Welcome to Boxwood Cottage!

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

Beautiful November garden & a teaser preview on Vintage Christmas blog parties

2011-11-21T09:55:00.001-08:00

Welcome back dear blogging friends and readers to a November garden update and a teaser at the end of this post on the upcoming Vintage Christmas blog parties that I'm preparing on participating in this season.

We had such beautiful fall weather this year, even the November days are mostly sunny, although at night it can get a bit frosty already but nothing too bad so far. This Saturday I took advantage of the sunny weather and took some November garden photos to share with you. Above you see the Santolina Chamaecyparissus also called Lavender Cotton in a pot and my white iron bunny who is keeping an eye on the freshly planted bulbs in the clay pot. We planted lot's of beautiful fresh spring bulbs in pots and borders last month to have something to look forward too next Spring!

I decorated the garden tables for Winter/Christmas already but minus the color red, I only like red as contrast to white snow, so the red decorations have to wait in the garden shed until the first snow at least.

The plants that I want to overwinter and that are not frost resistent have moved inside or like the rosemary and echeverias in the picture above at least close to the house so that I can take them inside in not time in case a sudden strong frost should arrive.

We had no rain for several weeks and I must always remind myself to water the patio plants from time to time.

Here is a view intp my boxwood garden, in the back you can see the wrapped pots of my neighbor.

A few roses like this Leonardo da Vinci are still producing flowers. Sorry it's blurred looks like my camera prefered to focus on the blue french iron chair instead lol

This fall we even had enough time to clean up the garden and rake all the fallen foliage not like last year when we were surprised by early strong frosts and snow and the illness of my mom not to forget. Thank God she's feeling well again and was also helping me in the Garden a bit on Friday's.

I also had the time to cut back most of my perennials this season only left a few with seeds for the birdies.
I think the garden looks still beautiful although it has less flowers and leaves, wouldn't you agree?

I love my little cabapple tree this time of the year:

and the fresh moss wreath I made for my garden table:

The patio walls and shelves are also decorated for the Winter season:

and I hung up food for the birdies too

The sun shone really warm but I couldn't stay, I had to go back inside after my photo session to prepare the Christmas decorations inside and take photos for upcoming events as long as it was still so bright and light, since this time of the year during the week I go to work when it just gets daylight in the morning and come back home from work in the dark, so photo sessions are only possible on weekends.

The patio wall on the other side, with my Verbena bonariensis still in bloom:

Close up of some easy peasy Winter decorations:

Everything in the garden is ready to sleep and waiting for the upcoming Winter to arrive:

So now it's time for the promised preview on what's coming up here at Boxwwod Cottage very soon!

It's a view through the already decorated transom window into my holiday living room. I started with my decorations last weekend already, when I had put all the Hallween decorations away. We have no Thanks Giving at the end of November to wait for like my American blogging friends and readers for example, so we have more time to prepare everything for Christmas. Oh I so love this time of the year when I can pull out all my pretty Winter and Christmas decorations.

I'm looking forward to participating in Debra's Vintage Christmas Inspiration Friday each Friday in December

and also in the Christmas blogger block party - see the photon & link button in my left side bar!

Above and below are two more peeks on what's new and what I'll have to share with you very soon:

So will you come back and visit me in December?

xoxo~ Carola

From our very own vegan cupcake manufacture & from Vintage Christmassy finds and crafts

2011-11-07T11:04:00.000-08:00

Can you guess what this is here on my kitchen counter? Nope? Well it is our new cupcake shelf, what else lol, everyone should have one!

We opened our own private cupcake manufacture! Ha no not really, but almost because actually making cupcakes is my daughters latest passion!

Not any cupcakes though, nope they must be 100 percent vegan, which means no butter, egg, dairy or any other animal products have been used to make them. She even makes her own vanilla essence from 100 percent biological Madagascar vanilla which smells simply wonderful.

And oh all the other pretties you can use to make cupcakes, like the yummy rose elixier or the colorful paper liners in the big jar:

So of course when she asked me for a shelf for all of her new cupcake equipment and the cupcakes itself, I just had to come up with something pretty too and gave her my vintage Dallmayer (an old German coffee brand) Advertise coffee shelf, which I used for storage up in my studio before.

I also gave her some of my favorite white vintage scalloped paper border and my favorite aqua polkadotted giftwrapping paper and some Dresden borders and wooden scrabble letters to embellish the old shelf, picked some late roses and other still blooming flowers from the garden for a pretty pink glass vase, lit a rose candle in a pink glass jar and this is what came out of it.

It also looks good from the backside where the door is to open it!

Mocha Baileys cupcakes and Rasberry Lemon cupcakes ready to savor hmmmmmm

I had such fun taking pictures of the embellished vintage coffee shelf, the pretty ingredients, the equipment and the yummy cupcakes in my kitchen, can you tell?

Here is another close up of the rasberry lemon cupcakes to share with you - mouthwatering isn't it?
She got the recipes from that great book:
http://www.amazon.de/Vegan-Cupcakes-Take-Over-World/dp/1569242739
in case you are interested in trying out to make yummy vegan cupcakes too. That book is very fun to read and published by two women who also have a blog http://vegancupcakes.wordpress.com/

So to change the subject and after Halloween is over and all the Halloween decorations are put away again I can finally share with you my latest antique market finds from Sunday October 30th:

Yes I know I was very lucky again! My favorite thing is that small old German tinsel tree with tiny candles and ornaments and the old silhouette Santa postcard of course. I'm also happy to have found another vintage silver glass Christmas tree topper and another old tinsel garland as well as some sweet pinecone and other old glass Christmas ornaments for my collections.

I also finished up this huge cone, inspired by the wonderful cones my talented US friend Ann Perry creates. I used vintage German sheet music paper, a vintage lace handkerchief, an old cabinet card, some millinery and glitter stars and think it came out quite pretty. In the picture above it hangs from a bird cage in my roof top studio.

To finish up this post for today I'd like to show you this little group of snowmen in the picture above that I created during a crafting afternoon I had lately with my sister and cousin Stefanie. Two of them are made from spun cotton balls with acorn cap hats and the slightly larger one in the middle with the tiny top hat is made from polymer clay. Ans aren't these tiny rusty sleighs ever so gorgeous? I bought them from Janice's Papier Valise boutique last Spring and was already looking forward to use them in this years holiday decor.

Now I only hope that you like what I shared with you today and I'm looking forward to share more of my holiday crafts and decorations for this season with you my dear blogging friends and readers very soon!

xoxo~ Carola

About Fall & Halloween party preparations for tonight

2011-10-31T00:08:00.000-07:00

Welcome back to my spooky cottage and the Halloween party preparations for All Hallows Eve!

I found these cabinet cards at the flea market last year and immediately saw the witches potential of these old ladies also I had to alter them a bit he he he

Aren't they spooky?

We are enjoying a wonderful Fall over here in Germany so far with lot's of warm and sunny days and the garden is not looking spooky at all but still blooming beautifully in pretty shades of pink and purple:

I started with my fall decor back in September by picking flower bouquets from the garden to dry like the Annabelle hydrangea and hens & chicks as well as by buying the first pumpkins:

We went to a pumpkin farm festival in September and my pumpkin collection started to grow, I was lucky to find the beautiful cream white and green pumpkins this year:

Then on a very warm and sunny September weekend we had a family pumpkin carvin feast on my sisters porch and this is what came out of it:

My daughter did our house number in a huge orange pumpkin which came out really great I think and I did the owl in a smaller white pumpkin, my niece, nephew and sister did the 3 smaller ones. You can see that my nephew loves NewYork.

