My Wisteria has flowers….at last…Woohoo :-D

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Garden flowers, My Wisteria has flowers at last, Nature, Photography, Wisteria waiting

Captured against a typical northern England sky. ..(I even brightened and colour enhanced the picture, which seemingly did little to lift the depressing grey spirited day :-/) Still,  the first eagerly awaited flowers of my Wisteria, planted the best part of a decade ago!!!! Nature has it’s own set of plans…and my wishing along could change nothing…..

 

Tiny they may be…BUT, flowers nonetheless YAY!! After waiting for almost nine years since first planting the white flowering Wisteria, it’s the first sign I may have gorgeous long blooms next year and many more years to come……….

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SPRING into a new season of pegging out your laundry with a new Designer Peg Bag!

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Artist and crafter, Artistic moment, Artsy, Buttons, Carens canvas and craft My ETSY shop, Crafty creations, Creative crafting, Designer Peg Bags, Felt applique, Handmade, Nature, Original, Outdoors, Patchwork, Posh Peg Bags/Pouches, Unique Peg Bags with wooden hangers, Wash line scene Peg Bags

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‘Lets tell the world how cute, stylish and unique we are!!…Don’t they knew we have these new boots for a reason??!

One of my most popular designs over the past seven years!!! With another little new twist – NO TWO ARE EVER THE SAME! All hand drawn, cut, and appliquéd to give a uniqueness for the new owner! 🙂 With…the addition of some little button ‘flowers’

Trialling out some very quick drying crepe fabric with a light weight cotton gingham lining for a new range of Quirky Peg Bags! Should that shower drench your washing ;-/……….this little peg bag, if left on the line, should be dryer than dry in no time, compared to your sad washing ;-/! Peg out in style ( and make your neighbours jealous with a new unique, affordable designer Peg bag!

….Taking Drying to new heights!!

‘…keep a little sunshine in your pocket pouch!…. 🙂

‘Poppy duo and Pincushion trio’ – Original 14” x 11” Oil Painting

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Art, Artist and crafter, Artistic moment, Arty, Carens canvas and craft My ETSY shop, Crafty creation, Creative craft, Garden flowers, My garden flowers, Nature, Original art, Original Poppy oil painting, Painting from a photograph, Painting in oils, Photography, Poppies and pincushions, Poppy duo and Pincushion trio, Red poppy art, Still life

‘Poppy duo and pincushion trio’  an Original 14” x 11” Oil painting on canvas panel    
Having spent the last couple of days, moving from room to room around the house in order to ”get straight and tidy’ for the family invasion next week – I finally abandoned my mop and bucket and grabbed my paintbrushes for a rest! This little oil painting has been done with the attempt to soften the background almost as if it’s out of focus allowing the main poppies in the foreground to take their place centre stage. I wanted to try and see if I could imitate, somehow, what photographers do by fading out the background and focusing on the main image. To try and do this I have merely blended blobs of colour without any firm shapes graduating the shades back to give a hopefully somewhat diffused perspective and depth to the foliage. Overall it passed a quiet Saturday afternoon, and, I’m happy with the final look and feel of the little still life scene! I must say, my conservatory window ledge is starting to look very colourful as, the now five canvas boards, are lined up to dry  🙂

A Penchant for Poppies!  – Original 14” x 11” Oil Painting

”Poppies and their ‘buddies’ ” – Original Oil Painting of my garden flowers on 14” x 11” canvas panel

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Art, Art from photographs, Artist and crafter, Artistic moment, Arty, Beautiful red poppies, Carens canvas and craft My ETSY shop, Colourful creations, Crafty creations, Creative crafting, Garden flowers, Nature, Oils on canvas, Original, Original poppy art, Original poppy painting, Poppies and their buddies, Poppy oil painting, Still life poppies

Poppies and their ‘buddies’
Original Oil Painting on 14” x 11” canvas panel
A little still life of my garden poppies painted from a photograph 🙂

Another little oil painting inspired by beautiful garden flowers!

Patchwork garden!

