekend Gúa celebrated her 1st year as a shop owner with a loppis which is the swedish word for flea market or brocante. My how I wish I could have been there *sigh*

If you should come to read this dear Gúa I'd like to thank you again for beeing so warmhearted and for all the love and inspiration you give and share and I wish you all the best and good luck for the years to come!

Well my dear readers what do you say, was this post worth your visit here today?

I hope that you are all enjoying a beautiful Spring or Autumn at the moment and I'll be back in May with a garden post. I'll be off work (vacation) almost the whole month of May and I'm looking forward to spend most of my free time in the garden if the weather will allow it.

Happy Spring day's wishes you

Carola xoxo~

From Spring & Easter decorations, silhouettes and some new soldering

2012-03-25T23:09:00.116-07:00

Welcome back to Boxwood Cottage dear blogging friends and readers! I can't believe it's already 5 weeks since my last post, the time is flying by too fast over here and Spring is always a busy time in the house and in the garden. Today I'd like to share some Spring and Easter decoration and inspiration with you.

Of couse the bunnies have to make an apperance at this time of the year. Above is my small collection of vintage candy box bunny containers and below again with some fresh Spring tulips arranged on an old silver tray:

Here you see them again but from a wider angle with more background of my parlor:

A close up of the glassbox of treasures decorated for Spring:

And another sweet bunny nesting in a white paper maché egg:

and one under a glass dome:

With the bunnies came out my vintage putz sheep like this cute pair with the red collars:

and more Spring tulips. From February on I treat myself to a bouquet of fresh tulips every weekend until they'll start blooming in my garden pots and borders:

Soft and deep pink, purple and white are my favorite tulip colors inside and outside.

Another bunny resides under another glass cloche along with some quail eggs and an Easter flash card in the tarnishes silver bowl:

and here is another lamb between a pair of hand painted chicken eggs:

and this one stands in front of a mirror decorated with vintage Easter postcards and flash cards:

The transom room divider window is decorated with my silver glitter Happy Easter banner from my friend Madai - see how silver it still is against the Boxwood Cottage banner above it which is dark and tarnished from hanging there all year round. The big pink foil egg container is a vintage flea market find

and so are all the old Easter postcards in this garland:

My favorite piece to decorate for any season, so Easter is no exception, is my white mantle:

I'm deeply in love with my plaster bunnies made out of vintage tin chocolate molds. Two of them are made by my talented friend Anja of Matildas Design in Munich.

This year I also had to decorate some white goose eggs with cut out black bunny silhouettes and I like them so much that I think I'll make some more, what do you think?

In the middle is another pair of vintage putz sheep this time with blue collars:

I always find it more fun having a pair of each kind wether it's candle sticks, or flower pots, or eggs, or bunnies, birdies and sheep so you can decorate them parallel to each other like I did here on the mantle.

Close ups of my silhouette goose eggs left and right on the mantle

Talking about silhouettes I also rearranged my collection of black framed vintage cut out silhouettes (German Scherenschnitte) in my old transom door lately,

since I got send that pretty round silhouette picture with the beautiful domed glass, hanging in the middle, from my flickr friend Sue and because it had no frame I framed it in silver solder scallops. I find it very springy looking with the girls in dresses picking flowers from the meadow:

I also soldered a whole bunch of springy double bubble charms:

Since I'm not sure if I'll get around to post again before Easter ( the garden is calling me you kow and we have my mom's birthday coming up and a big family reunion which I organised on Easter Saturday) I'd like to wish you all very happy Easter days with my last picture for today:

The weather is beautifully sunny here lately and my next April post will be a Spring garden themed one that's for sure! I hope you all have warm Spring weather to enjoy too!

xoxo~ Carola

Linking up with Angie @ Knick of Time Tuesday

Kathleen of Faded Charm @ White Wednesday

Pattie & Paula of Ivy & Elephants @ What's it Wednesday

Debra of Common Ground @ Vintage Inspiration Friday

Karen of the Graphics Fairy @ Brag Monday

❤ Will you be my Valentine? ❤

2012-02-13T15:27:00.001-08:00

Sharing some Valentine's day Love with you today dear blogging friends and readers!

