Blue Hyacinths - Moodboard

Hyacinths are easy to grow from bulbs and they are also getting easier to buy as cut flowers. As a cut flower they often come with part of the bulb still attached and this is because the flower lasts longer that way.

I love hyacinths and my favourite way to use them are as cut flowers straight in a vase on their own sometimes with a few leaves. I really like that when you buy them part of the flower is still in bud and has not opened yet so you have this multicoloured flower head. 

If you intend to use a vase with a narrow neck you need to cut off the bit of bulb at the bottom - like I have done here. 

I had a blue theme in mind and put a blue moodboard together using various postcards, paint, washi tape, clothes pegs, colour cards, fabric and luggage tags as well as few different containers and my favourite acrylic spoons.

The spoons are French and come from a company called Sabre Paris. They have gorgeous acrylic cutlery in many different colours, patterns and sizes.
  
The paints are from Farrow and Ball. I just picked a few of their blue colours.

The blue Japanese Garden washi tape is from lovely Lyndsey Haskell at What you Sow. She just had a write-up in the latest issue of Mollie Makes - issue twenty-three. Well done to Lyndsey!

The luggage tags are from Jane Means. She has them in almost every colour in the rainbow.

The large papier mache letter is covered with a wide washi tape - but I can't remember where I got it from.

The grey and light blue rolls of washi tape are all from the charming duo Dave and Lynn at Superlovely. 

I ended up using only a few things from the moodboard in the final images but it was fun putting together the board.

Have a wonderful flower filled day!

Thanks for your visit and for leaving comments.

I'll see you back here very soon.

xoxo Ingrid

[Styling and photography by Ingrid Henningsson for Of Spring and Summer.]

Black and White Moodboard

The Christmas period is almost over and the new year is approaching fast. I have put together a black and white moodboard inspired by the dark evenings lit by candle light, Christmas tree lights and clear starry skies. 

The flower arrangements are very simple just a few white  Chrysanthemums cut very short in each container. This vintage glass jar used to hold fish paste once upon a time. It sits on black tissue paper full of sparkly dots. I crumpled it all up and then flattened it again just to give some texture to the surface.

I have used the same stretched little canvases as in this post. This time I have used a wide washi tape with butterflies on one canvas and the other is wrapped with white vintage lace. The decorative washi tape is from Cox & Cox.  

The third canvas is wrapped with strips of white cotton and white twine.

Each canvas has a little added treasure. The cotton and twine one has a retro brooch made by an aunt of mine back in the 1960's. The little round handmade brooch gives off it's own sparkle in a kind of granny chic way.

The canvas with washi tape has three miniature wooden squares from Craftshapes painted with Farrow & Ball paints. 

The third canvas has a vintage chandelier crystal on top of the lace. You can see the lace through the crystal and it also make nice reflections from the candle light. 

The votive candle holders has little spots of glitter on the outside. They caught my eye in the shop and I thought they would add some sparkle to the Christmas and New Year festivities   

I bought them from the House and Garden store at  Snape Maltings in Suffolk, when staying with some very good friends who lives near Aldeburgh. I do recommend a visit if you are in this beautiful part of the country.

I hope you like my moodboard and that it will inspired you to make some of your own creations to add some sparkle to this time or year. 

Have a wonderful day!

Thanks for visiting and I'll see you back here soon.

xoxo Ingrid

[Styling &photography by Ingrid Henningsson for Of Spring and Summer.]

Red Poinsettia Moodboard

What do we really think and feel about Poinsettia? 

The garden writer Sarah Raven wrote an article in The Daily Telegraph's Gardening section about poinsettias suggesting that they should "come in from the cold". She also say that they have a "fuddy-duddy" image and have been massively overused but felt that it was now time to reappraise them.

Some of these reasons were that it's an inexpensive plant and most of the plants sold in UK supermarkets are British grown.

Last month the Poinsettia International had a press party where several big names in the florist world like Paula Pryke, Rebel Rebel, Simon Lycett and Ian Lloyd created quite elaborate arrangements using almost exclusively poinsettia. They showed ways of using the plant in contemporary and creative ways both as potted plants and as cut flowers.