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Bluebells, Colourful foliage, Flowering shrubs, Garden flowers, Holly flowers, My garden retreat, Nature, Patchwork garden colours, Rhododendrons, Wild flowers, Wild poppies, Workspace with a beautiful view

Okay, this probably only applies if you live in the UK, and are over a certain age (40 ish)- but, does any one remember, if you fit the above criteria, The Smash makes Mash adverts??? (please excuse my washing line prop bottom right – a roofing lath from my devoted dearest – he’s so generous with his thoughtful gifts – all splinters have now been removed, and over time gathered in my hands!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SAbJjktk7E
I took a wander down to the bottom of our back garden this evening with a mind of taking some pictures of how lovely the colours of the foliage and flowers look, when I got back inside and saw this shot on the computer screen, the Variegated Privet (the lime green plant in the centre) just reminded me of one of those little aliens!!! LOL Planted some 25 years ago, to fill a gap, it’s certainly done that…and then some!… it has now also taken on a whole new look 😉 Normally Dearest keeps it in check, though hidden behind, in the slit gap, is a nesting box, housing a new family of Blue Tits, so pruning will have to wait another week or so! Anyways, back to the post….. I have always thought that our garden is a mismatch, but beautiful patchwork of plants, this is the view I look out over every day from my conservatory workspace and May is one of the nicest months to see. The deciduous plants have now gotten almost all their new leaves, the larger shrubs, rhododendrons and Holly are starting to come into flower and the smell from the Lilac tree is quite overpowering on this still calm evening – beautiful!! 🙂

Tiptoeing to the side a bit… a bit more of a promising colourful corner. In the background under the Holly tree, is my lovingly built garden Stonehenge, not that you can see much of it at this time of year, when we let it go Nature’s way – Wild and Free – to do as it pleases, usually it becomes laden with wild poppies and ferns – The little standing stones are for some interest in the winter months! Whilst the Japanese flowering cherry, on the left, has gone through its best, and is getting new foliage, in the foreground a beautiful pink Aquilegia is growing through our little twisted Hazel, with the first of its blooms opening today!

With all those buds, to open still, it should look amazing!

Last, but not least, one of my favourite flowers – Bluebells and a random couple of whitebells too, normally found in wooded areas, but equally happy to flower in my little ‘enchanted shrub wood’ garden! 😀

Pretty pink pergola

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Beautiful day, Clematis, Garden flowers, Marvellous May, Nature

The sun was shining, the sky was amazing and the flowers were blooming! The flower at the back even looks like its trying to fly off into the perfect day 😉 Our ten year old clematis is putting on the best show of its life so far! A few more pictures of our pergola, made by Dearest some years ago, plus a couple of close ups too ….

clematis 16 may 15 – look I even got the hoe out – didn’t do anything with it mind you 😉 !!!

clematis in full bloom 16.5.15

….waiting my turn … clematis bud 16.5.15

Too nice to keep all to myself…  😉

Rarely, if at all ever, in our garden has there been such a flower filled beautiful day!

A glimpse into my garden

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Beauty, Forget-me-nots, Garden flowers, Magnificent May, Nature

Forget me not 16.5.15 – OH I WON’T, DON’T YOU WORRY!!
– This little chap used to reside on our dining room fireplace hearth, which is actually really a coping stone, reclaimed by my Dearest, when we renovated our back room originally, with a Stonehenge theme! Though we still have our massive mural of Stonehenge, it has now become a more cosy space, and so, my poor little men…have now become ‘garden friends’ instead! But, I do go out and visit them almost everyday.
Having been so busy, over the past week or so, I had overlooked what was happening outside!! The weather has been wonderful, but I have been beavering away creating little ”outfits” for my daughter’s sea grass baskets – which she wanted cladding both inside and out! She commissioned me (FREE of charge of course – after all she is my daughter!) to cover six large baskets she had bought. So off I went into a little quandary, and created a pattern – more about that another time..!
Anyways…back to my garden!

Another of my long (house) departed friends! He seems to be busy reading to the Hydrangea and the Rhododendron behind him!

A little patch of loveliness !

Can anyone else see ‘ TOM’ spelt out in the flowers??????? Amazing!

Sometimes we get so wound up in what we are doing we forget to look in our back yard! Nature is so busy being beautiful – and yet it doesn’t scream about it!! – It’s just there waiting to be quietly discovered!  A new voyage of discovery everyday – if you have time!!

And…I thought it was a sparrow…!

