colour | Petal & Pins

We were sent a beautiful bouquet of flowers at the end of May and I put them in the hallway to enjoy in passing and to avoid the rapid decline that a vase of flowers can have in a room that is heated during winter.

I try to remember to change the water and snip stems regularly but sometimes it’s easy to forget in the bustle of life. I also like to let a vase linger past its prime – there is beauty in decaying flowers – shapes change and unexpected colours appear.

Ahead of the weekend I decided to empty that hallway vase and another, but not before turning the aged beauty they contained into a Garden Fairy’s Wardrobe dress.

In my Meet The Maker interview I spoke about my childhood ‘dress up box’ and my inspiration for this particular Garden Fairy’s dress was the idea of it coming out of such a box or an old suitcase – transformed with age and time into something quite different with a special beauty.

There are bergenias, lilies, proteas and gerberas in the mix, can you imagine it brand new!

floral decay 1
blue tinge

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April 27, 2016

Catching The Colour

I had the idea to capture the colours of autumn along the same route I took you on for a twilight stroll.

Mr Petal & Pins loved the idea when I told him my plan, but when I took my camera with me a few days later the moment was gone – the trees that I’d been admiring with their blaze of crimsons and reds only had a sparse amount of leaves still clinging to their branches so I settled for a photo of the ornamental grape that covers a fence and the rose bush that escapes a summer deadheading.

Sometimes when catching the colour you need to be quick…Mother Nature waits for no one.

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April 8, 2016

Hemline

Hemline detail for the Renegade Luxe dress.

April 4, 2016

Pink Sticks & Pinking Shears

Yesterday I spent a productive afternoon bottling apples from my tree, it was a team effort with my friend Amanda and has started to be an Autumn tradition. Last year we had two vintage vacola units on the go, but this year the apples are early and not quite as plentiful.

We had a small branch of apples left over after filling the bottles which I decided to put to decorative use today for In A Vase On Monday.

My vacola preserver – passed down from my parents – is a wonderful shade of green and having it out made me think of my vintage ‘acorn’ vase. So the apples and vase were my starting point, along with some peony ‘sticks’ which last week I stripped of leaves to show off the lovely pinkness of them.

This morning I gathered other foliage and flowers from the garden including hydrangeas, agapanthus seed heads, oak leaf hydrangea leaves, snowberries and a branch of chestnut leaves – I love how they look like they’ve been cut with pinking shears!

In the end I created two arrangements as the acorn vase didn’t seem to need the agapanthus or snowberries. I like how you can see the pink peony stems through the cut glass vase, and I couldn’t help but show off some of yesterdays effort!

In A Vase On Monday is hosted by Cathy – her garden is in the north east rural fringe of the West Midlands, UK – why not see what Spring delights she is starting to find and share something from your garden.

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March 22, 2016

Darling Dahlias

Dahlias have been popping up a lot in my Instagram feed, popular with florists, gardeners and brides, but for some people they’ve never gone out of fashion.

We spent a delightful Saturday morning recently seeing the Hobart Horticultural Society Dahlia show at the Hobart Town Hall and armed with an insider tip we wrote down the numbers of some of our favourites so we can purchase some of the tubers later in the year.

They will be a new addition to the petal & pins garden and I just can’t wait to see them popping up with their festive form and colours!

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January 25, 2016

Renegade Luxe

Some fashion collections stay with you long after the season has past and the designer has presented others.

It could be the silhouette, the fabrics or the combination of colours – which is what it was for me with Jean Paul Gaultier’s prêt-à-porter Pirate Collection from Spring/Summer 2008.

We were in Paris that Spring and went to the Gaultier boutique on avenue George V.
I lingered at the pieces that caught my eye to drink in the details and gently run my fingers over the cloth. Khaki, brown and olive green in plains, stripes and camouflage prints were given a touch of renegade luxe with the combinations of fabrics and embellishments.

This summer, while looking out my sunroom window down onto the plum tree and the ripening elderberries that memory was stirred by the similarity in colours and contrasting textures.

I pulled out the catalogue brought back from Paris to revisit the collection and was also inspired to design some plum leaf and elderberry dresses for my Garden Fairy’s Wardrobe.

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October 22, 2015

An Imaginary Guest

A few days ago, I decided to pick a bunch of white and cream spring flowers from my garden and since the wedding season has begun they were perfect for creating a wedding dress for my Garden Fairy’s Wardrobe.

I used the Jupiter’s Beard centrathus ruber, Snow Ball Bush viburnum opulus, and Granny’s Bonnet aquilegia – all of which I have created dresses with before.

The Jupiter’s Beard reminds me of tulle and the Snow Ball Bush guipure lace flowers.

I love white and green gardens, they are elegant and calm, but I’m too much of a lover of colour to ever restrict a garden to just that, besides my garden is a collaborative effort with ‘gardeners past’ and tends to reflect that.

If I were playing the game of ultimate dinner party guest-list, one of the guests would be the person who started my garden – a pre dinner stroll around the garden would be a must, with a glass of champagne of course!

Who would be on yours?

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October 17, 2015

A Bag Of Grapes

I’ve been making paper cut signage for my market stall inspired by the class I took with paper cut artist extraordinaire Miso last year.

Mr Petal & Pins translated this design into a rubber stamp for paper bags.

The stamp arrived just in time to use for the Spring markets, along with an abundance of grape hyacinths in the garden to decorate my stall and create some new dresses for my Garden Fairy’s Wardrobe.

Now we’re making plans for Xmas markets including traveling to Sydney for one!

You can find a list of market dates and card stockists here.

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October 9, 2015

A New Flower Blooms Every Day

At this time of year I love to walk around my garden each day just to see what is newly in bud, has flowered or where hints of green have appeared, and I’m sure I’m not alone in this spring ritual.

Over several recent posts I have shared the early blooming blossoms in my neighbourhood and the exquisiteness of my pink tree peony. They have been just wonderful this year and inspired some new designs for my Garden Fairy’s Wardrobe.

The colour (and inspiration) has been abundant this spring and I have designed a whole collection of dresses with the grape hyacinths and the purple iris too – I was pleased to see my efforts in dividing the iris have given such splendid results and added new colour to a previously rather neglected area.

We’ve had rain and some unseasonably warm weather so I’ve had to be quick thinking to photograph those that flower fleetingly.

Before a trip to Sydney last week the cherry tree was a mass of white blossom, freesias scented the air and the lilacs were just starting to bud. I returned to a heady scent of lilac as I walked in the gate, roses flowering, apple blossom, and the cherry tree the bright green that comes with new leaves – so plenty of colour to pick for a bountiful spring vase.

‘A new flower blooms everyday’ – it could be a proverb to inspire optimism and isn’t that something spring always brings.