Ponderings

Hands up those bloggers out there who started their blogs and were completely obsessed with the stats and comments ?

Yes well my hand is up !

It has been 2 years since I began my blog and began on my journey of discovery.
It was a wet day in May when I finally sat down and began to write a journal of my thoughts and love and shared those thoughts with the world.
Writing has always been a passion of mine from when I was a little girl, as was my love for photography and reading books.
Imagination comes from experience and play and all of those things were quite prevalent in my early life.
It was always such a big part of blogging to me to make sure that people were reading and that I wasn't just rambling on to myself.
I would check the stats a few times a day and sometimes be excited and other times be frowning at my lack there of.

2-3 years down the track I hardly ever check the stats and have only just checked my overall stats and found it to be well over 105,000 hits !
Wow when I think about it that is quite insane !

Creativity is something that we have to find all on our own. The need to capture an audience comes out of uncertainty and want for acknowledgement of our hard work.

It wasn't until the end of my first year of blogging that I realised that I was writing my blog for pleasure for myself.
I have always set out little tea parties for friends over many years and this time I really wanted to share my love of it and take pics.
Comments from readers made me smile but what has really given me the feeling of peace and harmony and love is when some of those comments have turned into budding friendships across the whole world.
Friend come from all over the place, some speak English and others do not. It is with a big smile that I welcome all of my happy readers into my little world of all thing French Blue and Peachy Pink.

Now days comments are from friends who I will probably never ever meet but that does not matter one little bit.
Some of these friends have become mentors and silent angels whose quite honesty and support have literally shifted my world and thoughts to new places.
Indeed, a very good blog friend of mine issued a challenge to her readers to follow their dream and to complete an unfinished project. Something clicked in my brain that day when I read this and I decided then and there to follow my dream of finally being a florist. 20 something years worth of dreaming about it, came to an end with an abrupt holt and 2 weeks later I was enrolled and ready to start my learning.
SEE.......faraway friends can come to us to teach us and encourage us and it can truly change our world.

So this afternoon as I sit here writing this post I would simply LOVE to say a big thankyou to each and everyone of you who take the time to visit my humble abode and read my ramblings and follow my dreams. Your silent and also verbal support keeps pushing me forward with invisible angel wings and continues to encourage me to grow as a human being.

I am very blessed to know you all. In my wildest dreams, one day we would all come together and meet, eat cupcakes in a beautiful garden and giggle the hours away

                             Love and Blessings to you all
                                                 xo

My New Beautiful Art

A month or so ago I mentioned that I had found 3 precious new pictures from the local antique centre.

Well I finally have them now and they are hanging proudly up on our wall.

The day I walked in off the street to say hello to my friend who works in this centre something up on the wall caught my eye.

These 3 gorgeous prints were that something !

They are prints of an artist by the name of Marcus Stone and they are dated 1903.

After some research I have found that Marcus Stone was actually Charles Dickens' illustrator and he has numerous works hanging all over the world in countless galleries and private collections.

My 3 prints came as a group and they depict a story of 2 loves.

The first in the series is of a young maiden in a beautiful walled garden holding onto a basket of fruit. In the background her love is asking the maidens father for her hand in marriage. 

He must have been successful because the name of the print is 

"The Proposal Accepted"  

The next print depicts the fair maiden all forlorn because her love had gone away to war and she was missing him terribly.

The title of this one is

"Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder"

Look closely at the pansies pinned to the maidens pretty dress.....so sweet !

These prints are in remarkable condition and the frames look almost brand new. These have been very loved over the years.

The frames have obviously been polished regularly.

 One day I will work out how to successfully photograph prints with glass.  The light was not cooperating this afternoon.  
The glass is the original plate glass too......amazing !

The final print in the collection depicts the fair maiden watching in the distance for her love to return.

Ships are pulling into the harbour and war is over.

She is waiting with a spray of roses held against her chest and her beautiful feather adorned hat lies on the wall next to her.

The title of this print is

"His Ship In Sight"

                             I am completely in love with these prints !
They are so beautiful to look at and I find the longer I look the more the picture tells a story. The artists eye to detail is incredible. It is no wonder Charles Dickens employed him as his illustrator.

For now these wonderful prints will give me great happiness and maybe someday will become heirlooms for my family to pass down. I wish that I knew who they had once belonged to. I wonder if they loved them as much as I do now.

And Suddenly My New Business Was Born !

Mayflowers Vintage Florist

Born 12/4/13 on a sunny Friday morning at 9am.

and I am the very proud Mummy !

Yes I have taken the giant step of starting a brand new business.

It is a leap into the unknown and an open invitation to create with my heart however I wish.

As a proud new parent of a business I expect sleepless nights (buying flowers at the markets when everybody is in bed sleeping)  and one day opening a wonderful store.

For now I will begin my empire at home.  

I will watch my skills develop and my confidence grow and then one day I will fly.

I kind of feel as though I am at the leaping off the top branch of a tree and not wanting to look down but I have to to be able to see how I will land safely.

It is a scary thought but I guess one that will test my own faith in myself.

One things for certain, I will have 3 special angels with me every step of the way.

The 'May' in Mayflowers represents my Grandmother and her sister who both shared May in their names.  

