Happy New Year 2018!

In 2017 I discovered a new favorite thing which I love doing and this is chalk lettering! 

Here is to a happy and healthy new year 2018! 

Cheers!

xoxo Carola

Finally back with an Easter inspired post!

Hello, somebody out there? 

Just trying today if I still know how to blog after almost a year long break *phew*

It's not so easy to come back after such a long time, but I figured I best just start with pictures, right?

And since once again Easter is on it's way, well......

of course I'd like to share with you some pics of this years Easter crafts and decorations. I still love nests and eggs, German paper maché eggs especially and I still love silver German glass glitter and German Dresden foils, it's just so fun to use these for my creations and authentic too, cause I can't deny being German.

I cut some pussy willow branches from the tree in the very back of my garden for the vignette above.

The 3 eggs in the picture above that are not paper maché are goose eggs from my sisters 4 geese, the lucky once that have a long free life and no fear of being eaten, by other then maybe a fox. They are rooming around in my sisters garden and in her neighbors gardens and on their fields too, but in the evening they always come back to their stable in my sisters garden.

I glittered lots of plastic eggs lately and some bunnies and a paper maché basket and small fimo eggs that I made. 

I often change my Easter vignettes, put things first here, than the next day there, until I finally really like what I see.

 These are too of the nests I created recently. The Easter basket nests above contains all the things I like from paper maché to fine silver glass glitter, to Dresden foil borders and silver bunny and that grey moss, which is called Dschungelgras around here, but doesn't grow in our climate. 

Above is a mini nest in vintage tea cup with glittered fimo eggs and a glittered wooden bunny.  Below a large nest with glittered plastic eggs in a terrarium which I soldered some years ago

 I found the left, yellow(ish) paper maché egg with the German Dresden foil saying "Fröhliche Ostern" at the antique market last month and it is really old whereas the white paper maché egg I painted myself and put the Dresdens on last year. I think they look as if the belong together :)

 Just some more vignettes. Below I used wax candle eggs and a wire egg to put in unsual egg holders, like the beautiful bed springs, that my dear friend Julia of Vintage with laces sent me in a friendship swap some time ago and  the old tin funnel, another antique market find from last month:

And here comes a Dresden bunny Easter egg boat :) 

Spring has not really sprung around here with temps still only around 7-11 degrees celsius, but I can feel it lurking just around the corner and since frosty nights have come to a minimum already I dared to start planting spring flowers into the pots on top of my patio tables and they are such a welcome sight after 4 months without flowers :)

And yesterday I got a new garden/planting table for my patio since the old one I had there was breaking already after many winters in the wet and cold and of course I had to put some Spring bulbs and Easter decorations on top.

I'm officially prepared now for Easter and Spring to come :)

It's my first, no I'm lying it's my second vacation/time off work since I started my knew job in my old company last September, but somehow the Christmas vacation doesn't count, because I spent it inside houses, but it's the first time off work where I can go outside and putter in my garden again and that just feels wonderful!

So how have y'all been doing lately?

xoxo~

Carola

Happy Easter 2015

I have no time for a long text right now, so I let the pictures speak for themselves today. As you can see it's Easter inside the house and Spring outside in the garden around here :)

Happy Easter everyone!

Carola

Pretty neutral Valentine's day swap creations and an apology!

Welcome back to Boxwood Cottage in the snowy month of February dear blogging friends and readers, which also happens to be the month of hearts!

Since Valentine's day isn't far away anymore, today I'd like to share with you some Valentines I made last year for a friendship swap with my dear friend Julia of  the blog"Vintage with laces" which I'm sure most of you know. She received my parcel too late in order to share it before Valentines day (if I remember correctly it arrived on Valentines day exactly, but she had to pick it up somewhere and had no time to go there and get it on that day) last year, without spoiling her surprise, so I figured I better keep the pictures for this years Valentine's blog post and it looks as if this was a good decision, because things are not really working as planned around here. 

I think I told you last month about the reasons for my long blog absence and the new job that I started last year. Well the bad news for me is that the Greek manager of that company decided to just vanish (elope, bolt or however it's called), when things got a bit stressful, a couple of weeks ago and he didn't leave any money on the company bank account when he did so, which left the company bankrupt and me from February on without my new job *sigh* :(

So I really want to apologize for not getting back to all of you and visiting all of your blogs, also you all welcomed me back so very kindly, but I hope that you'll accept my apology and that you can imagine and understand just how stressfull these last couple of weeks were (well I better say still are) for me, because since I'm the only native German speaking person in that company I had to handle all the complaints and pretty much anything else, which left me kind of numb in the evenings and on the weekends with no energy for much else, than a bit of pinning or facebook.

 But now I don't want to bother y'all with these unhappy things anymore. 

Let's go back to more delightful things like creating hearts for example.

Julia wished for mainly neutral Valentines which was quite a challenge, but I tried my best to fulfill her wish. The pictureses above and below are showing a chocolate cardboard heart box which I embellished for Julia and then filled it with all kind of small things for her to create Valentines with. I also made these lumpy little silver solder hearts that you can see in the box and which are really fun to make. You just let solder drip on a heat resistent surface and then dunk the soldering iron into the drop while the solder is still hot to form the little heart.

 I was very inspired to create such a Valentine's day box by a pinterest photo of an etsy offering, that you can see here: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/283515739015978628/ and I think it shows ;-)

The next photo shows a couple of Valentines that I soldered last year and the big silver soldered heart in the upper left corner also went in Julia's parcel:

 Below is another white cardboard heart that I cut out and embellished a bit from both sides and a card holder in heart shape that I formed (forged?) for her from smooth silver wire.