These photos are from a friendship swap I recently did with my friend Anja of Matilda's Design in Munich Germany. Anja sent me her friendship swap parcel already last year, you can see a picture of it on my flickr photostream here. She made me a fabulous white plaster bunny which I will share with you as soon as I'll start my Spring/Easter decorations. She was so nice to leave me all the time I needed to finish her swap so I decided to make a Valentine swap parcel for her. Firstly I created her a trinket box which I filled with a tiny bouquet of pink vintage millinery bead flowers and some vintage German script from old sheet music paper. I soldered the box and gave it a coat of black patina for an antique /aged look.

I love making pretty packages and wrapped all of her goodies in some of my favorite pink gift wrapping papers from Tilda and a waxed paper bag and embellished it with a sweet toile de jouy tag and a pair of tiny scissors since Anja is a talented seamstress. I also used a paper heart doily and a hand I made from vintage sheet music and the paper I once marbelized. You may remember from my last post that the tutorial for the woven heart Valentine came from dear Ulla over at her Ullabenulla blog.

I further sent her a vintage honeycomb paper bell in the colors of the Italian flag, which I forgot to photograph, since Anja has italian family and also a vintage velvet sewing box which I found on our local fleamarket and thought it should be for a seamstress. It's filled with old sewing supplies and I embellished it with a soldered charm:

I had great fun painting one of my German paper maché heart boxes and embellishing it with old lace, a silver German Dresden border, vintage tinsel which I put into a heartshape and filled with a silver bird charm to hold the trinket box pendant I made her:

So what do you think, would you like to be my next Valentine?

Today I'd like to wish all of you my dear readers a very

❤ ~ Happy Valentine's day 2012 ~ ❤

xoxo Carola

Linking up with:
Knick of time Tuesday
White Wednesday
What's it Wednesday
Share the love Wednesday

Valentine creations & decorations, antique markets & my birthday!

2012-02-04T06:08:00.000-08:00

Welcome back dear blogging friends and readers in February the month of Love and Valentine's day!

I love creating Valentines but my studio is such a mess right now, it's getting harder and harder to find something when you really need it:

So let's better concentrate on the pretties like my studio wall below, all decked out for Valentine's day

with pretty hearts & hands ~ a wall of friendship so to speak

including the studio chandelier who holds, belong other pretties, a heart from my cousin Stefanie and one from my good German friend Anita, as well as as a porcelaine doll legg and arm from my US friend Andrea and a sweet little spuncotton doll from my US friend Sandy:

I'm the proud owner of a vintage honeycomb paper heart from my Texas friend Ann Perry, which I love to hang up for February, I hung it over the vintage lace blouse from my German friend Al and right below hangs one of my friend Anita's lovely lavender hearts

I created the millinery heart candy box and lately the garland below with the sweet lace paper hearts I cut out of pretty patterned Tilda cardboard with my Martha Stewart heart punch

The fun this year was to decorate all the hearts on and around the chalkboard which I made out of an old kitchen cabinet door for my studio last Summer

The pretty ruffled heart comes from my English friend Ginny, the sheet music paper hands with woven in hearts I made after a fab tutorial from my US friend Ulla, the vintage suitcase pocket with the paper hand and vintage brooch is another gift from dear Ann and not to forget the sweet dolls from my German friend Gerlinde (left) and my sweet US friend Paula (right) who is currently recovering from open heart surgery

Isn't Ginny's ruffled heart just to die for?

A few days ago I thought the paper box heart is missing a cupids arrow to make it more special for this years Valentines, so after some serious thinking and trying out to make arrows for a while with no really satisfying result I suddenly came up with the idea to solder one and well this is the result you see above and below. What do you think, do you like it? It's made from wire, tinsel pipe cleaners and a soldered glass tip with Tilda paper inside:

The pretty white Valentine's doll is made by my English friend Niki and I recently got the antique coffee advertisement metal box shelf from my mum's best friend Sigrid, it has red heards on the sides:

I altered and embellished only the front door which was quite rusty and not so pretty anymore with Vintage sheet music paper, a fairytale silhouette and a gorgeous tag with ladies in top hats a gift from Petite Michelle Louise. I put my red and white twine in the glass holder on top of the shelf box for Valentines day as well as some old stamps on a vintage metal stamp holder and an old pharmacy bottle with vintage millinery flowers decorated for Valentines with a red crepe paper ruffle and a heart shaped keyhole:

I had this old tarnished, scrolly silver wire heart with a heartshaped crystal in the middle for ages and embellished it with silver tinsel lately and made a cupids arrow to go through it with a silver tinsel pipe cleaner:

I also had fun to create and solder some pretty silver trinket boxes for Valentine's day. and hopefully soon to come Spring. When it comes to these boxes it is very helpful that I can now cut the glass myself in exactly the size I need. I thought for the picture they looked quite nice laying on top of the spun cotton snowballs I made last month:

Here is a close up of my latest creations. The one in the middle got one of my flickr friend Sandra's tiny crocheted flowers, the last one I had of these tiny treasures and a little birdie from my US friend Lorraine:

I made a tinsel heart for the trinket box on the right and now I can't decide which one is my favorite to keep, could you?