And this is what my owl pumpkin looked like when I brought it home:

Unfortunately our carved pumpkins didn't last any longer than 2 weeks because it was still to hot outside and the little fruit flies came to munch on all our carved pumpkins until they started to rot and decay :(

So we had to come up with some other ways for this years Halloween party decor. I started to paint some pumpkins black. A real one and a faux one and even the real one in the picture above still looks good.

I printed and cut out lot's of templates and pictures that I found through Pinterest and through Karen's Graphics Fairy blog and framed them in black oval frames which I bought in Sweden this Summer and I made black cardboard bats and crows and a garland.

I painted a plank with black chalkboard paint which I had cutted for my old window and then added some spiderwebs to it, chalk ones and wire ones. Of course a bowl of treats is very important for tonight and my daughter baked some yummy peanut butter cupcakes yesterday which I still have to take a picture of.

In my room divider transome window I hung lot's of crows and bats, a moon face and the two cabinet card witches I showed you close up at the beginning of this post.

Bats are also flying from lamps and cupboards and so on around the house:

Here is a close up of my table decor:

I found these old apothecary jars at the antique market yesterday morning and thought they'd add some magic to my Halloween decor:

Bat's flying from the stairs:

I saw these google eyed pumpkins on Pinterest two days ago and since I had found the chocolate eyeballs in our super market last week (note: It's not so easy to find special Halloween sweets, treats and decorations over here since Halloween is not a German tradition) I just had to try them out on one of my last bigger pumpkins, doesn't he look cute?

And some of the eyeballs I put in my wooden hand for a hopefully more spooky effect lol

Well now we are all prepared for our little party tonight and I just hope that the kids ( my niece and nephews and neighborhood kids) are going to like it, what do you think?

Wishing a fun All Hallows Eve to all of you my friends!

I'm already all in the mood for Christmas decor now lol especially after we had the switch back to Winter time yesterday and it is getting dark at 5 pm now plus I found some gorgeous vintage Christmas treasures at the antique market yesterday morning and now I can't wait to start decorating.

I'd also like to thank all the lovely blogging friends and readers for the warm welcome back comments on my last post. It's fun to be back on blogging! :)

xoxo~ Carola

Back on blogging & rearranging & a winner!

2011-10-16T03:18:00.000-07:00

Welcome back to Boxwood Cottage dear blogging friends and readers! I really didn't intend to stay away from my blog for over 2 months, but sometimes life just got it'sway, doesn't it?

Well to explain my long absence, there was a beautiful family vacation to Sweden for example with my mum, sister and daughter, some big birthdays to prepare for, voyage to and celebrate (not my own though), a sad funeral of a dear aunt with a family gathering, a big move over several weeks with lot's of work - the company I work for moved in a new building which had to be furnished and set up - which was also fun btw and I got a brand new shiny office which I just about finished, then there were some sunny day's to spend in the garden, rather then sitting in front of the pc too and I started to going to the gym with my daughter 2 -3 times a week and we also changend our nutrition from vegetarian to vegan, which involves more grocery shopping and fresh cooking only every day etc.pp..

It's quite overwhelming to start blogging again after such a long absence and I don't really now where to start. I have lots of Sweden pictures to share, especially from my visit at sweet Gua's Mor Agusta's garage of the beautiful blog Hvítur Lakkrís, Garden pictures of course and Autumnal decorations, but I think today I start with some rearrangements I did in my living room after I came home from the inspiring Sweden vacation at the beginning of September.

See the beautiful black botanical chart in the first picture, it's one of the gorgeous things I brought home from Sweden and it was the first thing I had to find a place for in my living room when we came back.

It fitted quite well in the corner beside of my antique transome door and I think it also matches well with the black and white accents of the silhouettes and the old rusty military metal box below.

I also moved the white plant stand from under the window over here:

Below is a picture of all my lovely Sweden finds, we went to 2 crazy Sweden flea markets over there which was quite an experience and so different from ours and of course we visited some great shops too.

The first Sunday after our return from Sweden there was already the last good outdoor fleamarket of the season in front of our city hall, so of course we had to go and just look at all the treasures that I brought home :)

Double click on the pictures to enlarge in full size for more details. (Update: Looks as if I was gone for too long, the double click brings me too a site with all my pics from this post. Is that a new blogger feature?)

The vintage travel typewriter was one of my finds from that day and I decorated it for the Fall & Halloween season with a pumpkin that I painted black and a black crow of course!

If you should be in need of some more inspiration for Fall & Halloween crafts and decorations, then visit my Pinterest board over here: http://pinterest.com/boxwoodcottage/fall-halloween/ You are sure to find inspiration overload!!!

Another fab find a family friend who cale along to the flea market with us got me was this sweet vintage box camera:

I also moved my old french iron children bed from under the 3 parts shelf to under the window:

I put my white foldable table under the shelf instead.

And did you notice the glass box on the table under the shelf? I found it in a gorgeous shop in the artist village of Fischerhude which is close to my home town this Summer and decorated it with lot's of vintage tresures and some of my soldered jewelry inside and on top I put my three favorite vintage alarm clocks.

What do you think, like it?

Well some of you may probably think "Her home looks more like a shop to me"

Oh well I hear that a lot and think I will just have to live with it ;-)

I like the day bed much better now, standing in front of the garden window.

Oh and I don't want to forget to thank all of you kind souls and friends who have commented on my last post and shared the joy over my publication in the Italian and French Brocancte magazine with me, it was so much pleasure to read you all! *smiles* I'm a bit sad, that I never got a copy of the french issue though, so I only have the italian issue to give away but I'll add a copy of the beautiful Scandinavian magazine Vackre Hjem to the give away. And lastly I finally have to announce the winner of my magazine give away:

tadaaaaaa ~ and without further ado the lucky winner is:

~June~ of the blogs Laughing with Angels and Grace gardens.

Thank you for your lovely comments dear June and please e-mail me your home addy!

See you again soon dear readers until then I hope you can enjoy the beauty of fall!

xoxo~ Carola

Published in Italy, inspired by black and white and a give away!

2011-08-09T23:31:00.000-07:00

Welcome back dear readers and blogging friends in the rainy month of August in Germany.

If I thought that our Summer weather in July was already too cold than I was totally wrong, because August the so called High Summer month started even colder, it's windy, cloudy, rainy and even stormy and my flowers aren't happy about it just like us people aren't.

But luckily to warm my heart at least, dear Annarita Triarico from Lotus Publishing in Rome has sent me a few copies of the Brocantage issue of her beautiful magazine Gli Speciali di Casa chic which is dedicated to Brocante and Flea market style. I feel very honored to be included in this beautiful and special issue with a 12 pages spread about my home Boxwood Cottage on page 52 to 63:

Wow what a special feeling it is to see my pictures printed in a pretty high gloss magazine, it's very exciting! :)

Just click on the pictures to enlarge them if you want to see more details.

Annarita contacted me through my Flickr photo account some time in May/June sending me a flickr mail to aske if I would like to participate in the Brocantage issue of her magazine Gli Speciali die Casa Chic and if so, if I would send her as fast as possible some high res pictures. (I send her around 100 pics lol cause I wasn't sure what she wanted especially) and answer to her interview questions and after some consideration so I did. I was a bit reluctant at first thinking my pictures and story might not be good enough, but sweet Annarita and her collegue Lucrezia Vozza did a beautiful job in translating my interview from English in Italian and pulled together an article that makes me really happy.