The sweet Valentine's flashcards are from my friend from Cari Craft's etsy shop btw! In case you want some too, here is the link to it: https://www.etsy.com/shop/CariKraft

Then I made her a tiny Valentine's day basket:

 that I filled with a birdie that I glittered and some old millinery flowers:

 I also embellished and old cabinet card for here, the one that you can see sitting on the old black typewriter in the picture below:

 Following is an even better/closer shot of it. I also cut out a cupid and painted it with black chalkboard paint as well as a formerly vintage green plastic flower frog in which I placed the cupid  along with the cardboard heart that I embellished and that you can see below from the other side with a lace paper heart glued on. I also soldered the scrabble letter LOVE pendant and that small filled glass vial for her and embellished a heavier glass heart as a paper weight:

The next photo shows the whole swap batch I think. I found that two turtle doves paper garland and had to buy it and include it in the parcel. Inspired from them I cut out a turtle dove heart from some old sheat music paper and glued it on the lid of the filled cardboard chocolate heart box the 

As you may have noticed I also created some love arrows, one silver glittered and one silver soldered and a bow and I also formed Julia's name with the smooth silver wire:

Lastly I painted some paper maché hearts with black chalkboard paint and wrote and drew on them with white chalk. Not sure if the one I put in the parcel that says "JULIA xooxox 14" has made it to her without the white chalk wiping off. I also included a cardboard heart that I glittered with silver glass glitter and another small cardboard heart that I embellished from all sides and glued some millinery flowers on top.

Well I think this that was it and I'd be glad if this would inspire you to create some Valentines for someone special or just for yourself :)

So in case that we don't speak or see eachother around again before Valentine's day, I'm wishing y'all a day filled with hearts, love and laughter!

xoxo~ Carola

White Winter & Happy New Year!

I will probably win the price for the fewest blog posts ever in 2014, but one of my new years resolutions is to do more posts in 2015 so I think I better start early in the year :)

I'm so sorry for my long absence dear blogging friends and readers. 

Oh well hopefully there are still a few of you out there? 

I had a terribly busy second half of 2014 which included a big vegan event that I organised in my city last summer as well as a new job that I started in September and the move of my daughter as well as the opening of her vegan coffeshop also in September and then work, work, work and work until I finally got a few days off last week and this one.

 Can you believe that I started to decorate for Christmas on the very last Advent Sunday only? Readers and friends that have known my blog for the last 10 years (yes you read that correctly since I also missed my 10 years blogiversary in September 2014) also know my love for decorating and especially at Christmas time and I usually start with it mid November already, so this season I was really late and decided to do more of a Winter theme than a Christmas theme, so that I can leave it all out for a little longer without getting sick of it already a week after Christmas. I didn't even get around to buy a Christmas fir tree this season, which wasn't too bad, because we celebrated in my sisters and parents houses and in my daughters Café this time and the other good thing of it is that the putting it all away is going to be so much faster without having to put all my antique glass ornaments off of the tree and back in their boxes.

The Winter theme of course includes lots of whites and silver glass glitter and tinsel as well as snowflakes and snowballs. I decorated my little feather tree again with the white cotton batting ornaments that I made and collected over the last few years and my favorite antique tinsel star tree topper (right click to enlarge the photos):

Apart from my mantle I always love to decorate my old transom window/room divider with snowflakes and I also used the dripping snow border that I created last season (with a tutorial for you) on the bottom of the window and really love the look of it so much better than when I put it on the mantle last year.

And as you can see I also had a little fun with the chalk writer on the window panes:

Here is the whole window in all it's Winter glory (right click on the photos then click on show graphic and on the pic again to enlarge them, if you want to see more details):

The basement door got a few adorments too:

One of favorits is this simple french Christmas cone:

The last days were quite dark here, around Winter solstice, but I quite like the natural light in the next shot:

Following I share a few more shots of my Winter mantle with the old Dresden cardboard sign (saying "Schenke und Erfreue" which simply means Give Joy) which I found last year and the crocheted snowflakes garland from last season which I still both love:

The white star pillow was a self made Christmas present from my sweet niece who`s 18th birthday we celebrated just 3 days before Christmas and the wooden Antiques sign is a Christmas gift from my dear daugter. I like the look of the wooden logs in the old wooden crate with the twinkle lights on it that gives the impression of fire in the mantle.

On top of the mantle as always I like to decorate symmetrical and used pais right and left of white feather trees, white bottle brush trees, mercury glass trees, white snowball candles, white deer and so on and on:

It's shining and twinkling and glittering all around here and since outside we had no snow at all so far this season at least inside the cottage I get a feeling of a snowy and frosty and still cosy Winter :)

The Merry Christmas glitter sign that I bought from Andrea Singarella in the US when she still had her fab online shop is still one of my favorite festive & glittering things :)

And I also still love all the bottle brush trees that I collected over the last 10 years and my little Putz village:

and a bit closer:

For new years eve which I spent at home with my daughter and out frightened cat Riley ( he hates the fireworks and is kinda panicking, especially around midnight when it gets really loud) I made this Happy New Year garland:

And for the new year 2015 I'm wishing all of you very GOOD LUCK with the last photo :)

Btw did anyone out there missed me at least a bit while I was away from my little blogging space for 6 whole months and wants me to keep blogging or am I all on my own out here by now??

Would love to catch up with you during the next few days though!

xoxo~ Carola