I also silver painted and embellished one of my paper maché boxes as a gift box for one of the trinket boxes I'll give to a dear friend soon:

It looks pretty opened and closed too:

Lastly I'd like to share some of my favorite antique market finds with you like this box of very small vintage German blown glass Christmas ornaments. Can you imagine how I look forward already to use them in my Christmas decorations for next season?

I also found the Perfect antique tin box:

Last Sunday was my birthday - see my birthday presents table in the last picture below - ( we also celebrated my daughters b-day in January so it was a very busy month) well and my dear parents gave me spending money for my fave Antique Market which was held exactly on my b-day, such a perfect gift for me he he :) I found another beautiful old silk top hat (chapeaux claque) in a square shaped box and pretty white leather gloves with white pearl beads sewed around the wrist, further more a vintage Marolin bunny and a pink vintage foil egg, a sweet silhouette picture and some pretty old postcards. My mom and daughter spoiled me with the pretty white pleaded metal barrel (under the top hat) and my mom also gave me the silver purse and lovely tulips and my daughter the silver German glass glitter. Anita sent me an old German book and a whole bunch of her pretty crocheted roses. My sister gave me the toile de jouy bed linen and the fabulous papercutting book and some spending money too! I had a really great day!

Now I'll have to leave you again and go back to creating and packing friendship swap parcels before the weekend is over and it's back to work and I wish you all my dears a very wonderful
month of LOVE ~

xoxo~ Carola

I'm going to share this post with the following link parties:
Knick of time Tuesday
White Wednesday
What's it Wednesday
Vintage inspiration Friday
Feathered Nest Friday
http://www.funkyjunkinteriors.net/2013/01/sns-171-link-up-your-charming.html

Find the blog buttons in my sidebars!

A sparkling new year - part 2

2012-01-02T12:22:00.000-08:00

Yieppieh it's working again, my third try today after I came home from work (yep the Christmas vacation is already over) but finally I managed to upload more photos!

I found out that I have a Picasa account, can you believe that I didn't even now it ha ha and I have only 40 percent of my upload capacity used so far which is good news to me!

Above is one last picture of my fir Christmas tree illuminated in all it's glory with real candles only and below my sparkling new years chandelier:

All my photos are huge and look far better if you look at them in real size. Just click on the photo and chose Show Picture/Photo and then click on the picture again to see the original size and all the details!

So did you enjoy Chrístmas and has Santa been good to you ? I really enjoyed spending quality time with my family and I guess I must have been good because I got so many gorgeous presents:

Got 2 wonderful old lace table cloths for example, a white vintage baking tin and two more old German silver glass tree toppers for my growing collection from my parents. My daughter gave me a gorgeous new esprit watch which I love to wear every day now. My sweet niece and nephew each gave me a beautiful candle. My sisters spoiled me with lavender body lotion and wonderful sparkly jewelry:

My mum also gave this awesome old silver gravy/sauce boat and also the nostalgic silver candle holder:

My dear middle sister spoiled me also with a vintage silhouette book and another old, black framed silhouette cut out picture and a pair of special silhouette scissors. I can't even tell you how much I love all these great gifts from my dear family who knows me and what I like so very well :)

Hope you've been spoiled by your loved ones too!

The white painted and adorned paper maché Santa boots and the white painted and glittered paper maché heart are gifts I made for a good friend who was so very busy before Christmas that she had no time to decorate her home for the season which I found so sad:

And since my friend Lisa finally got her Vintage Christmas swap parcel on New years eve, I can now reveal what I made, collected and sent to her:

The black thing in the middle is a vintage top hat. No it's not one from my personal collection, but I knew how much she wanted one and was happy to find an affordable one for her at our local antique market back in October.