~Thank you so much dear Annarita and Lucrezia!~

This issue is for the months of July and August and is still available on the shelves of the Italian magazine vendors and even better it will be published in France too with a Special Maison chic issue for September/October!

This is so exciting for me and to share it with you I will give away a copy of each issue to you my dear readers and all you have to do is leave me a comment on this post and I'll draw a winner as soon as I have the french copies in my hands too. You'll sure love the magazine for the eye candy alone although you might not understand Italian or French.

There are even extra pages at the end of the magazine with tips for the readers who want to recreate some ideas of the articles and I'm included there too:

Other than that I was very inspired by black and white lately as you can although see in my Pinterest Inspiration Board called Beautiful Black & White. I love to use white with black accents in my home and decorations but didn't use it so much in crafts so far.

I played with glue and art gel and this is what came out of it. Above is a little black and white 3D collage with art gel in a cake tin with which I then altered a wooden file box that I painted white.

Below is an altered mirror hanging from a window in my studio:

The mirror frame was just a boring wooden mirror frame before I altered it with vintage and new tape measure, game pieces with my initials, age and birth year etc.pp to make it personal and individual. Lastly I added the small black bottle brush tree on top as well as two tiny top hats and the sweet flash card garland I once ordered from the talented Cari Kraft and find it even quite festive now for Halloween as well as for the Christmas holidays, don't you think?

Last but not least I'd like to let you know about a fabulous give away which is taking place at my my dear blogging friend Suzanne of the Old Grey Mare blog right now:

http://oldgreymareprimitives.blogspot.com/2011/08/giveaway-at-oldgreymare.html

So hurry up and head over to Suzanne's blog so that you won't to miss out on it!

I'm wishing you all a better High Summer weather than we have right now and if you have sunshine please send it our way!

xoxo~ Carola

~ The lushest July Mid-Summer garden I ever had ~

2011-07-27T23:19:00.000-07:00

Seeing that I have not done a garden post since May I think it's high time to share with you my dear blogging friends and readers my "mid summer garden".

All the pictures in this post are done during this month ~ July from the 6th until today.

I left out June because I showed you my June flowers ever so often over the last 6 years and don't wanna bore you. June is always pretty in the garden with lot's of roses, foxgloves, bellflowers, alliums etc., but I was forever a bit sad once June was over, for in July I found my garden well let's say a bit less flowery and I worked on changing this ever since I bought the cottage in 2004 and moved in here in 2005. Back then the garden was a - by the past owners - so called "evergreen garden" with almost no flowers but, at least in my opinion, too much hedges, bushes and trees for such a small row cottage garden. You must know that my whole lot is only 120 sqm and that with the house (don't ask me what this is in square feet because I don't now, but believe me it is very small.) Well now after 7 years and lot's of changes and removing of some not flowering bushes and trees the garden is finally blooming through from early Spring until late Fall and I'm really enjoying it!

The hydrangeas like my sweet white Annabelle above and the pretty blueish one below are blooming so prettily right now!

And the phloxes are wonderful this year too. I think the garden likes our weather this summer, it's not hot ( we only had 2 or 3 hot summer days so far) and it is also not raining too much either.

Above the purple phlox in the new border, which I started last year after removing two large bushes, is blooming together with high purple Verbena bonariensis, Lavatera olbia and white Echinacea and below the deep purples phlox is also blooming in this border but between the high Leonardo da Vinci rose and the also high butterfly plant.

Below you see another pretty hydrangea which is blooming in my front garden:

You may easily recognise my love for purple and blueish flowers as you also see in the Thalictrum blooming behind the pretty apricot colored Rokkoko rose in the picture below:

The Lavatera olbia Barnsley a mallow plant which I planted last fall and it growed into a bigh flowering bush already:

My pink Echinacea also is a dream this year and the bees are loving it as much as I do:

Blueish Clematis are also still blooming, like Prince Charles on my rusty rose arc:

Another lovely true blue flower is my gorgoeus Agapanthus (African Lily), growing in a large pot on my deck right now:

Oh and the hollyhocks are blooming beautifully too on my deck:

I love the pink filled one above but also the not filled soft cream yellow one which is blooming under my living room window every year:

The bumblebee below is enyoing herself imensely in my Verbena bonariensis:

My old border on the right side of my little garden is still blooming with pretty campanula varieties:

and Alchemilla and Achillea

A close up of the gorgeous Prince Charles clematis below blooming together with the blue Buddleja (Butterfly plant):

Another sweet Clematis is Piilu blooming in my little crap apple treeL

One of the rare warm and sunny Sunday mornings on my deck with Cleome spinosa blooming in the mosaic pot on the small blue mosaic table in front:

My wonderful Eden rose started blooming quite late this season. Here I cut some flowers for a petit blue enamel jug on my deck:

More "Eden85" rose blossoms:

A view from my deckchair:

It feels a bit as if I would live in a flower nursery sometimes lol

but i so love it and apparently our black neighborhood cat Tommy is enjoying it too:

While our own Boxwood tomcat Riley usually prefers the front garden.

Below is another close up of a pink Echinacea and the white Echincea just starting to flower in the background:

Comes sunset the ecofriendly solar lampion lanterns are starting to glow:

which has something quite magically for me

Above is my favorite summer evening picture so far!

Below are the smaller solar lampions glowing in the grape vine which grows over my living room window:

Another view from the deck down in the new flower bed:

The shady seating area under the maple tree in my back garden I did not need so far this Summer, because it just wasn't hot enough. See how the wind blows in the table cloth? We had quite a lot of overcast and windy days and really hope for more warmer Summer days ahead!

This is the view from sitting on the blue backyard iron chair looking back to the cottage:

The garden is so lush and green and flowering abundantly if you look close enough like we did today

I better stop here and hope if you are still with me, that I did not bore you too much with all these garden and flower pictures and that hopefully you did enjoy it a bit with me? I'll promise to get back on crafting and decorating in my next post. Today is a beautiful sunny day and I'm looking forward to some deckchair summer reading in the late afternoon.

Sending very happy Summer wishes to all of you!

xoxo~ Carola

~ Where Bloggers Create 2011 ~ 3rd annual blog party

2011-07-14T13:25:00.000-07:00

Welcome dear blogging friends, readers and party visitors to the 3rd annual "Where bloggers create" blog party hosted by Karen over at http://mydesertcottage.blogspot.com/ and welcome into my roof top studio in Summer 2011. It's the third year in a row that I participate and play along in Karen's fun and inspiring blog party:

I shot some fresh photos for today`s party and would be thrilled if you'd like them.

Since I just did a huge studio post after my latest studio cleaning and rearranging in May (click here to view: http://carolsgarden.blogspot.com/2011/05/celebrating-the100th-white-wednesday.html)

I concentrated on the parts of my studio which I rather left our last time. I could have just linked up the May post today, but I thought after almost 8 weeks new pictures would be more fun.

