Garden blues, vintage hat boxes, more soldered pendants and a give away!

In August I always get the garden blues, because knowing that the beauty of my little garden is going to be over soon makes me kind of blue, so today I like to share with you my dear readers and blogging friends some blue pictures of my August summer garden and seeing that most of you said that you like my mixed posts I'd also like to show you some vintage hat boxes I've recently got and my latest soldered charms and pendants, seen in the picture above as well as in the pictures at the end of this long post. I know it's a lot of pictures to load but if you refresh the site it loads faster, this is my experience and I promise you that you'll not be deceived! There'll also be a give away in this post for you!

The white pelargonia and the blue hydrangea are looking so fresh together:

Some late blooming pink poppies making a nice contrast to the blue glass ball as well as to the the blue watering can:

In the pictures below is deep blue Aconitum blooming in my big border:

And not to forget the beautiful light blue summer sky with fluffy white clouds over my little garden:

Now what is the red thing hidden behind my David Austin rose "Wenlock" ??

It is a beautiful vintage hat box from around 1920 and there even is an original vintage chapeau clac (Zylinder) hidden in the box!

And this is another gorgeous vintage hat box!

So how did I get those boxes? Well last weekend I told my mum about a gorgeous vintage hat box with a black chapeau clac which I had seen at the flea market but couldn't afford to buy, she went in the house and after a while came back with these gorgeous old boxes and gave them to me! She had them stored somewhere at her wardrobe. Woohooo! :D I'm such a happy bunny now! Thank you mum! After the garden photo shoot I've displayed them in my studio, close to my vintage mannequin. Click picture to enlarge and see more details!

Talking about my studio here is a shot of some things I've gathered for the soldered jewelry making which became my new passion of lately:

And here are my latest soldered charms and pendants, all two sided!

Did I mention to you that thanks to my dear blogging friend Ullabenulla I can now make these beautiful scalloped edges too? This is so much fun! Thank you so much Ulla! :D

Well and lastly I like to announce another give away drawing firstly because it's quite a while ago now that I did one and secondly because I like to thank you my dear blogging friends and readers for your friendship, inspirations and faithfulness for almost 2 years now! I started this blog in September 2005 and since then have made so many wonderful friends all over the world and I'm really thankful for this awesome blogging community that we are, it feels so good being a part of it! All you have to do is leave me a comment under this post and you're automatically in the drawing for one of my two sides pendants. I'll let you chose the one you like best! Good luck!!

Oh and I have another magazine swap to propose, I'm such an eye candy magazine addict (like most of you artful bloggers) and you US guys have so many gorgeous magazines that I see on your blogs and which I'd love to get like Artful Blogger, Somerset Home, The Foof-a-life and not to forget that Victoria magazine everyone is talking about and which is supposed to come out soon! So if someone of you would like to do a magazine swap with me I'd be really happy! I'll send you copies of our most beautiful German eye candy home & garden & craft magazines in return, or if you like I'll make you an art supply parcel with German crepe paper, Dresden borders and Victorian scraps. Just let me know what you'd prefer!

Have a happy and creative weekend everyone!

Hugs Carol(a) xox