Lastly I'd like to share some photos from my sparkly home and vignettes with you which I took on new years eve:

*~*sparkle*~*sparkle*~*sparkle*~*

Have a wonderful start into a beautiful and exciting, sparkling new year 2012 my dear and faithful readers and blogging friends! And thank you for all the lovely comments you left me on the 4 parts of my White Vintage Christmas inspiration series, I apreciate everyone of you and love to read you!

xoxo~ Carola

P.S.:

Thank you so much dear Christmas Carole for the lovely Christmas surprise parcel which I got on new years eve!

The awesome bottle brush star hangs from my cupboard, the beautiful Christmas card from my glass cabinet and the great Wendy Addison easel stands on my new years table, you should be able to discover them all in the pictures of this post.

Thank you Z for my word of 2012 - Patience!

This will be a tough one because patience is a virtue I don't have - oh well I hope I can learn it!

I will be sharing this post with the following link parties:

Knick of time Tuesday

White Wednesday

What's up Wednesday

Feathered Nest Friday

Vintage inspiration Friday

Inspiration Friday

and

Silver Sunday

A sparkling new year!

2012-01-01T16:40:00.001-08:00

Boxwood Cottage's new years tree, a photo by Boxwoodcottage on Flickr.

Looks like Blogger wont let me upload anymore pictures dear blogging friends and readers, I tried the whole day but nothing. I had prepared lot's of sparkling pictures for a very sparkling new years post but just can't seem to upload them, So I searched for another way to upload my pictures but for now the only thing I can come up with is uploading single pictures from my flickr account like the one above, which I just uploaded over there. Not a very satisfying solution though. I never had a problem like this with blogger and I'm in my 7th year of blogging, oh well, so much for a great start into the new year grrrrrrrrr. Is that the famous 7th year itch, or what? I'd be really thankful if someone out there would have a helpful tip for me!

Happy new year 2012 my dear readers!

xoxo~ Carola

White Vintage Christmas inspiration 2011 part 4

2011-12-22T22:01:00.000-08:00

Update:

Looks like I really messed up this post while deleting pictures in Picasa that I thought was there twice ~ duh me! I couldn't stand the look auf the black windows with exclamation marks instead of my pretty photos so I decided to edit this post and deleted all the black windows.
I'll try to restore the missing pictures soon!

xoxo~ Carola

Welcome back to Boxwood Cottage dear blogging friends and readers and to part 4 of my Vintage Christmas Inspiration series. So guess what, yes right my Christmas tree is finally up! We drove down to our favorite farmer in the country side of Lower Saxony last Sunday and picked it up freshly cut. When I came home I put it up right away and started decorating it the same evening. I never ever had my tree up a whole week before Christmas ever before because this is all against German Christmas tradition rules, but as my US friend Evi said so right in the comments of my last post: Rules are there to break them! Ha and so I did! I have a whole week more time to enjoy the tree and that is sure worth it!

I used all my vintage German glass ornaments and my vintage tinsel garlands and couldn't resist the all silver & white theme again since it is my favorite. I'm still adding to it though, just bought more candle clip holders and more white wax candles today. When the tree is up my already quite small house feels even smaller, you can see a part of my tree peeking into the photo of my dining area in the picture below and the comfy seating area on the other side of the room is much smaller too now but of course so much more cozy and festive!

I also like the very small tree on my dining table, you can see it in the mirror in the picture below. Yes I know, I just couldn't resist taking another shot of my Victorian snow angel doll which is sitting in front of the mirror. I attached a "Frohe Weihnachten" (Merry Christmas) zinc sign to the mirror.

Here is a close up of my dining table decorations with the small tree and a cardboard box of vintage glass ornaments that I found many years ago at the flea market:

Today was my first day off work for the holidays and I went doing some serious last minute Christmas shopping with my mom and my daughter. It took us the whole day and we came home late this evening (Thursday). I couldn't wait to come home though to open my Vintage Christmas friendship swap parcel from my friend Lisa of Tarnished & Tattered, which I picked up at the German custom office this morning. Oh and such wonderful things sweet Lisa sent me, I just had to take some pictures to share them with you:

I always admired Lisa's altered waxed bottles and I'm so happy that she made me one and such a gorgeous piece, I love the old script on the waxed paper and the vintage cameo brooch she attached to it and of course the pretty glass bottle stopper, isn't it wonderful? :)

The whole parcel sented so heavenly Christmassy thanks to this pretty Christmas soap she gifted me with and I also got a whole role of flat spun cotton! Wohoo can't wait to start working with it!

