Oldie but a Goodie Idea for Table Flowers

This is not new.

Using several jars or bottles filled with a flower or flowers is as old as your nana. But you can make it totally your own. It always works providing you follow a few basics.

Here the layout is random but holds together because of similar bottles and similar coloured blooms.

This little group works because the jars , though old and mismatching, are all similar in height and are plain glass. The sprigs are similar too. Save your old and pretty jars for long outside table displays or even an outside wedding.

Sit the jars on a row of coloured fabric or in this case tiles. The colour should be in the arrangement somewhere or complementary  [opposite ] to it on the colour wheel. These were the only flowers in the garden, spirea and periwinkle.

At night you can alternate the containers of flowers  and leaves with candles.

For a change, hang the bottles from a branch indoors or outside. These are really Christmassy and could be cut down at the end of the evening and given to the guests. Any party with a theme, for e.g. birthday,  wedding and so on would be brightened up with these little beauties or similar. Name tag them for a personal touch.
Great Idea: Buy one bunch of flowers and split them between many bottles, one bloom in each.

Psalm 7 I'm thanking God, who makes things right. I'm singing the fame of heaven - high God. The Message.

A Walk in the Park

'A walk in the park' is an idiom which means  an easy thing to do. Well, on a sunny day it really is easy and very pleasurable to have a brisk walk  or a saunter in the beautiful park very close to our home.
This park is a working farm, so has cattle, sheep and a few chickens. A pheasant or 3 were spotted on the weekend.
The old oaks and others were planted by some early settlers who came to New Zealand from England.

All Aucklanders are grateful to the people who planted these trees and left this park as a gift to our city.

The gardeners have planted, among the old stone walls, vegetables that have the most beautiful flowers and colours that harmonise with the lichens and the grey of the rocks.

Inspiration for a home garden. You only need to allow your herbs and vegetables to go to seed to produce beautiful displays and be sure of another crop seeding itself next season. 

'You pulled me from the brink of death,
My feet from the cliff-edge of doom.
Now I shall stroll at leisure with God
In the sunlit fields of life.'
Psalm 56 The Message.

An early settlers cottage in the park and an old stone farm wall.

Country in the city.

Classy Glass.

Glass is gorgeous, it's old and it's new.

Just by placing it within the sun's rays you can increase the amount of light refracted from it, much like a prism, and fill up your house with extra sunshine.

Inexpensive, free

or costly, your choice.

 Often simple is best.

Old jam jars or mustard pots, decanters or cheap recycled glass bottles-

All work to produce that lovely light filtering effect.

Use them in groups or alone

with one sprig of something fragrant or 

shapely and colourful.

A lone Gerbera

always looks bright and cheerful.

Just found a site

which allows you to add text to a photo

and it's free!

It's called

ribbet.com

Just Keep experimenting.

Keep your creativity on the go

and your mind 

in learning mode.

Life is brilliant.

Please feel free 

to comment.

It started when God said
" Light up the darkness!"

2 Corinthians 4
New living.

Beautiful still life painting of gorgeous antique glassware.

Always Loved Glossy Magazines?

Wouldn't it be fun to create your own magazine?

I expect when you were very young you created pretend, or to you, quite real magazines , books or illustrated comics. This same childlike desire remains in us  - who we are doesn't really change.

Of course time and circumstances can do terrible things to the person that is the true you. Good news: It's NEVER too late to get your real self back.

Recently found a very cheap app for helping photos look a little more like those favourite magazines. Although it would be nice to learn professional techniques for producing the images one would be proud of, right now I'm still in the process of learning a little, almost daily, about everything really, but particularly about blogs. Until I know how to produce those great looking pages I will experiment with things at hand. For e.g. PicFrame this new revised app from Apple. The picture above is an example. Here's another:

What do you think?     The first is of a beautiful old jug I found in a second hand shop. It's got an exquisite design of the English countryside on it, my water colour is in the background. The second is our front garden, now, in spring, in  New Zealand. If you live in the northern hemisphere just hang on, this is what is waiting for you after winter.

Try to bring to mind what it was you loved doing as a child-It's significant.

"Unless you accept God's kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you'll never get in." The Message, Luke 18.

Blossom

Funny thing: to blossom means to do well, to flourish, to prosper, to bloom, to suddenly become the fully fledged person you always had the potential of being

To blossom also means
to open, to glow,
to unfold, to develop,
to be growing well,
to thrive, 
and to succeed.

One key to blossoming is to do what you love.
When your heart isn't in what you are doing it's hard to do it well.

If you are doing what you love doing you will have the passion,
motivation, enthusiasm and inspiration 
that will help you
to reach the potential
you have inside you.

 Think about 
what energises you
and write it down.
Doing it will help you to
blossom.


The fig trees are budding, and the grapevines are in blossom. How delicious they smell!

Yes spring is here! Song of Songs 2;13 New Living Translation.

Spring Arrived Early.

In the lower half of the world spring has begun early. We are one day ahead but also, I think, one season ahead. The good news is in countries that have clear seasons, spring is always just around the corner.

Spring Promises.

Buds promise the flower
The flower- the fruit
Fruit- the harvest.
Warmth, ease, colour.
In the South of the World
The promise is Christmas
And holidays- beaches
Barbecues- time off
Less clothing layers
More time with family and friends.

For the winter is over and past, and the rain is over and gone. The flowers are springing up,

and the time of singing birds has come, even the cooing of turtledoves. Song of Songs 2 verse 11 New Living Translation. 

Domestic Beauty, Distressed Paint.

Domestic objects, just common place but beautiful.



The old bookcase is the backdrop for all the ordinary objects- its colour and genuinely distressed surface
sets of any thing on it or in it. Fallen bird's nests- perfect in their roundness.

Old books collected from second hand shops with delicious gilt and embossing.
The contents are all treasures- poems, stories and illustrations.


A crystal bunch of grapes
on an empty frame with the sunlight caught in it's fruit and stem.


Where was the old French bookcase before I bought it?
In which French village, in whose home?

A thing of beauty is a joy forever...

Psalm 27 The message- I'll contemplate His beauty; I'll study at His feet.