Pink Veronica

The spires of Veronica flowers has a charming pink pale colour. The spires has a life of their own and will bend in every direction. It is an interesting cut flower to use as it has a lot of movement and you just have to let it go wherever it wants to go.

I put a big bunch of them in a French vintage enamelled water jug. The grey colour was perfect with the pale pink. The jug has a jet black handle and is a bit rusty around the edges but that just adds to it's charm.

Some of he shorter stems that was left over when stripping the leaves off the lower part of the stems went into a whole collection of small glass bottles. Some of the bottles are full of mother-of-pearl buttons, some are vintage perfume bottles others apothecary jars. It is an interesting mix of bottles in different shapes and sizes and they all sit on a silver plated little tray.

Have a wonderful day!

See you soon!

xoxo Ingrid

Purple and White Sweet Peas

How can anybody resist sweet peas? It is such an irresistible flower that has both beauty and scent. 

The botanical name is Lathyrus odoratus. Lathyrus is the Greek name for pea or pulse and odoratus means fragrant. So that would make it 'fragrant peas'!

Here are some adorable purple and white sweet peas in three vintage vases. 

The vases are all different but they all have something in common which is a blue and white floral pattern. One vase is low and round, one is tall and narrow and one is not a vase at all but a little sweet jug with a handle.

 The bunches of sweet peas that I bought at the local farmers market were all mixed colours. When I conditioned the flowers I separated them all into different bunches all of the same colour or as close as possible.

While I was conditioning the flowers I also found that the flowers were all different lengths. That often created problems when you are creating an arrangement. It is hard to support short stems in tall vases so using three vases in varying sizes was very helpful. I was able to accommodate both tall and short stems.

What you also will find with sweet peas are that they are quite fragile. They need gentle handling or a lot of both flowers and especially buds will fall off.

It is quite nice to place the the three vases together making a small group of flowers in a limited palette.      

Old vintage china vases often leak so be very careful on what surface you put them. It might not be obvious to start off with, you might not notice anything until the next day. But trust me on this one - as I have ruined many surfaces making the mistake of not putting something under the vase. I often use old vintage silver plated little trays that I have picked up very cheaply at the flea market.

Have a lovely fragrant day!

See you soon!

Xoxo Ingrid

Vintage Keys and Red Ribbons

I had so much fun creating these images. I love old keys and I love ribbons.

Here is what I did.

1. Collect a bunch of old vintage keys. Flea markets or car boot sales are great places to find similar keys.  If you are going to use them for decoration it might be nice if they are not too rusty or full of paint. Scrape any paint off and remove rust with wire wool. Try not to remove any of the old patina - so go gently. You don't want them to look new.

2. Select some ribbons. Matching, contrasting - they can all be different - but it is quite nice if they have something in common. I selected ribbons that all had some red colour. Two of the ribbons also have some grey dots and stripes matching the grey metal colour of the keys.
Cut a length of ribbon and thread it through the handle (the bow) of the key and simply make a knot at the top.
There are many different ways of tying the ribbon to the keys but I liked the simplicity of  leaving the ribbon lying flat and, a very simple knot and the ends of the ribbons cut at an angle. You could also cut the ends in a v-shape.

3. Keep the keys in a bowl for pure pleasure or put them back in a door or chest of drawers. They could be hung on a wall or framed they would make an attractive picture.

All the ribbons that I have used in this little project is from the lovely Jane Means and her ribbon company.

When styling the image I added some favourite vintage buttons. Again I matched the grey and the red & white with the colours in the ribbons.

Have a wonderful day!
See you soon!

Xoxo Ingrid

Three Little Green Pitchers

I love this little collection of pitchers. All different in shape and texture but all the same light green colour and all from the 1940's or 1950's. 

A collection however small needs to have a common link between the objects. The link can be really anything from colour, function, style, shapes or age and brought together will make an interesting and loved collection.

My small collection of similar jugs consists of these three smaller green ones and two larger light blue ones. They all sit on a shelf in my kitchen and they are often used as handy little vases. 

You have probably noticed that I am very keen on ribbons and I love adding them to anything I can. Here I have tied short pieces of ribbon to the handles of the pitchers as decoration. I have kept the colours to green and light grey as I did not want to bring attention away from the pretty colours of the flowers.

Almost all my ribbons comes from the lovely lady Jane Means. She designs her own ribbons and sells them on-line. She also does gift wrapping workshops and demonstrations.

I have very simply used a short piece of ribbon and just made a knot. I did not do a bow as I did not want to make it looking too sweet. I have left one jug empty for a bit of contrast. 

Yes, I am using hessian again. I love the texture and colour of hessian and it gives it a bit of a rough edge to the whole arrangement. I have also again used some of the irresistible stock flowers in bright pink and purple. It is such an amazing flower - scented, beautiful and it lasts for ages!

Have a lovely week!

Xoxo Ingrid