A Garden Fairy’s Birthday!
Petal & Pins
Month: September, 2015
September 23, 2015
Oh So Pretty!
Following on from my last post I thought I’d share some photos of my tree peony – aren’t they just the most gorgeous of flowers!
There are a lot of this variety in gardens around my neighbourhood and I am lucky to have two growing in mine.
Just like when the blossom is out they make a Springtime stroll a very pretty one indeed!
September 17, 2015
A Garden Fairy’s Birthday
petal & pins celebrated a birthday yesterday! It was the third anniversary of starting my petal & pins blog and about four years since creating the very first dress for my Garden Fairy’s Wardrobe.
When I made my first garden fairy’s dress it was on a whim on a sunny day in a moment of daydreaming in the garden, a break from cutting or sewing a real life creation, and then the next day I made another … and kept on making them!
I started my blog as a ‘home’ for my Garden Fairy’s Wardrobe and other musing from my studio and garden. My first blog post featured a dress made from a peony flower and very few words so I decided a new peony dress was perfect for this birthday post.
Three years on and I’m pleased that I’m still blogging. Like most people who start a a blog I wasn’t exactly sure what I was starting, where I was heading or who would be reading but it has been so much more than I imagined when making that first post.
It has been a lovely journey of finding people with shared passions and an interest in what I do, discovering other blogs on everything from the travel adventures of a boat dwelling cat, vintage glamour and the joys and tribulations of gardening in a different hemisphere to me.
To my surprise I also found great enjoyment in writing to accompany my photos and something I never expected – some solace when my father died.
I had dreams for my Garden Fairy from the beginning of my blogging journey and it has been fun bringing some of those to life and dreaming up new ones.
The first was creating a range of greeting cards featuring flower dresses from my Garden Fairy’s Wardrobe. There have been twelve collections to date, five of which are currently available, with the newest being my Christmas collection of five holly dresses.
This year Mr Petal & Pins created my gorgeous online shop, I was commissioned to do a life size dress for a wallpaper panel and the local weekend magazine asked to do a feature on me!
It’s been great to meet some of you at the local design markets and to see my cards available through a growing number of retailers.
So thank you for your part in it all – your comments, encouragement or just following – and now I’d like to be bold and ask a favour.
If you have a moment, please visit my online shop – take a look around, give me some feedback, you may even see something you like! Perhaps you could share a link to my website or blog with someone you think might enjoy discovering my garden fairy’s wardrobe because that would help the dreams to continue to grow!
Thank You
Sandra x
P.S. To celebrate petal & pins’s birthday I’d like to give you a special offer of Free Shipping worldwide until the end of September 2015 on any purchase from the petal & pins online shop.
Visit the shop here and enter the discount code HAPPY3 at the last step of the checkout.
September 11, 2015
The Second Act
It is a year since my far North Queensland holiday and there are still things from that trip I haven’t shared with you that I wanted to!
Tropical flowers that offered new inspiration for garden fairy dresses – some realised, some just conjured up in my mind while admiring them (it’s not always appropriate to be a flower thief in someone else’s garden), or the romantic story behind Paronella Park and it’s decaying beauty and lush gardens.
I did share my Tropical Ballet which features Barringtonia Asiatica – a night flowering tree whose flowers by morning have fallen to the ground.
So without further ado here is the second act…
I like to think you will add your own imaginative take on the storyline of my tropical ballet but take a look at the beautiful nighttime costumes in act one before you do!
September 8, 2015
fleurs en papier
I was going to photograph my Spring garden today but it’s raining.
Instead I ‘m sharing with you my ‘Paris Flowers’ that I made earlier in the year.
I called them this inspired by the combination of soft pink wash I painted on the paper and black satin ribbon bows that form the sepals.
Paper flower making seems to be having a ‘moment’ by the stream of gorgeous ones appearing in my instagram feed lately.
There are some exquisite ones by artists making them from crepe paper, special crepe paper mind you not the flimsy bright coloured stuff of kindergarten craft memories.
I think though my métier is for using real flowers for my garden fairy dresses so my fabric scissors are safe from being given over to paper anytime soon.
September 1, 2015
Happy First Day Of Spring
Last week started out sunny in Hobart, there was even enough sunshine to decide to eat lunch outside and linger but by the end of the week Winter wanted a last hurrah and it rained, hailed and howled.
More snow fell on the mountain and my early flowering camellias dropped on the ground.
They are too pretty to leave languishing so I brought a few inside to enjoy before the petals had a chance to brown. Combined with a few pretty pink blossoms on a vintage plate I think they look rather scrumptious.
It could be reinterpreted into a dessert – meringue and raspberries perhaps?!
Instead I created a confection of a dress for my Garden Fairy’s Wardrobe.
© Sandra Alcorn 2015 petal & pins
All words and images on this blog are my own work (unless otherwise credited) please respect this and contact me before reproducing elsewhere.
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