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Bird watching, Craft, Creativity, Dunnocks, Nature, New creations

Just taking a rest from all this courting business…and, of course, checking out your productivity!!!

I do believe you are spying on me..! A beautiful little Dunnock, and it’s mate, has taken up residence in our garden! I am blown away to discover a breed of bird I had never heard of before, and also, that they have chosen to use our garden as a mating/playground! I feel exhausted just watching their courtship rituals and dances!!

At first, I thought it was a sparrow, though it’s behaviour is completely different and it’s certainly not shy about sharing its fun!!!

A brief moment of catching their breath!!           As I stitched merrily away on my latest creation, I was, time and again, distracted by a pair of flitting birds doing the most twitchy little dance on a couple of our garden chairs, right outside my workspace! (The chairs are positioned so as not to let our dog keep nosying at our neighbours whilst the fence panel is down due to their renovations.) The first couple of sightings led me to think we had a couple of sparrows, but, after their continued antics around the garden, I knew they must be another type of bird! So off I went to investigate my poor photography! (Pics taken through  the windows of my conservatory) 
In comparison, sparrows are quite sedate, I’d never seen such a courtship display!!!….to find out more about the why’s and wherefores….
http://www.birdguides.com/webzine/article.asp?a=1047

I believe this to be the male of the species…purely because of the other one dipping and tipping it’s tail so much for courtship…but, He does seem to be interested quite a lot on what I’m making too!!!

I’m looking forward to seeing their imminent offspring as well in a few more weeks!

Spiders Both Amazing and scary (to me)!

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Amazing, Art, Nature, Spider

I believe this to be an Orb spider, not that I am in any way an arachnid specialist, (or a good photographer!) but, it did seem to wink a green eye at me when I took its picture ;-/ Maybe its not an eye..anyways, For almost all eight legged little beasties I will make some utterance, whether a small squeak or a resounding scream – depending on their size and proximity naturally -before heading off asap in the other direction, until I feel safe enough to turn and evaluate the situation! This, only happens indoors, I am perfectly okay to see a spider on the outside and appreciate its beauty….at a distance of course! Whilst, if you have read my previous post, may be aware I am not a hairy multi-legged beast fan….! I saw the other early morning the most amazing thing I think I will ever witness!!!! We have had a resident Orb spider, which has been growing steadily over the past couple of months, string its beautiful web out each day over our garden parasol and the adjacent honeysuckle bush. Each morning I get up and wonder how long it took through the night to produce this incredible structure??? On gazing upon the new structure with the first dew the other morning, I was intrigued to see the spider sprint out to its web along the tension line, there was nothing in its web apart from the hanging droplets of dew! The next thing I saw was an astounding feat…Suddenly the Orb spider ‘snipped’ a couple of strands of its web making the first quarter of its web (Imagine a clock) collapse it then proceeded to haul the strands in, I was so close at the window I could see its forelegs working…! As it pulled the quarter segment, it was drawn into an ever decreasing ball of sparkly dewy water…by the time it had pulled it close enough, it was about the same size as the orb Spider……THEN….it completely ingested the ball of liquid and gossamer WOW! At first I glanced down thinking it had dropped it but no…I had seen a spider consume fluid WOW….TOTALLY AMAZING…WOW!!!!! Quietly it turned and resumed its hiding place in the Honeysuckle bush! I was totally awestruck, not that it had had a drink, but the super efficient way that it had pulled fluid from its own web in such an easy fashion and with such skill. Nature is truly amazing! This picture might not be the same actual spider, but it is close enough that it could be and it does look to be the same size and colouring 🙂

Spiders – both scary and amazing too!

‘Freedom’ by Caren Taylor

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Butterfly, Caren's creative canvas and craft, Forget-me-nots, Freedom, Garden flowers, Nature, Phlox, Photography, Poems, Poetry, Something different, Wild and free

‘Freedom’

‘FREEDOM‘ by Me

‘Don’t catch that butterfly – it’ll only die’

They told me – ‘Let it have a life, let it fly

Its time here is so very, very short

If trapped its beauty fades – then mort

So leave it to enjoy flying wild and free

Its fate not for us to control – just for us to see…’

Published in Daily Reflections 2002 – Triumph House Copyright Caren Taylor.

Photography is not my strong point, but I did capture the butterfly ‘almost in focus’ before it flew out of my garden!