I further love the vintage seals with the silhouette of a lady carrying a gift box, the sparkling clips, the white milk glass star plate and the great black and white vintage milk bottle caps.

Oh and of course also the vintage button cards, wooden rulers, small bottle brush trees, gorgeous old lace & cabinet cards and the cool metal wings! I tried to capture all the goodness in the photo below. To see more details click on the photo and then right click and chose "show graphique/picture" and then right click again on the open picture to get the original size!

And did you spot the beautiful altered tobacco tin ornament which I hung in my little tree and also the wonderful vintage Holiday sheet music with the black silhouette lady portrait? Oh I simply love it all dear Lisa, thank you so very much! I just hope that my parcel for you will arrive at your doorstep very soon too!

Tomorrow (oh well it's already today, it's 6 in the morning of Friday here and I been up almost all night) I will decorate Lisa's treasures around the house and put my festive dining table decoration, the old oval mirror and the old glass oraments in the box back on:

To make the season a bit more Christmassy we also had the first snow of the season this week, although it only lasted a few hours before the snow became rain again, at least I took a picture to remind me of it:

But now let's drive down to my parents home where I also took some picture of mom's Christmas decorations to share with you:

I love this corner of their living room with the beveled mirror and mom's ore mountain angel collection on the drawers below it. Click and enlarge as described before to see more details!

While trying to take a close up of the mirror and the chandelier I always catched myself in the mirror trying to get out of the picture lol even though I used the tripod I couldn't take a decent picture of the mirror and the chandelier without me and/or the camera in the mirror lol. It was quite a funny action!

Mom also put the white Christmas pyramide from the ore mountains out and up again, which she inherited from a good youth friend of her's:

In the next photo I captured mom's collection of wooden German incent smokers standing in one of the living room shelves, which are also all from Thuringia in the ore mountains. The wooden stars on the transom door are all made by my dad though:

This wooden pair of vendors are also from the ore mountains. Mom is a big fan of this art called "Deutsche Volkskunst" well it's translated German folk art:

I also tried to get a decent picture of the decorated living room window which wasn't easy in candle light and without using the flash, which I hate doing and it wouldn't have worked out with the reflecting window in the back anyways. Mom has her vintage press glass collection in the window and also some vintage German glass tree toppers which were made in the ore mountains too. My dad has constructed the window shelf itself btw:

There also is a sweet vintage nativity scene to be seen underneath the window and so much more prettyness.

I also liked this close up of the Christmassy decorated chandelier which I painted white for my mom:

So let's go over into my parents dining room:

You'll easily see that my mom is a great collector of so much more, like old Christmas tree stands and old German china/porcelaine. I'm sorry for the blue lighted house of my parents neighbors to be seen in the window. We so don't like it! Why can't they use pretty white lights instead? Oh well I know tastes are individually different, thanks God lol

Isn't this tiny drawers cabinet and the area below decorated so sweet and Christmassy?:

And I also love how mom has decorated her feather tree (a gift my daughter gave her for last years Christmas when she came back home from her studies in Buffalo N.Y. - I got one too as you might remember if you are a regular reader) with very old vintage glass ornaments:

The antique cotton batting Santa I tried to capture more close up here is one of my favorite ornaments at mom's:

And isn't the old tree stand gorgeous and the way the sheep I got mom for her birthday last March is sniffing on the tree walnut ornament?:

Well now I have to leave you for this Friday trying to get some sleep before dawn, because today I have to be fit to get all my Christmas preparations done. I haven't wrapped a single present yet, oh well so I'm very thankful that my dear daughter is doing the baking and the cooking for tomorrow, all fully vegan of course!
Here is a last picture for you of the Christmas preparations at Boxwood Cottage taken on Wednesday:

See I still have to add some more candles to my tree!

Now here's wishing to all of you my dear readers and blogging friends around the world a very

Merry & Peaceful Christmas!