It also represents my little baby angel Lily May. 

I know that these precious girls will guide me safely on my new path and be smiling down on me from heaven.

I do wish that I could see my Grandmother's and Aunties faces right now. They started my love of flowers when I was about 5 years old. Each Sunday my Grandmother would visit her sister May. On leaving Aunty May would pick a big bunch of roses from her garden to send home to me.

I remember being so excited that somebody wanted to give me, a child, flowers. I truly felt so adored and I know indeed I was. 

 My Grandmother and my Aunty both lived into their 90's. 

They looked a lot alike and both were beautiful souls who nurtured and loved their families.

Both of these women meant the world to me. I know that they are only a heartbeat away.  I know that they will be so proud right now.

Isn't it funny how small events in a child's life, can turn into a passion many years down the track. That one small and sweet gesture of flowers has inspired me to make it a career.

For now, 'Mayflowers Vintage Florist' will work from home, but one day a little shopfront will appear somewhere just right and it will be a dream come true.

I have the whole place decorated from floor to ceiling in my head. The walls are painted, buckets of flowers are everywhere and I am standing behind the counter smiling.

If I close my eyes then I can almost smell the perfume in the air.

Can you see it too ?

So as I create my new range I will share.

Pictured below are my first designs.

Pretty cottage style blooms in vintage teacups.

A view from the top !

There is something very old fashioned and kitch about the humble Carnation. They are cheap and cheerful and have a delicious scent. These pale lemon blooms with pink tips remind me so much of my Grandmother so it was only right to create something pretty with them. Carnations have been out of vogue for some years now but I am making it my business to bring them back.  In the perfect arrangement they look  very vintage and smell soooo good !

SO that my friends, is the reason that I haven't been blogging as frequently as usual. I have been planning and organising and writing plans. I have sat and dreamt and I have achieved my ultimate plan of doing what I love and the rest will follow.
Bucket loads of money will never make me happy but I know that buckets full of flowers and the love of my family and friends will.
If we don't enjoy the ride then we definately will not enjoy the destination.  My destination is happiness and I like to think that I will sprinkle a little of it on my path for other to follow behind me.

So as this little Phoenix rises from the ashes, she will not turn back around and look behind her. Instead she will focus on the here and now and enjoy her journey to 'Happyville' !

Wish me luck as I skip off into the sunset with my basket full of blooms !  ( visions of Dorothy in her ruby slippers skipping up the yellow brick road come to mind !)

                                  Enjoy your weekends !

A Chicken Wearing Pearls !

Have you ever seen a chicken wearing a string of pearls ?

No ?

Well now you have :-)

My dear friend Miss M has kept chickens before so she's quite well aware of the in's and out's of it all.

After a recent house move she decided to buy herself some new chickens because she had given her other ones away.    

When she told me that she was buying more I was thrilled because all I could think about was decorating her chicken coop for her.

(Think chandeliers, tea cups and a herb garden !)

and then she said that she was getting a different variety of chickens this time and these ones would lay BLUE EGGS.

My ears pricked up as soon as she said blue !

She also said that she was going to buy some unhatched eggs and incubate and hatch them at her home.

EXCITING for a city slicker like myself.

She said that you can hear cheeping through the egg shells before they even hatch !

I cannot wait to hear that for myself !

Scroll down and you will see the story unfold before your eyes :-)

The girls didn't take to the teacup very well, but they are only 12 weeks old so there's time to train them to be ladies.

I mean....whoever on earth would want to drink out of an old plastic container ?  

Certainly not a chicken who is being trained to wear pearls !

Now it's time to drool over the pale french blue/grey eggs.

(You can see the pretty pale blue/grey egg on the right)

The whole episode of putting the pearls on the chicken was quite hilarious.

I'm not sure if it was us or the chickens that clucked the loudest but Miss M and I had a lovely time :-)

Miss M wasn't quick enough when she first tried to put the pearls over Pearl's head..........

oops, sorry about that Pearl !

Doesn't she look pretty !

I'm pretending that the look on her face is one of love and not angst 

The girls hen house hasn't arrived yet so they are living in a cage at the moment.
They don't seem to mind though. They have lots of soft hay, tummys full of fresh kitchen scraps and grain.

Their new home will arrive in a couple of weeks time.

and now I would like to introduce the babies !

Meet 'The Chickadees' !

They are due to make their presence known around the 4th April.

(A chicken egg has a 21 day incubation time frame.)

They are warming their little selves in a nice toasty little incubator. They are all marked with their different varieties.

If it had have been me I would have named each egg......

But then that's just me ! :-)

There are 4 chickens ruling the roost now but more to come. Not all of these eggs are Miss M's but she is having all of the fun of doing the hatching bit !

Miss M has given me naming rights but I need your help !

I was thinking of giving them French names because of the pale French blue colour of their eggs. I wondered about a Marie Antoinette theme ?
Then I thought about flower names ?  (How cute would Dahlia be !)

Apart from my friend 'Pearl' the rest of the girls remain nameless.

They are destined to be posh chickens. After all they will drink out of china, rest their heads on Chamomile flowers when they sleep and wear bows in their hair by day. They simply MUST have posh names :-)
                                     Any suggestions ?