My vintage studio dressform dressed up especially for today:

and I think I did not show you a close up of my vintage writing collection either so far:

I love to leave the huge roof top windows open in summer and let a breath of fresh air into the studio:

Under the window you'll find some of my studio storage which i love to rearrange from time to time:

In this case I decorated the wooden storage boxes with the glass lids with some of the altered and soldered bottles I created this year and the glass box I soldered last year:

on the round white table in front of this shelf stands one of my studio bowls ~ a vintage soup toureen ~ filled with supplies to create with:

Talking about creating I thought you might not only want to see the cleaned up studio but also a bit of the mess I make while pulling things together to create:

If you're new to my blog you might not know what I like best to create so I'll show you some silver soldered trinket boxes I finished lately:

The one above is quite huge and hangs on my old dressform. The ones below are smaller, more like pendants to wear:

It's fun to fill them with vintage frozen Charlotte dolls, vintage rhinestones and other small trinkets:

This one is a see through box made entirely out of cut glass which looks good from both sides:

In the next one I used a tiny crotched flower created by my talented flickr friend Sandra Blanks:

The one above got some vintage bling and silver wire boullion on old German sheet music paper with the German word Traum which means Dream and the box below I called "Oh Tannenbaum" the scene shows a child which peeked through the keyhole the night before Christmas and seeing the already trimmed Christmas tree it just had to sneak into the festive room:

I also cut my first bird shape, soldered it and gave it some lace wings:

This is my solder desk where the "Magic" happens:

Well dear visitors and party people I hope you had some fun visiting my studio and found some inspiration here then I'll be all happy today! And my wish for you - I wrote on the chalk board in the picture below:

Now let's go and visit all the other fabulous creative bloggers and the spaces where they create!

There is a long list from A to Z of WBC party participants on Karen's blog in the the right side bar.

Happy partying everyone!

xoxo~ Carola

More pictures of my studio can be seen here http://carolsgarden.blogspot.com/2011/05/celebrating-the100th-white-wednesday.html

and here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/boxwoodcottage/sets/72157603980980932/

and if you have a vintage inspired studio that you would like to share with kindred spirits I'd be thrilled if you'd become a member of my flickr group here:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/vintage_inspired_studios/

Boxwoodcottage's photostream

2011-06-30T21:52:00.001-07:00

Boxwoodcottage's photostream on Flickr.

Hello dear blogging friends and readers,
once again a whole month has almost passed without a sign of life of me here on my blog. June was not as beautiful as April and May weatherwise and I spend a lot of my spare time in the studio. I finally learned how to cut glass myself thanks to the soldering queen "Sally Jean", looks like I always had the wrong tools and techniques oh well. So now I can make little trinket boxes and cut the glass in just the exact size needed and I even cut my first bird shape and soldered a two sided lace bird. So fun! Possibilities are endless now and I just can't stop. How do you like my trinket boxes so far?
I promise to be back in July with a long post with big pictures, but for today this will have to do.
Sending very happy Summer wishes to all of you!
xoxo~ Carola

Celebrating the100th White Wednesday with a studio tour!

2011-05-17T23:33:00.000-07:00

Welcome back again to Boxwood Cottage dear blogging friends and readers, I'm doing good this month at least in my humble eyes lol because this is already my 3rd post in the merry month of May. I just had to play along today for 2 reasons, the first one is of course that today is a milestone day with White Wednesday number 100 wow that I did not want to miss! Congratulations to Kathleen our fabulous host over at Faded Charm Cottage! The second reason is that I cleaned up and rearranged my studio lately and of course I'm eager to share some photos of it, over 20 pics to be exact, so you better make yourself comfortable in front of your pc!

Okay so let's start and go upstairs, I started by taking a few shots around the staircase and galleria while going up into my rooftop studio

In contrast to the white walls I used quite a lot of black here, like my old black string instrument in the wall shadow box or some of my old top hats

Then when you reached the last steps and look right into my studio, because as I said there is a galleria around and so I have no door, this is what you see first:

And when you are almost up and look left over the galleria this is your view:
(Click on my pictures to enlarge them if you like to see more details, I left them all quite huge)

And looking straight ahead you'll look at this creative chaos lol:

My favorite part in the studio right now is my new white studio table:

Do you like it? Not only has it great storage room with 3 deep drawers on each side, but it is foldable too, you can fold out just one side, or both sides like I did for now, but if you need the space otherwise you can even fold in both sides and have nothing but a small side table left.

The Ikea fans between my readers might have recognised it right away, it's called "Norden"!

My friend Anita told me it would be the perfect table for my studio, when I told her that I'm looking for one and she was so right! Norden is not the only table in my studio though, can one ever have enough tables and storage space in a studio? I don't think so lol, I have 3 desks/work stations up here, that I'll show you in a minute, but this new table shall be for creating with guests like friends and family. Right before Easter for example I had my sister and my cousin over to play and embellish some Easter eggs and I had no table for them to work on, cause all my work desks were full of stuff and so we had to sit on the sofa and that was so not comfortable for the back while creating that I decided a new studio work table is what I need and well here it is :) So my dears next time you come visit me to play in my studio you'll know where you'll be sitting!

On Sunday I was at our local flea market and found another old top hat, a velvet one this time and tonight I had the idea to hang it up on my studio chandelier along with a silk one out of my collection ( I collected 5 old top hats so far, 3 of them came with their original hat boxes) What do you think don't they look great up there?

Well let's move on to another studio table, one of my work desks:

My daughter is always laughing about me having almost no space left to create on my work desks but for me it is enough space, I need all of my things close around me in order to be inspired and able to start creating:

How about you, do you need a crammed space or all cleaned up tidily to let your muse flow?

On the next desk I have another flea find my vintage sewing machine, truth to be told, I have yet to learn how to use it *blushes* but one day soon I will! I know it's working fine, because my sister has tested it for me.

Here is a wider view of the left side of my studio and you can already catch a glimpse of my third work table under the rooftop window with my solder work station

When you turn around from the desk with the sewing machine you'll see some of my studio storage:

as well as some more of my collections, like old children sewing machines and old suitcases.

Hidden in the tin boxes in my Ikea shelf is the the stuff I do not need that often and seasonal things, like Christmas decor etc..

I also collect old sewing baskets as you might have seen already ;-)

and here is a closer look at my soldering work station:

When you turn around from here you'll look back to the wider side of my studio with the two huge windows

Another one of my flea market finds from last Sunday is just laying on my new studio table, it is a vintage velvet sewing box I found with all the notions still inside:

And seeing it is White Wednesday today I leave you with another shot of my favorite studio inspiration board aka the printers tray that I painted white last Spring:

Well I hope you liked the tour, but now I really have to hurry up, going to work, but I'll promise to be back visiting all your lovely White Wednesday posts later today!
Happy 100th White Wednesday!

xoxo~ Carola

~ Galvanized finishes ~ or a deep love for zinc in my garden ~

2011-05-07T02:38:00.000-07:00

Linking up with Donna over @ Funky Junk Interiors for her Saturday Night Special link party (SNS 80) about "Galvanized Finishes"

Well I collect pretty & practical garden zinc containers, zinc watering cans and so on, so I just had to play along today and whip up a post that fit's the theme Galvanized finishes, so here are a few pictures about which I think that they show my love for zinc in the garden quite well:

I redocate often so nothing stays the same for too long

I showed a few of these photos already in my April garden post from May first below this post

You'll find some zinc in every corner of my deck

Love my zinc water containers and of course my zinc cold frame:

Bought the zinc drawers from Ikea some decades ago and I'm still fond of them, the still very shiny watering can standing on the zinc barrel is one of my latest zinc acquisition, also from good old Ikea:

I find the best about zinc, besides of the pretty grayish color and being very practical for sure is that it doesn't rust. I can leave my garden zinc items outside all year through all the seasons and they never get any rust. Don't get me wrong I love rusty items in my garden too, but it's also good to have some things of that you can be sure that they don't get rusty.

of course my potting table has a galvanized top

Anther Ikea zinc favorite of mine is this old zinc lantern that I have for years. The Clematis alpina montana rubens is blooming so wonderful right now:

I also love old/antique/vintage zinc of course and besides of old zinc watering cans I really like the old zinc pudding form as we call it in German which is standing beside of a zinc heart on my zinc water dispenser in the following pic:

And to close this post I share with you another picture which shows my zinc drawers quite well from the side, so pretty in my eyes, what do you think of it and do you love zinc too?