Happy Holidays!

xoxo~ Carola

I'm linking up with the following link parties:

Vintage Christmas inspiration Friday at Common Ground

Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage

Inspiration Friday - At the Picket Fence

White Vintage Christmas inspiration 2011 part 3

2011-12-15T23:33:00.000-08:00

Welcome back dear blogging friends and readers to part 3 of my White Vintage Christmas Inspiration posts on this very stormy day here in Germany. I took almost all of these pictures last Sunday afternoon/evening when it was already dark with my daughters new Canon EOS 600D. I must say that it makes quite a difference to my good old friend the Olympus UZ C760 which I usually use.

Oops I'm just realising that I got to hurry, will be back later to finish the text for this post!

(Vintage insipired candy Peace Christmas cone by Ann Perry)

So now I'm finally back to finish my post, such a whirlwind of a day this is.

Don't you just love these vintage inspired paper maché Santa boots? I painted one white and one silver and really like to fill them with vintage and/or vintage inspired beaded picks and other pretty items and use them in my holiday decor.

The metal cone in the picture below hangs from one of my studio roof top windows. I made the snowflake ornament from silver pipe cleaners and got the sweet sheet music paper ornaments from my cousin Stefanie.

Back down in my parlor, the huge spun cotton snowball ornament I made and put in the rusty white urn sparkles really nice at dark when the candles are lit:

It's not easy to see all the sparkle in the photos. The Merry Christmas sign below sparkles very nice too:

so does my Winter Magic garland on the mantle, a gift from my friend Madai, as well as the cream white bottle brush wreath:

Of course I lit three Advent candles in the white metal planter from Ikea last Sunday, the fourth will have to wait until this coming Sunday - oh Advent is passing by much too fast for my liking:

~ Sunday 3rd of Advent at Boxwood Cottage ~

It's so cosy when all the candles and twinkle lights are lit, this is why I so love this time of the year!

Can you find all the birdies hidden in the next photo? There are 10 alltogether!

The view below is what I see when I sit on my willow sofa and look in the direction of the dining room with the kitchen behind the transom window:

I really love how the next picture of my seating area came out . The pillow says what I wish to all of you:

Our cat Riley thinks that the sofa is very cosy too:

These pictures were taken in the morning with my old Olympus camera:

The morning light shone into the parlor so beautifully and made my spun cotton snowballs sparkle too:

Back to candle light photos - this one is a little blurry, but I wanted to show you my latest acquisition, the old silver glass tree topper in the vintage tin pudding form. I found it in a pretty Country shop in the cosy artists village of Fischerhude last Saturday while Christmas shopping with my mum:

another picture with my silver santa paper maché boot this time in candle light:

The small brass wind instument ornament is also from that cosy Country shop in Fischerhude, the trumpet is a really old one that I found at the flea market two years or so ago. I like how they shine so pretty in the candle light which really brings me into the festive spirit:

In the next photo you can see all the parcels I had such fun wrapping for my friend Lisa of Tarnished and Tattered in Texas, sent to her a few days ago for our Vintage Christmas friendship swap. Can't wait to receive Lisa's parcel, cause our tastes are quite similar I'm sure it will be awesome!

Today is another good friends birthday and I made her an altered bottle and sent along some small items she might like considering that she loves sewing and Paris!

Sending you very Happy Birthday wishes dear Anita! xoxo~ Carola

I'll have to leave you now with this wide view of my parlor taken with my daughters awesome new camera and wish you all a wonderful and cosy 4th of Advent this Sunday!

I'll be back with part 4 of the White Vintage Christmas inspiration series next Friday one day before Santa Clause comes here in Germany with pictures from my parents very christmassy home!
Only 3 working days left next week and then I'm off work for the rest of the year woohoo!

xoxo~ Carola

Linking up with Debra's Vintage Christmas Inspiration Friday party over at Common Ground again.

and of course with White Wednesday at Kathleens Faded Charm blog

as well as with Paula's and Patties What's it Wednesday over at Ivy and Elephants
and with Jennifer Rizzo's Holiday Housewalk Party

Please find their blog buttons in my side bars!

White Vintage Christmas inspiration 2011 part 2

2011-12-08T22:19:00.000-08:00

Welcome back to Boxwood Cottage dear readers and blogging friends and to the second Vintage Christmas inspiration friday. I'm linking up today with some fabulous Christmas parties and will add all their links under this post.