I found these miniature red poinsettia at my local DIY store and bought a few for very little money. They're only about 15 cm tall and came in little silver pots.

I thought they would look great down the centre of a table. They are low enough for people to see each other across the table and they don't take up a lot of space.

As the plants already came in their own little silver pots I didn't feel I needed to re-pot them. All I had to do was to add some more shiny silver bling; like the vintage baubles, some votive candles and a strand of Christmas lights.

I've used a wide red ribbon but you can use strips of red fabric instead or a red runner down the centre of the table.

I love the reflections of the red ribbons, the Christmas lights and the candles in all the shiny surfaces.

What do you think of poinsettias - love them or hate them?

Have a bright bling day!

Thank you for visiting and I'll see you soon.

xoxo Ingrid

Sarah Raven - It's a Wrap

I have been a big fan of Sarah Raven ever since I did a workshop with her at The English Gardening School back in 2001. By that time she had already written two books, The Cutting Garden and The Bold & Brilliant Garden. Two books that have been part of my garden library ever since they were published.

Since then she has written several cookbooks as well as books on vegetable growing and cutting gardens. She writes a regular gardening column on Saturdays for The Daily Telegraph and was a presenter on BBC Gardeners' World for many years. 

Her latest book was called Wildflowers; all about celebrating British wild flowers.

Sarah is married to the author Adam Nicolson, grandson of novelist Vita Sackville-West, who with her husband Harold Nicolson created the stunning gardens at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent.

       

Sara lives with her family at Perch Hill Farm in East Sussex,  where she runs courses on food & cooking, floristry &  flowers, wildlife, gardening and growing vegetables.

Sarah also has an on-line shop where she sells seeds, plants, bulbs and lots of other things for the garden and the home.

This beautiful floral wrapping paper is from her shop. The stunning photography of the flowers is by Jonathan Buckley, who also does all the photography for the Sarah Raven catalogue. 

These coloured luggage tags are also from Sarah's on-line shop. They come in five different colours so you can colour coordinate your presents.

I customised the tags by adding washi tape and using rubber stamp lettering. Perfect for Christmas as it is a quick and easy way to make it individual and unique.  

The lovely flowers are very large heads of Chrysanthemums in a gorgeous dusky pink. I arranged them in a light blue 1930's vase with deep ridges on the outside.

I am part of Sarah Raven's affiliate program and make a small commission from any sales.

Thank you very much to Alissa at Sarah Raven's office for sending me the items to review. 

Have a lovely day!

Thank you for visiting and I will see you back here soon.

xo Ingrid

Purple Asters

These arrangement of lovely purple Aster flowers in two shades makes me very happy right now. Two little tight bunches in clear glass vases. The beautiful vintage periwinkle blue vase is French and used to contain furniture polish but now makes a pretty little vase. I bought it from a company called Velvet Ribbon. They sell a charming selection of vintage stuff sourced from all over Europe.

The arrangement sits on a collage that is a joint collaboration by my wonderful daughter and me. It is made directly on a stretched canvas, we used vintage sheet music, two decorative tissue tapes, one with butterflies the other with varied styles of antique calligraphy. The two tapes are both from Cox & Cox. 

We also used some rubber stamps with birds and plants from The Paperie, a company that sells some great stationary stuff. 

Several weeks ago I found some fantastic white fabric lace tape that I needed for a different project so we were able to use some of that as well. The lace tape is sold by a French company called Lovely Tape.  

I love this retro plate decorated with the pattern 'Homemaker'. It was designed by Enid Seeney for Ridgeway Pottery in 1955. Woolworths sold it in their shops until the 1960s. It is decorated with archetypal images of 1950s style, such as the boomerang-shaped table and a two-seater sofa.

The little black heart, buckle, buttons, and clip-on earrings are all Victorian mourning jewellery. During part of the Victorian period black was the height of fashion and black jet and glass jewellery was very popular.  

It took me a long time of to find these spoons. When I finally found them they turned out to be French as well - I know, a lot of French stuff in this post! I had seen them used by two of my favourite food bloggers - Aran Goyoaga from Cannelle et Vanille and Beartice Peltre from La Tartine Gourmande - and I just thought they were adorable and had to have some! The company that makes them is called Sabre Paris and they sell a large collection of acrylic cutlery as well as lots of other things for your table.

