A heavenly flower

I love hydrangeas, but I am no good at keeping them alive. I am  secretly jealous of all the bloggers that seem to have an endless supply of hydrangeas to pop into wases.

This one I found in the store, and I simply could not resist the beautiful color. It might have looked just pale blue at first, but the more I looked at it, the more colors I could see there. In fact, it reminds me of a summer evening sky with that pale blue, a bit of white and a touch of pink.

I must be really desperate for summer now. I seem to be seeing summer in everything.

Summer projects

The snow is still deep outside, but as spring approaches I began to dream (and have nightmares) about all the projects I want to do this summer. As we are getting married in our garden, I really want the outside to look stunning.

These pictures are acctually two years ago. On that first summer in the house (we moved in on June 1st) I quite quickly decided to paint the rail on the deck white. It was a big project (much bigger than I thought when I started)  and I spent many hot hours outside painting, and re-painting it. There are so many parts that I didnt think about at first and as the weather had to be perfect - not too warm and no rain - it took quite a long time before it was finished.

Luckily, the finished result was so worth it. The white rail makes the whole deck look connected to the house, and not like an add-on (which I think it did before).

Funny how these before-pictures alreade seems very old even though it's not even three years ago.

Last summer we also put up glass doors and created a sunroom, but I will show that in a separate post.

Violets

After a lovely weekend when we began to hope for spring because of the sunshine, the melting snow and the feeling in the air, I woke up to a new snow fall this morning. I really hope this is the final one.

I decided to share yet another thrift store find, because these make me think of spring and long for summer dinners on the terrasse.

Again, I fell for the temptation of buying even more china the other day. I was out looking for cups and assiettes for the wedding when I came across a bunch of these plates and I couldnt resist those sweet violets.

There are four deep ones, one standard plate and two serving plates. They are not handmade in any way, but they are still very cute and have a bit of patina. 

Can you imagine this one filled with fresh vegetables from the barbecue, while the last rays of the summer evening sun dance on the table?

And eventually, I decided to add this to the Good Life Wednesday link party hosted by A Beach Cottage, because really - finding nice, forgotten things and giving them new life is really one of my stop-and-smell-the-roses things. 

(As are many other things - and walking is definitely one of them.)

Time to get worried?

I am slowly getting stressed about our wedding this summer. I know many couples pick their date a year or even more in advance, but we got engaged on Christmas Eve and will be married in July, so there is not so much time.

I do not really worry about the time, but I realize that I will have to be more disciplined than I have so far. We have not even sent the invitations yet (we did send save-the-dates though) and it's really about time. This freaks me out because I seem to have completely run out of inspiration.

At least I managed to cross one point from the list this weekend as I found the most amazing, purple, fabric for the bridesmaidens dresses. Unfortunately, my iPhone did not capture the color very well at all, because it is much nicer in reality.

There will be four brides maiden and the will have purple dresses and white shawls and a white ribbon under the chest. I am hoping it will be just as nice as I picture it.

A small project

I did finally make some use of my sewing machine. Not the most complicated thing for sure, but at least it is a start and I like to tell myself that I will soon be stitching away and creating wonderful summer dresses.

But for now, I have only made a small pillow case for our cat Walter. He likes to lie in front of the closed-in fireplace and the old case was getting quite dirty so when I found this fabric I decided to make him a new one.

It's cute, isn't it?

But he looks so cold! We once bought him one of those pullovers that are made for dogs (my brother has a dog who acctually likes them), but Walter became totally frozen when we put it on him. It was as if his hind legs had been glued to the ground and he refused to move, so we took it off. I just feel sorry for him because he seems to be constantly freezing and probably he would have been better off in a warmer country (and I would too, so one day we might just escape together ;-) ).

Old friends

Yesterday I spent some time with long lost friends - my akvarell colors.

I have always enjoyed painting, but I rarely have the patience for it. It's acctually quite sad, because I do enjoy it once I get started, but it seems my starting barrier is so high I almost never get over it. Unfortunately, it's like that with many things - I have never been good at patience and I often kind of give up right away because I can't be bothered. It's a shame.

But who knows? Maybe that will change. At least I really enjoyed my time yesterday and it is so much easier to take it out that I imagine. Seriously, it's less than one minute to get started.

My colors arent fance ones. They are something that I got as a gift many years ago, but I think they work quite well. I once attended a workshop (where I painted a geranium that I was quite satisfied with) and the leader told us to buy only a few colors and mix the rest. That made a lot of difference to me, because the colors above makes it possible to mix almost any color I want.