At first I'd like to share with you some pictures of my vintage inspired (by old china dolls obviously) Snow angel doll created by Dee Foust. She is a fabulous model to work with ;-) well sitting in front of a white mantle mirror which sits on a small shelf, it depends on the angle of which I take the photo and there are always other reflections in the mirror behind her which I really like. In the first picture my antique transome window decorated with snowflakes is showing behind her and in the picture below it is my vintage crystal chandelier and my white mantle decked for the holidays:

Isn't she lovely all in white with her crepe paper collar, the tinsel and the white glitterd wings and silver glitter star and not to forget the white glittered bell in her hands? I fell head over heels in love with her when I first saw her in the Bethany Lowe collection over at Bayberry Cove last season and just had to have her!

I was lucky to get her 50 percent off in their Spring sale yay!

I always had a thing for white vintage angels like the one I have hanging on the mantle in the picture below:

Well now we change the subject from angels to trees because I also like to participate in the Christmas tree party today. Since most of you know here in Germany the Christmas tree is not up as soon as in the United states and other countries, our tradition is to put it up not earlier than the night before Christmas eve, so that the children will be all surprised when they see it on Christmas eve day or evening depending on the tradition in each family, so that means that I can't show you pictures of my Christmas 2011 tree yet, but I uploaded lot's of pictures of Christmas trees from previous years from 2007 to 2010 and hope you'll like to see these too:

This was my 2008 tree decorated with lot's of vintage glass Christmas ornaments and fabric birds and since I learned how to solder in 2007 of course I had to make some soldered ornaments for the tree too:

Since I live in a small row house cottage my trees are usually rather small too.

Small but cute, right?

I always have a real fir tree and use real wax candles.

Close up of some of my soldered Christmas ornaments:

Since I gave away and even sold most of them I have to find the time to make some new soldered Christmas ornamts very soon. They are so fun to make!

Below I show you two tiny trees in sauce boats I had decorated on my mantle in 2009:

Oh and then I have to share with you this tree, not really for the fir tree, but for the wonderful antique silver music box Christmas tree stand, which swirls the tree around slowly while playing old fashioned Christmas songs. It is decorated with old vintage German glass ornaments only:

This beauty is not mine though, it belongs to my parents and gets a special place every Christmas season in their living room, where my mom also put's up a larger tree every Christmas, also decorated with her beautiful collection of old German glass ornaments from Thuringia and the ore mountains, the one below is from Christmas 2008:

Below are two pictures of a bird themed tree I had in 2007:

and lastly I's like to show you again my tree from Christmas 2010 with top hat tree topper which most of my regular readers might still remember:

I'll sure share pictures of my 2011 Christmas tree with you very soon too!

Now to the Christmas party links I joinded or will join with this post:

Holiday vignettes at French Country Cottage blog

If you haven't seen it yet you'll find lot's more holiday vignettes in my previos post btw!

The blogger block Christmas tree party and 2805 blog

and again

The Vintage Christmas inspiration party at Common Ground blog

and of course

White Wednesday No. 130 at Kathleen's Faded Charm blog

Update: Joining knickoftimeinteriors.blogspot.com for knick-of-time-tuesday-12

You'll find the party buttons in my side bars left and right.

I wish y'all lot's of fun with all those fab blog parties and hope you'll stop by again here at Boxwood Cottage next Friday when I'll hopefully have new Vintage Christmas inspiration pictures to show to you.

Enjoy the season!

xoxo~ Carola

White Vintage Christmas inspiration 2011 part 1

2011-12-01T23:02:00.000-08:00

Many Christmas parties are going on this week so fun!
Update ~ joining the above named Holiday party here: http://www.jenniferrizzo.com/2011/12/welcome-to-holiday-housewalk-party.html

Update ~ joining another blog party today called Holiday Copy Cat !
Update ~ joining White Wedensday No. 129 over ar Kathleen's Faded Charm blog and
the Mantle party over here on Nikolaus day Dec. 6th!

Welcome back dear blogging friends and readers to the first Vintage Christmas Inspiration Friday!
I'm linking up with Debra's party today and the next Fridays, see the Vintage Christmas Inspiration button in my left side bar. Finally it's December my favorite month for decorating! I started decorating my home and garden for Christmas/Winter early this year, so todays pictures are all taken in November and lot's of things have already changed again, my decoration is always evolving and never really finished. I start the tour with some Christmas decor in my studio today. Hanging a white metal star on the black board and writing White Christmas under it was a very quick but effective decoration. The idea I got from Beth over and the Patina White blog. I love all of Beth's whimsy decor, wish I could visit her gorgeous home and shop one day! I guess this counts for the copy cat challenge from the Picket Fences Christmas parties I'm linking up and joining over here today! Although mine isn't nearly as beautiful at Beth's I still like it.