The two adorable floral washi tape are from What You Sow. Lyndsey has an internet business and sells, to quote her business card, "Unusual gardening things for the creative gardener."  

Have a wonderful day filled with flowers!!

xoxo Ingrid

Pink and Green Moodboard

My local Farmers Market was selling these gorgeous pink Dahlias and I just had to have them. The colour made me think of spring and I thought: "Maybe I can make an arrangement and pretend it is spring!" Not because I don't like autumn because I do, I like the autumn very much. It is a wonderful season in the UK and London has it's own micro climate. The weather is very mild with a lot of clear bright blue skies and many flowers are still in bloom and leaves stays longer on the trees. 

Dahlias are one of my favourite flowers and it is most definitely not a spring flower, so my dreams of spring did not last for very long. I did the arrangement as a hand-tied bunch which simply means holding the bunch in one hand and adding to it with the other. It makes a more densely packed arrangement and you have more control over the shape. When you are finished you cut the stems and tie it with raffia or string; or if you use a vase that is not too wide you can put the bunch straight in the vase. In this case I used a vintage metal milk pail from Sweden.

In a small pail I made a separate arrangement using variegated Pittosporum. The little vintage pail was probably originally for cream and is also from Sweden.

The cut branches of Pittosporum comes from my neighbours garden, but I have just bought one for my own garden from Crocus. I like the variegation as well as the slightly wavy edges of the leaves and the contrasting dark coloured stems.

As cut branches for flower arranging it is perfect and lasts for ages, a must for anybody who likes arranging flowers.

The old metal milk pail is from the 1950's and made by a Swedish company called Skultuna. The company is 400 years old and is still designing and producing mainly brass products.

I had fun painting some small wooden blocks with different colours. I was picking up the pink in the Dahlias and the grey  in the pails and as I often do I used Farrow & Ball colours. The grey is Elephant's Breath and the pink is Cinder Rose, they are both beautiful chalky matt colours.

I buy the wooden cubes from a company called Craftshapes.

I love all the textures, contrasting sizes and different materials; hard & soft, small & large, glass, wood and metal as well as the colours in the plant material mixed with the softer greys. 

This very large glass funnel is a vintage apothecary funnel from Sweden. It is clearly marked as made in Germany and it has some rather unusual ridges on the inside - I am not sure why.

I stuck a cut branch of Pittosporum in the narrow end of the funnel. It will obviously not last for very long without water so I did it was just for fun. I thought it made lots of interesting angles and lines in the image.

Have a lovely day!

xoxo Ingrid

(text/styling/photography: ingrid henningsson)

Vintage Laura Ashley Moodboard

Laura Ashley fabrics looks quite different now then what they did back in the 1980's. This is a piece of pink floral Laura Ashley fabric that I had put away in a box. I still think that it has stood the test of time and was quite pleased when I found it.

I combined the fabric with some autumn chrysanthemums in two lovely colours.

Here are some more of Jane Means lovely ribbons. This is a plum coloured taffeta ribbon that has a very thin wire in the darker coloured edge. If you scrunch it up it stays gathered and changes character from when it is smooth. I painted a very small terracotta pot and put my scrunched up ribbon in it. 
Here I have also combined it with some dark blue vintage chandelier crystals that matches the edge of the ribbon.  

This is a found little brooch - worn, bent and with missing stones - I still like it!!

I painted three wooden clothes pegs with Farrow & Ball paint. The paints has wonderful names - Brinjal, Cinder Rose and Calluna. I particularly like the name Cinder Rose, that name seem to be most famous for being the name of a Farrow & Ball colour! Brinjal is the name for eggplant in many parts of the world and Calluna is the Latin name for the heather plant family. I also painted the terracotta pot in the Brinjal colour.

I love the torn edges of a lot of fabrics, the character of the fabric changes and the colour of the edges changes to a softer tone.  I tore a few strips and layered the strips under and inside some of the objects on the moodboard.

Have a lovely day!

xoxo Ingrid