Happy SNS Saturday dear blogging friends and readers, you can find Donna's blog button in my side bar and I also played along in Marianne's "I love white and so do you" party today with an older post, that you can find here: http://carolsgarden.blogspot.com/2010/07/summer-parlor-and-finished-garden-eden.html Thank you Marianne and Donna for these fun link parties today!

Go find more zinc love now here:
http://funkyjunkinteriors.blogspot.com/2011/05/sns-80-celebrates-galvanized-finishes.html

xoxo~ Carola

May Day May Day

2011-05-01T22:55:00.000-07:00

Welcome back to Boxwood Cottage in the merry month of May dear blogging friends and readers!
It's high time for a garden update here I think. I'm glad you came by today, wanna come outside with me, the door is already wide open! Let's step out on my back porch, or do I better call it patio, or terrace, or deck? I must admit that I'm never sure how to call it in English, anyway it's my outside room:

My favorite spot to enjoy Spring and relax and read, all the green and blue color around me is very calming

Forget me nots are blooming everywhere right now in pots on my deck as well as in the borders, they self seeded themselves everywhere and I like that :)

My deckchair looks really weathered by now because it stands outside all year round, I'm not strong enough do bring it down in the basement in winter, but still it is the most comfortable place.

along with the bench on which I enjoy the evening sun every day after work. The vines on the trellis over the bench are just starting to leaf

but Geraniums & Pelargoniums are already in bloom and the roses in pots and borders all got buds by now

The clematis montana rubens is in full bloom on the other side of my deck, such a pretty sight every year again. I planted one at the other side too and hope it'll bloom there as well in a few years, because since my Wisteria died for unknown reasons I miss having both sides in bloom at the same time.

Lavender and other herbs and flowers are sprouting in every pot now and the cream white iron bunny is sniffing at a Heliotrope vanilla bloom. Okay let's go on:

From the deck we go three steps down into the boxwood garden where violas bloom in pots (they are my favorite early Spring flowers and they blooming since March already) and the first gorgeous high Allium balls are blooming in the borders, along with my small lilac tree and clouds of pretty forget me nots. All the blueish colors are so soothing!

My peony Sarah Bernhardt got big buds, I so can't wait for her to bloom alongside my white rose Artemis, both look splendidly healthy :)

A side view on my potting table, where I just potted two turquoise echeverias, that I had inside over the winter in two rusty urns.

Behind the fence and the potting table my old neighbors old huge lilac tree is in full bloom and scents heavenly

A look in my crowded border unter the white rose arc where it blooms from March until November

Gorgeous tulips Angelique are blooming in this border right now, so pretty and soft pink, between lot's of allium bulbs that are yet to bloom

When I turn around from here this is what I see in my other border and behind:

At the end of the border more alliums are waiting to bloom and behind the boxwood hedge my crabapple tree is blooming and my white hydrangea Annabelle has got fresh leaves, but no blooms yet, it is still too soon in the season for her.

Oh how I love seeing all the fresh green after a long and hard winter!

Here I stand behind my maple tree looking back to my deck and in the next picture I snapped a close up of my pretty ranunculus in full bloom in a pot on my deck

The birds eye view picture is from 2 weeks ago, April 11 to be exact, when the leaves on the maple tree just started to unfold, snapped out of my bedroom window. I think it shows quite well the layout of my little garden paradise

Just half of my deck can be seen in the picture above. Below is a close up of one of my garden shelves:

And a close up of my pretty pink bleeding heart, unfortunately my white one did not survive the strong winter *sniff*

Well to end this long picture filled garden post I leave you with a savory in bloom standing in the corner beside the terrace door where my zinc water container stands.

I hope you enjoyed this garden tour with me, next time it's back to my studio where I'm just rearranging a bit.

Oh and not to forget, I wanted to let you know that like so many of you I joined Pinterest a fortnight ago and got addicted immediately collecting the prettiest and most inspirational pictures from the web. You may have a look at my inspiration boards here: http://pinterest.com/boxwoodcottage/ and I also put a link to it in my right side bar. I just love pinning!!!

Until then dear friends, enyoy the merry month of May!

xoxo~ Carola

Boxwoodcottage's photostream

2011-04-30T22:22:00.001-07:00

Boxwoodcottage's photostream on Flickr.

Hello dear friends!
Here are my latest pictures from my flickr album with garden photos, Easter crafts, Home decorations and a friendship parcel that arrived in April. April was a wonderful month with the best and warmest Spring weather one could have wished for! We had a beautiful family Easter feast at my sister's country cottage and my mum is doing very well right now. I spent a lot of time in my garden and the month just flew by. I'll do another post with new garden pictures later today.
xoxo~ Carola

Boxwoodcottage's photostream

2011-03-30T22:55:00.001-07:00

Boxwoodcottage's photostream on Flickr.

Hello dear blogging friends and readers!
I know I owe you and me a long post for March, but somehow I didn't get around to do one, so much is always happening, but still I uploaded my favorite March photos with descriptions on my flickr page quite frequently. So this morning when I saw the new flickr "Share on Blogger" button, I just had to try it out. There you'll find all the pictures from my wonderful recent friendship swap with my angel friend Paula for example and als my recent lucky antique market finds, recent home rearrangements and decorations and more. Come click on my pics and have a look!
I'll hope to be back with ya'll for a long post soon!
xoxo~ Carola

Bloggers Day of Silence ~ Love for Japan ~

2011-03-18T06:18:00.002-07:00

http://forjapanwithlove.com/

~ White angel wings ~ Black silhouettes ~ Soldered mementos ~

2011-02-28T12:36:00.008-08:00

Can't believe today is the last day of the last Winter month February already and I didn't get around to do a new blog post the whole month long, well now I have to hurry because I promised myself to do at least one long blog post every month. I wish I could do more but right now to keep my self made promise already seems to be difficult.

Welcome back to Boxwood Cottage my dear blogging friends and faithful readers and thank you so much for still coming to visit me, although I'm such a bad blogger.

So let's see what has happened lately, well as you can see in the first picture my antique dress form Rose got wings! My sister Cordula ~ a German paper and mixed media artist ~ made them for me and gave them to me as a Christmas present and last month I finally brought them up in my studio and attached them to Rose. They are made from paper pulp and wire. I hope she's going to show me how exactly she made them soon.

At the very end of January I got a year older again and I got some more beautiful gifts. I piled them on the dining room table and went to do some errands. When I came back home I found Riley right smack there in the middle of my presents looking at me as if he would think:

"See Carola I'm your cutest present anyway"

Of course I had to take a picture, or two.

I'm still so obsessed with silhouettes, especially really old ones, like the framed one on my birthday table, which I got from my dear mom, speaking about who is still going through a very hard time with chemo treatments, so to cheer her up a bit I made her a special family memento. The soldered and collaged house that you see below contains old pictures of mom's family the Nagel's, her parents and siblings.