On the old wire lampshade I found in Sweden this Summer, I hung another metall star, which was blue before and quite ugly so I decoupaged it with old German sheet music paper and now I love it again! There are also some oval soldered Christmas ornaments hanging from the wire lampshade that I made 2 seasons ago and still love as well as a decorated bisque doll arm and a china doll leg, another idea I saw somewhere in the www. most possible on Pinterest. Btw. if you still need white vintage Christmas inspiration please visit my Pinterest board where I collected over 750 wonderful pictures on my favorite seasonal theme.

This is my always growing colletion of vintage German glass tree toppers from Thuringia, that I simply put in some of the altered bottles I made this year. I find them especially pretty and christmasy in front of the antique family photo:

These are some vintage Christmas flea market finds from this fall:

I decorated the antique German feather tree on my faux white wooden mantle and I'm linking up my Winter Magic mantle with the Mantle Party over at "My uncommon slice of suburbia", where you find mantle inspirations from over 230 participants!

along with my favorite bleached bottle brush trees I got from some dear US blogging friends over the years and of course not to forget my wonderful silver glass glitter garland from my dear friend Madai and a sfabric stocking and fabric collage from my sweet friend Paula. Please let's take a moment to think at Paula a very delicate angel friend who is just recovering from an open heart surgery and still has a lot of challenges to go through. Sending you love and strength my dear!

Here is a picture from a wider angle of my dining room corner and the decorated antique transom window:

I put a star or snowflake ornament in almost every window:

Here is my parlor in the November sunshine:

and again in the November evening candle light. Not sure which I prefer though.

Some more candle light pictures from my parlor:

and the first tree is up too, it's the feather tree my daughter gifted me with when she came back home from Buffalo N.Y last Christmas. I decorated it with old silver glass ornaments from the flea market:

Here is a a vintage soup toureen full of glittered spun cotton snowballs and a spun cotton snowman I had fun making in November:

Meanwhile I also put some fresh green picks in the toureen and it looks even more festive.

The white fabric and lace birdies in the picture below look also very festive to me. They are all lovingly made by dear Paula, send to me in her friendship swap parcels this year:

a shelf scene with Santa in a tiny wood:

....... hours later: I was interrupted this afternoon at 2 pm and couldn't finish my post, so I do it now 12 hours later lol. My collegues came to pick me up for this years Christmas party of our company. Now it is 2 am and we just came back from Hamburg where we had a lot of fun.

Actually I just realise how very tired I really am, so I just let the pictures speak for themselves:

Wishing you all a wonderful second advent weekend!

And hope to see you here again next Friday for more Vintage White Christmas Inspiration!

xoxo~ Carola

Boxwood Cottage

~ Happy May garden days ~

About moths, butterflies and bleeding hearts ~ A short April catch up post

Spring garden~ Happy White Easter~& a surpise parcel

The bunnies are loose ~ pre Easter deco ideas & a winner!

New V-day creations & a Valentine's day give away!

Some early Valentines & 2 January birthdays 25 + 50

Vintage new years eve vignettes *~* Happy 2013 *~*

Christmas 2012 and the upcoming new year!

White Advent Sunday ~ Holiday Home Tour

The zinc star wreath and black iron trumpet angel are both hanging outside in front of my parlor room window.

It's beginning to look a bit like Christmas!

Halloween Party & Fall Garden

Black & White Fall~Halloween decor & Kitchen glimpses

About painting black & white, repurposing & crafting

A giant Cottage Garden post April to July 2012

4th annual Where Bloggers Create party ~ New Boxwood Cottage studio shots!

My visit at Mor Agusta's garage in Sweden ~ Gúa's wonderful sanctuary

From Spring & Easter decorations, silhouettes and some new soldering

❤ Will you be my Valentine? ❤

Valentine creations & decorations, antique markets & my birthday!

A sparkling new year - part 2

A sparkling new year!

White Vintage Christmas inspiration 2011 part 4

White Vintage Christmas inspiration 2011 part 3

White Vintage Christmas inspiration 2011 part 2

White Vintage Christmas inspiration 2011 part 1

Vintage new years eve vignettes ~ Happy 2013 ~