Friday, October 31, 2008

Friday Show and Tell

Kelli from There is no place like home is the hostess for Friday Show and Tell. This week I thought I'd join in the fun and give it a go, so I'm a first-timer. A few of you have asked me about the "teacups" displayed on this metal rack. Here I'll reveal the mystery behind these pretty little displays that you can easily make for yourselves and show you how to make them. First I got this metal rack from a gift store, I don't know if you can find these easily or something similar would be great. It was cream in colour, I painted it an Acrylic light baby blue. The top teacup looking thing on the rack(pictured below) is actually store-bought, it's one of those Melamine inexpensive used-teabags disposal little plates (this one is by Ashdene in Australia) that I see everywhere in the shops. I bought this one because of the picture of a little girl setting the table and decorating it with leaves and it has a lovely blue. It fits perfectly on the rack. I would've bought more, but they had many other styles which didn't quite look right with this one. So I made these other pieces which are not difficult to make at all. Basically you'll need Printed Paper Napkins (what we call Serviettes here in Oz). These ones are from "Ihr" Made in Germany, which I bought from a shop here, they seem to be everywhere. Their website is www.idealhomerange.com All I did was cut out the pieces from the serviettes/napkins, stick them onto cardboard papers, seal with varnish (matt or shiny) and voila! You've got them! They can also be laminated. Another way of using these napkins is you can stick them onto anything like craft wood coasters, placemats, wooden plaques, doll houses, furniture, any surface that you can stick on. It's very similar to Decoupage, only the napkins are much thinner and they cling very well and therefore don't need sanding and sanding and varnishing layer by layer to make them look like real painting instead of something stuck on. If you use rosy pictures, and as long as you don't mind the labour-intensive cutting, you can make a picture and people can be fooled into thinking you painted it. Not that you'd want to fool anybody! Lol! Now I'm off to see what other bloggers have in-store for Friday Show and Tell, make sure you visit There is no place like home to find out. Have a blessed weekend!

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Rose Wednesday

Jan from Jan and Tom's Place hosts Rose Wednesday every week, I decided to show you more rosy photos as you can imagine I've been taking hundreds of photos and since many of you dear blogger friends who live in the Northern Hemisphere are going into winter, I thought you might appreciate seeing some Spring scenes.
"Jubilee Celebration" (David Austin)
Tree Rose "Candy Cane" up close (see the white streaks?)
"The Dark Lady" (David Austin)"Tamora" (David Austin) in front (apricot)
Last but not least, I have been trying to leave the first Spring roses on the plants as long as I could, but since we had company last Friday night, I thought it wouldn't hurt to cut some fresh flowers for some arrangements and below are the pictures. Now make sure you also hop over to Jan and Tom's Place to check out other bloggers' lovely posts on Rose Wednesday. Have a lovely Wednesday.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

More Updates

Cloudy days are good for taking photos, the colours of my subjects appear not so washed out; thus doing more justice to their real colours in real life. So on cloudy days like today, you'd find me snap snap snapping away with my camera in the garden.
These Pierre blooms are huge in real life
I normally would cut some roses and bring them inside for the vases, but I've been determined to keep the first Spring flowers on the plants as long as they'd stay; not an easy thing for someone who loves snip snip snipping away with the secateurs like me.
China Doll Weeping Tree Rose
These are more updates of my garden today, hope you'll enjoy; you can compare pictures in the last two posts to see the flowering progress. Have a blessed day!
Radio Times (Pink in real life, she looks more apricot in these photos)
My young Gertrude Jekyll trained as a climber