I connected two houses with loops and hooks so that it stands alone:

Here's my little mom and her older sister, my dear Auntie Renate R.I.P:

Mom's dad was a forest ranger (Oberförster) and he's wearing his forest ranger uniform in the wedding picture, taken 1933:

I also did some soldering for Valentine's day. One of the soldered hearts is currently on it's way to Sue Kantola, a dear flickr friend:

It was so fun to collage and solder the house, that I had to do another one, but seeing that they don't stand alone I inventend a stand for it and was pleased to see that it worked out just as I had hoped for:

I love to incorporate silhouettes in my soldered pieces too as you can see, the pretty lady in the house above was in my may basket from sweet Tina last year. Well and being on a roll I finally soldered enough very small charms and game pieces for a full bracelet.

This is is the other side of my stand alone house. I love the picture of the boy with the top hat, which is a scan of one of my favorite old postcards purchased some time ago on our local Bremen flea market The house pendant below isn't quite finished yet.

Thinking about what else I could solder I came across altered bottles and this one was broken so I used the copper foil and solder to repair it and also to embellish it. I find the domed round glasses filled with 3D items like Sandra's gorgeous white chiffon flower do look great soldered on to the bottle:

I filled the bottle with some silver German glass glitter annd a love message on antique sheet music paper and I also soldered a bottle stopper from a broken glass crystal which I had lying around:

I further soldered some more charms and pendants:

And following my silhouette passion I framed a couple of new and also very old silhouette paper cuts in these pretty white Ikea frames:

The contrast between black and white just makes me happy every time I look at it:

Here is my new old framed silhouette picture of the old German aristocracy family Schaumburg standing on the frame of my new bed:

And the beautiful pillows that my dear friend Anita gifted me with also found a home on my new white bed. The pillow on the right is especially dear and precious to me because it is my grandma Elfriede in the picture when she was 6 years old over 100 years ago and her little brother on the old rocking horse. Anita made this very special pillow for my birthday and we designed it together. I was wishing for a button frame like I had seen it in a book from a swedish designer and author last year and Anita send me pictures on how the pillow would look like with the button frame, laying all the buttons around the photoprint until I really liked it and found it perfect, such patience she had and then she hand sewed over 120 buttons onto the cushiom for me. What a labor of love dear Anita and you can be sure that I will always treasure it as I will your friendship! Thank you once again! xoxo~ C.

So here is the whole new bed! The vintage linen bolster with the french lily is another special one Anita created for me and sent it to me for Christmas.

I can assure you that I have had only good dreams since I sleep in my pretty new bed:

During the day I can just put the bed sheets into the big drawers of my Hemness bed and voila the bed is ready made.

I did not regret taking apart and bringing down my old beautiful but huge iron bed in the basement for one minute yet because my bed room is so much bigger now with a smaller bed and in case I need a bigger bed, I can just pull another bed half out of the bedfastness. Great thing Ikea!

Well now I hope I made up again for the lack of posting during the last 7 weeks and that you wont be mad at me anymore, pretty please?

Coming up next are some friendship swaps and Easter crafs and hopefully some milder temperatures finishing this very long and cold Winter here in Northern Germany soon for gardening works again, I so miss my garden *sigh* and I also miss reading outside in my deckchair with the sun warming me and outdoor flea markets ahh I so can't wait for Spring! I bet neither can't you!

See y'all in March!

xoxo~ Carola

P.S.:

Thank you so very much for all your well wishes for my mom, it means a lot to me and it helps. I believe in the magic of positive thoughts!

I'll be linking up this post with Kathleen's ~White Wednesday~ again over on her blog Faded Charm and

with Silver Sunday by Beth of the blog Gypsy Fish!