Some day I might even buy "real" ones, but for now I am happy with these.

Before she lost most of her sight, my grandmother used to paint china with wonderful flowers. I still have a few of her pieces and they are just amazing.

As a child, I spent many afternoons on her porch, watching her paint and often beeing allowed to paint myself on a spare tile or some other piece that she had lying around. 

I inherited all of her material and some day I hope to be able to start again. I just need to practice first, because those colors are too expensive to just mess around with.

So for now, I am happy just playing with my water colors.

Sorry for the bad images, they were taken with the phone.

Beautiful colors of winter

I am no fan of the winter season, but I have to admit that it is indeed very beautiful. This amazing sunset greeted me when I got home from work. Look at all those colors!

It's like it's on fire!

I love living in the country side because I never seem to notice these kind of things when Im in the city.

Skies like these makes me whish I was a painter. Imagine beeing able to capture all those vivid colors.

But, apart from the beauty, I really long for some summer skies now. We had some this weekend, those kind of skies that if one look at them and ignore the ground, one can imagine that it is summer and one is coming home from a long day at the beach. 

Magenta for spring

I acctually have not idea what this color is really called (Pink? Dark pink?) but I used my little tea light holders together with a flower to create a little centerpiece with a feeling of spring.

I really can't wait until I can go outside and pick fresh flowers from the garden. I am guessing it will take a long time, because the snow is still 50 cm thick.

An engagement gift

We are getting married this summer, and we got this lovely and very big linen cloth from my mother-in-law-to-be (now that's a long word). We already have a smaller one with the same pattern and I think the classic look of it makes it useful for everything. 

I have come to like linen better and better over the years. It can be used for so much, both in decoration and in clothing, and it only gets nicer the older and more worn it gets.

The only thing I fear is that I will be to careful with this one and only use it on special occassions. I don't think that is a good philosophy, because I think it is better to use things than save them for later, but it's hard with precious things. On the other hand - it really doesnt matter how fantastic it is if it will spend it's life stucked away in a cupboard.

But one thing is clear - it is so big that I will have to wait until we get a new dining table (which we desperately need). 

A little space for sewing

This weekend I finally got around unpacking my little sewing machine. It was a birthday gift from my mum a couple of years ago and I am ashamed to say that it have been staying in the box it came in for way too long.

I eventually put it up in the guest room as I do not expect guests any time soon (and even so, it's not that hard to put it away), so that I do not have to take it away every time I finish.

I also unpacked all my fabric swatches, hoping that seeing them will give me inspiration and motivation to start sewing. I like buying fabric and I am usually way more motivated at the store than when I get home. 

The ones below are supposed to be curtains, but I no longer know where I want to put them, so maybe they'll just end up as something else. There are also several pieces that I mean to turn into throw pillows. I often buy old table cloths to turn into pillows, so there is quite a stack of it now.

Let's just hope I acctually get around to use this place.

The best find

I forgot to show the best find from my vintage hunt.

This bowl is from Rosendahl, a set of glass wares that I adore. I love the sleek lines of it and the price of 3€ was definitely enough to label it as one of  my best vintage finds so far.

When I looked up the link above, I noticed that the line is a lot cheaper in Denmark (nor suprisingly as they come from there) then they are here in Sweden. I think that next time anyone I know is visiting Denmark, I just might slip along a shopping list.

Living decoration

I have a cabinet/cupboard that have became one of my favorite furniture pieces since I painted it. I love the open shelves and the fact that I can display my favorite things without having them on my counter tops.

But the other day, it kind of re-decorated it self.

Maybe we should try another color? It might look better?

There really is nothing like a cat when it comes to home decor. In double meaning.

Vintage shopping

I went vintage shopping the other day.

We are getting married this summer and we plan to host the wedding ourselves, in our garden. I am hoping for sunshine, but I know we will have to prepare for rain just in case.

We found most of the china at IKEA, but for the glasses, the coffee cups and the dessert plates we wanted something more special and we decided to try to collect "vintage" or second hand china. I went on my first real search a couple of days back and was happy enough to find a lot of nice cups and saucers as well as many plates. It was harder to find glasses, especially wine glasses, but we still have several months to go.

Most of the china have roses or other flowers on them, and I think the final result will be gorgeous. I am so happy about this find!