~ See also their event buttons in my left hand side bar ~

~~~ Happy New Year ~~~ and a white holiday recap!

2011-01-02T01:46:00.002-08:00

Dear blogging friends and readers here's wishing you and your families good luck and good health and lot's of happy moments to enjoy in the new year 2011!

The last weeks were quite hard for our family here with my mom getting diagnosed with Leukemia (CLL) and we all hope for better times to come again in the new year! So personally my biggest wish and hope for the new year is that my dear mama will feel better again soon!

The last 10 days since I was off work for the holidays we did a lot of cocooning over here

Poor Riley had kind of a hard time too because with all the wet snow and the freezing cold outside he was housebound and very bored.

and we really had a lot of snow in December, more then ever since I can remember here in Bremen.
This was the view out of my front door one very cold December morning:

The beauty of snowy and/or frosty branches of trees and bushes never fails to amaze me:

Seeing that I had a deep need for relaxation after a very stressful pre Christmas time, I kept indoors most of the time and got busy crafting Winter decorations and Christmas ornaments:

while we got more and more snow outside every day we came near to Christmas day

The snow inspired me to create snowman ornaments, like this snowman mitten for my mom:

And I made lot's of these little spun cotton snowmen that I glued on Christmas tree candle holders so that you can easily attach them everywhere you'd like to. I put them on my sisters Christmas presents too.

I also started to make old script baubles from blue glass ornaments that I did not like anymore:

Then I was on a roll and glittered more of the paper maché balls that I had painted white before and embellished them with green and red millinery:

I think they really do look like snow balls

and outside it snowed and snowed with no end in sight so we were definitely in for a White Christmas this season which was a real treat and so festive!

Some of the balls and pinecones I painted and glittered hanging on my crystal chandelier to dry:

And while I was at it I also painted and glittered wooden fir trees that I had found in our local arts and craft store and I made some more spun cotton snowmen that can stand this time.

And of course one should never forget to feed the garden birdies while there is so much snow outside!

I took this photo through my kitchen window and the next one too. I always had cosy candle lights burning in the cottage.

Then I tried something that I wanted to try out for a long time and that is making vintage inspired spun cotton icicles, so fun, I just tried it the way I thought it would possibly work, with no tutorial at hand, and was quite thrilled about the outcome:

They look great on the tree and are glistening beautifully in the candle light, meanwhile I made some more for next season already, although I think they belong to the more Winter than Christmas related decorations that can still stay out for at least over the month of January if not February too.

So this is my Christmas tree of 2010 only lit by the deep standing Winter sun in these photos

My flickr friend Marcie pointed out that in the photo above it would look as if the tophat is magically floating over the tree

I think that with the old tophat as the tree topper and the vintage black baby boots underneath the tree it looks as if the tree would start nodding his head and kicking his feet and dancing every moment. Can you follow my imagination or am I the only one seeing it?

Oh and I shall not forget that there was my dear friend Anita's birthday a few days before Christmas and I sent her a parcel with the decorated vintage enamel soap and brush tray above. Anita the sweet heart that she is sent me a Christmas parcel before she left for her annual Christmas vacation far away in the warm sun.

She made me the wonderful bolster cushion out of vintage linen and lace and hand stamped with a french lily and also the enchanting banner made from old postcards printed on fabric:

The next photo I took on Christmas day with all the wonderful gifts my dear family had showered me with put on my round dining room table:

Thankfully my daughter Roxanne made it home from her semester abroad in Buffalo NYS USA on December 23rd and she brought with her the most beautiful Christmas presents for the whole family (in the closest circle with my parents and two sisters, their husbands and kids we are 11 persons). She spoiled us all and my mom and me even got a feather tree something we were both dreaming of for a long time! My parents spoiled me too with some wonderful antiques like another old golden trumpet, a beautiful oval cream colored frame and print and a white vintage ironstone pudding pan

and another big surprise for me was the wonderful old tinsel star my mom found for me (before she got ill) knowing just how much I love old tinsel:

I uploaded some more pictures of the Christmas tree and my Christmas presents etc.pp over at flickr if you are interested in seeing them you can just hop over here.

We had a beautiful family Christmas all together, one that I'm very thankful for and which I will never forget.

I hope your's was wonderful too!!

Now let's see what challenges are lying before us in the new year and let's hope for a good one!

xoxo~ Carola

~~ A white vintage Christmas ~~

2010-12-08T23:40:00.006-08:00

Welcome back to Boxwood Cottage dear readers and blogging friends! First of all let me apologise for being MIA for so long again, let's just say that after a beautiful October the month of November was just not mine this year. Something very shocking happened to our family which has turned our lifes quite upside down, but there is always hope and light, like in these two pictures from November in which I catched the beautiful sunlight shining into my parlor. These were also the last flowers that I picked from my garden before the frost which came early this season.

I brought my potted rosemary inside this year to protect it from the strong frosts. As you can see when you look through the window it was still quite green outside on November 13th when I took these pictures:

But that changed quickly. The next day we went into the woods and brought home the first signs of Christmas:

Like this mini fir tree - I just like to look at the roots floating in the water:

I also managed to meet up with my sister and the kids and our dear cousin Stefanie this very weekend and we crafted all together and I made my first felt acorns. I'm still not sure if I'm going to glitter them or not.

The next Sunday we attended the last antique market of this year and I brought home all these pretties and some Christmas gifts which of course are still top secret.

Then I started to decorate for the holiday season and Riley always tried his best to help:

I hung snowflakes and paper doilies and glitter stars

in my old transome window - the room divider

and started to decorate my faux white mantle

Always with the view of a White Vintage Christmas in my mind. It was fun to incorporate this years flea finds like the old trumpet into the Christmas decor

and of course I always love to decorate with all the pretties I get in friendship swaps from my sweet flickr and blogging friends

The three old silver German glass tree toppers with leonean wire are all this years flea- and antique market finds

The white paper maché boot I dedicated to my friend Ann from the Tin Rabbitt. When I saw how beautiful and nostalgic dear Ann had decorated a similiar white Santa boot in her wonderful Christmas home I just had to do something like this with one of mine. The glass beaded sticks in the boot are from our swap back in January this year. The old tinsel garland is also from this friendship swap with Ann as well as the paper dove and two of the cream colored bottle brush trees and the gorgeous paper cone. The beautiful paper garland was from my swap with sweet Tina.

The picture above is probably my fave so far. Almost all the bottle rush trees you'll see in these pictures are from either swaps or etsy purchases. The two white feather trees for example are form Brandy's beautiful Brandyvine boutique on etsy. 3 years ago I've got a bunch of bottle brush trees in a swap with Cari and one is from my German friend Julia of Vintage with laces.

It is such a good and soothing feeling to surround yourself with beautiful and meaningful things from other artists and dear friends as well as with old flea market finds with a soul and a history.

Sometimes I make an exception like for these two pretty vintage reproduction bells, but at least they are vintage inspired. The 3 smaller bells are all old flea market finds.

Then when the days got really dark over here a very good family friend came and brought me some light

He knew that I was looking for an old door for a long time now so he went out to find one for me and brought me this pretty and chippy old white door from around 1850.

Of course I had to decorate it for the holiday season at once and call it now my Christmas door and it is a door of hopes too because since I have it things are going much better again then the 14 hard days before. The pretty bottle brush wreath that I hung on my Christmas door is a friendship gift from my sweet friend Madai.

I quite like the doors side by side right now, also I already have some other ideas in mind on where to put it which will come with lot's of rearranging so that will have to wait until the new year.

That's a picture of what the frozen garden looked like in mid November, when I had'nt even found the time to rake the leaves of my maple tree.

Meanwhile it is all covered in a blanket of snow. Which inspired me to make this little fellow, a cotton batting snowman.

Frontgarden:

Backyard:

Right now as we speak it is snowing even more and my darling 90 years old neighbor Bernhard has just shoveled away the snow on my door path and the street way in front of my house for me. He is just the Best!

Since Christmas is approaching fast, I decorated my iron candelaber with lot's of vintage German glass ornaments in silver and white as a center piece of the Christmas table

The Christmas tree is not yet up, in fact we are going to pick it up at the fir tree farm this Sunday (19th) freshly cut (we went there to chose it 3 weeks ago). In Germany the tradition is to reveal the tree on Christmas eve and not before! So that you can see the childrens eyes glowing with delight when they enter the living room and see the beautiful tree with real candles lit in all it's brighteness and glory with pretty wrapped Christmas presents underneath. This is my favorite childhood memory and we are still doing it this way in my family.

Well my dear blogging friends and readers I'm not sure if I'll get around to blog again before Christmas. My daughter is coming back from her semester abroad in Buffalo NY in two weeks time already, initially she had planned to stay another month after the semester is finished and to travel along the east coast to Florida, but now with my mom being ill she wants to be at home with her family for Christmas and I'm very glad about it. I still have a lot of things to do and to finish at home and at work before the 23rd of December when Roxanne comes home and my vacation starts so if we don't hear eachother anymore this year I cordially like to wish all of of you a very peaceful and beautiful Christmas time together with your loved ones!

Enjoy the holidays!

Update Saturday 18th of December: The chances are quite high this year for a white Christmas because it is snowing and freezing still:

xoxo~ Carola

I'm linking up with the following link parties:

and

White Wednesday - see my side bar button!

and Funky Junk's SNS Holiday Home Tour - see my side bar button!

October recap and two winners!!!

2010-11-03T00:18:00.004-07:00

October came and went so quickly, didn't it?

Welcome back to Boxwood Cottage dear readers and blogging friends and also it is already November I'd like to share with you in pictures what October was to me this year. If you can't wait to find out if you are one of the two lucky winners of my 5th bloggiversary give away, you have to scroll down all the way until the end of this post now!

Well so October started off quite fabulously with a big family reunion where we also squezzed in some time to a quick flea market excursion where I found a beautiful crystal chandelier:

I hope you won't hate me when I tell you that this beauty cost only 5 bucks! Lucky me! :)

I further went to 3 antique markets in October where I found all the beautiful treasures in the first picture and all the following pictures:

I especially love the old doll heads, as well as an old diary, beautiful vintage pictures and antique German silver glass Christmas ornaments and a fab tinsel garland.

The very old foldable Angel greeting card above is another treasure and I also love the two sisters on the cabinet cards, especially the grumpy one lol she so going to be altered into a witch!

And I found this very old and very used bible from 1853 which even has some gorgeous handwritten pages in it:

In my studio I started decorating with my antique finds. My old lady for example got an old lace table cloth to pimp up her parasol which protects her from the sun shining through my big roof top windows:

In another corner of my studio I created a Writer's vignette with a vintage travel type writer I found and some old envelopes, books, dib pen and ink holder:

Well then of course in October there was Halloween and I made cup cakes for the first time ever and had fun using the pretty black fence cupcake cuffs and the Halloween haunted house and moon picks I got sent from Heather of Speckeled Egg last year in Artsy Mama's Sweet & Sinister swap:

Aren't they're pretty?

I set the table and waited for my very own Vampires to arrive:

When it got darker I lit the candles

and everything looked much more inviting:

and it didn't take them long to arrive and eat up the cup cakes lol they must have had some blood before they came ;-)

Twilight - the next generation!

But October was also the last sunny & warm days in my garden and the last beautiful roses of the season:

Like the beautiful Tantau rose above called: Artemis!

Some more Fall garden impressions

The last of my self sowed cosmos blooms

The star on my patio this fall certainly is Verbena bonariensis:

Close up of my wonderful Verbena bonariensis:

Riley has gotten more homey than usual since the weather got cooler and it rained a lot more, he doesn't like rain at all, so when he's not outside strolling around he's sleeping in a cosy spot:

October was also another swap month. I soldered and created these altered game piece charms for the Altered Game Piece Swap 2010:

and each participant also got a Vintage paper Christmas bag filled with small doodats from my studio:

Well and lastly October is a month for winners! First of all I'd like to thank all participants of my 5th bloggiversary give away drawing for playing along and for all your very sweet and encouraging words about my blog! :)

I pulled two random numbers between 1 and 93 and taadaaaa the lucky winners are:

Theresa of http://612riverside.blogspot.com/

and

Xela of http://cottage-dreams.blogspot.com/

Heartfelt congratulations to both of you! Each of you won two beautiful European interior magazines and a big domed pendant of your choice. You gotta let me know if you'd prefer a Paris Theme or a Nature Theme (see picture above!). And also please send me your adresses to Carolinchen39(at)hotmail(dot)com

So I can truly say that October was a really fabulous month for me and of course I hope that is was wonderful for you too!

I'm linking up again with Kathleen's Faded Charm blog for White Wednesday - see my side bar button!

Sending very happy November wishes to all of you!

xoxo~ Carola

WW 70! Good news on Give Back & my swap with Julia of Vintage with Laces!

2010-10-17T23:16:00.003-07:00

The good news is that you have still time to enter my 5th blogging anniversary give away here: http://carolsgarden.blogspot.com/2010/09/old-french-iron-bed-and-my-5th.html

until this Sunday the 24 th of October!

So you'll better hurry up because I don't want you to miss out on it!

Yesterday I was at an Antique fair and I found something nice to throw into one of the parcels of the already announced give back for my two lucky winners!

But now I finally like to share with you the private swap with my German blogging friend Julia of Vintage with Laces. Julia wished for a Paris themed flea market swap parcel and I wished for a Secret garden theme parcel. In the photos above you see my parcels for Julia. I found the beautiful vintage Paris soap box at our local fleamarket and thought it fits the theme perfectly. I soldered some small charms for the wrapping.

Of course Julia did send me a gorgeoussly wrapped parcel too:

She made the most gorgeous tags and paper roses for me! :)

Somehow I forgot to take pictures of what I sent to Julia before I started wrapping her gifts, so you two of the gifts that I sent here were already wrapped, well I think Julia will probably share what I sent her too on her blog, we'll see. I was so in solder mood when we swapped that I did a lot of soldering for Julia, like a paperweight with her initial in and lot's of different pendants and charms and I also found her some sewing notions which I know she always likes:

Click on my photos twice to supersize them and see more details!

Julia spoiled me and sewed a gorgeous lace heart for me and embellished a beautiful tote bag with the prettiest lace and an old seed catalogue picture that she has altered:

Even the card she sent along for me with a lovely note is wonderfully embellished with lace and a garden themed picture:

Here are some of the pendants and charms I made for Julia with the Paris theme close up:

Of course the Eifel Tower was important to put in Julia's parcel because I knew how much she loves it!

In the picture above you see the whole wonderful lot sweet Julia sent me. I especially love the old garden tool she found at her local flea market for me :)

As well as the beautiful silver plate and the roses tag above - love love love!

The Paris soap box in the picture above I embellished for Julia from the inside with very old German paper lace and a piece of silver crocheted lace I put on the ground, then I filled it with antique hard ware from our local flea market like the key holes and some other vintage finds like a dolls leg. I also sent her some Christmass ornaments for the soon upcoming holidays which I put in the paper maché bell taht I embellished with a silver glitter star.

Oh and I shall not forget to mention the fabulous seed box that Julia created for me, see above! I love to collect pretty seed packets, best even when they are self made from friends like the ones in the picture below. So the seed box she made for me is not only beautiful but practical too and I already filled it with my not so pretty looking seed packets that are filled with seeds that I'm still planning to sow next Spring.

Of course I already started decorating my home with the treasures from Julia:

The paper roses went in the ironstone gravy boat and silver egg holder in the photo above and below is a close up of the awesome lace heart she gave me. It has a sweet birdie printed on the other side. I really like how she has made the hangers like a necklace:

Just another picture below of the embellsihed vintage Paris soap box for Julia and some of the items I put inside:

Julia knows my love for silhouettes and I'm especially fond of this sweet old girl silhouette postcard she found for me:

I also got a birdie in a nest on a little press glass plate from Julia and when she wrote me that the bird actually is a magnetic bird, I had to put another birdie in her nest and use the magnetic one to place on my old french brocante iton mirror which is hanging on the basement door:

Seeing it looked a bit lonely there I hung up a branche from a curly tree which I embellished with some crystals:

I really urge you to go and see Julia's blog and all of her great creations if you don't know her yet, cause she is one very talented and creative friend! This swap was so much fun dear Julia and your treasures matched the Secret Garden theme that I had wished for just perfectily! Thank you so much for spoiling me the way you did!!!

Well and further seeing that Halloween is fast approaching I started decorating a bit with the sweet baby boo pumpkins that my dear cousin Stefanie found me:

The iron candle stick stand was black and I painted it white, before I placed the white baby boos and black crows in it and I like it much better now in white:

Meanwhile I also found some grey irish moss to place under the pumpkins but I didn't get around to take a picture of it yet.

Oh and lastly I like to present to you The Buttons! A lovely vintage family. I got the huge family portrait picture as a gift from a good friend, so I scanned it and used the copy to glue the buttons on for not destroying the antique original picture. I found this idea on the great Curious Sofa blog, only that the actual artist sewed old buttons on the faces of people in old cabinet cards and I prefered to glue them on, because I think the button wholes do look more like eyes like that. Don't you think it looks a bit creepy and Halloweenish? Well at least that is my kind of Halloween decor lol

So friends that's all I have to share for today and I hope you'll let me know what you think of our swap and my decorations and that I will see you again here next Sunday for the reveal of the give back winners!

I'm going to link up my post with Kathleen at Faded Charm again (see my side bar button) who is hosting White Wednesday every week. So if you're digging the white look don't forget to go see her's and her followers gorgeous white decor ideas!

Have a fabulous week everyone!

xoxo~ Carola

Welcome to Boxwood Cottage!

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

Beautiful November garden & a teaser preview on Vintage Christmas blog parties

From our very own vegan cupcake manufacture & from Vintage Christmassy finds and crafts

About Fall & Halloween party preparations for tonight

Back on blogging & rearranging & a winner!

Published in Italy, inspired by black and white and a give away!

~ The lushest July Mid-Summer garden I ever had ~

~ Where Bloggers Create 2011 ~ 3rd annual blog party

Boxwoodcottage's photostream

Celebrating the100th White Wednesday with a studio tour!

~ Galvanized finishes ~ or a deep love for zinc in my garden ~

May Day May Day

Boxwoodcottage's photostream

Boxwoodcottage's photostream

Bloggers Day of Silence ~ Love for Japan ~

~ White angel wings ~ Black silhouettes ~ Soldered mementos ~

~*~*~ Happy New Year ~*~*~ and a white holiday recap!

*~*~ A white vintage Christmas *~*~

October recap and two winners!!!

WW 70! Good news on Give Back & my swap with Julia of Vintage with Laces!

~~~ Happy New Year ~~~ and a white holiday recap!

~~ A white vintage Christmas ~~