Feeling Creative?

I hope so, because I have just confirmed our workshop dates right up until the end of 2011 (and a few for next year too) and I can’t wait to get back together with you all for some fun flowery evenings!

We are using two new locations now to cope with the demand we had last year, especially for the Christmas workshops, but do book early as there is still a limited number on the classes.  All prices include your materials, tools, and light refreshments.  To book, either phone us on 800061 or pop in to the shop at Tynwald Mills.

Autumn Handtied – 19th October 2011 

Create a beautiful bouquet with seasonal flowers, foliage and accessories to display in your home or give as a gift.

Glen Helen Inn, 7-10pm. £50.00 per person

Autumn Elegance Workshop – 25th Ocotber 2011

This delightful Autumn centrepiece will be the envy of anybody visiting your home!

Laxey Working Men’s Institute, 7-10pm. £60.00 per person

Hearts & Stars Workshop – 15th November 2011

Back by popular demand!  Learn how to make pretty room decorations out of natural plant material that can be adapted for any season.

Laxey Working Men’s Institute, 7-10pm £40.00 per person

Contemporary Christmas Wreath – 29th November 2011

Laxey Working Men’s Institute, 7-10pm £45.00 per person

Traditional Christmas Wreath – 7th December 2011

Glen Helen Inn, 7-10pm £45.00 per person

Festive Swag – 13th December 2011

Suitable for a mantelpiece or staircase

Laxey Working Men’s Institute, 7-10pm £75.00 per person

Christmas Table Centre – 14th December 2011

Glen Helen Inn, 7-10pm £50.00 per person

So there we go… and if you need some more convincing…. look how much fun we had last year!!

He who plants a garden, plants happiness…

.. a proverb from around the world somewhere, can’t remember which country, but the words always stick in my head.

I am happy when I am gardening, even when it rains, because I know that the raindrops are like my Friday night Gin & Tonic to plants that have been baking in the sun.. cool and refreshing!

My favourite style of garden is the natural prettiness of a cottage garden.  I grew up in a cottage with a garden that had apple trees, a pond and little secluded areas where the cats used to curl up in the sun.  Then I worked for the National Trust for Scotland in a garden that I still dream of returning to one day at Kellie Castle.

The walled garden at Kellie Castle had huge herbaceaous beds, mixed in with neat rows of vegetables, areas of lawn and pathways separated with trellises that were covered in Clematis and climbing roses.  This is a garden I truly fell head over heels in love with!

If I had a garden (I only have a little yard) it would be a mini version of Kellie, but saying that, you don’t need a massive walled garden to create a little piece of this herbaceous heaven.

Anyone coming down to Tynwald Mills, do pop into the Garden Centre and see our little ‘Mini-Garden’, created to show you what sort of plants work best in a cottage garden and a few tips of how to get the look.

Principles of a cottage garden:

• Plant in groups or drifts, rather than rows, for a more natural effect.
• Use paths, seats and hard landscaping to break up areas of planting, but let the plants overflow the edges to soften it.
• Allow flowers to self seed each year to create natural drifts of flowers.  Just weed out what you don’t want.  Myosotis (Forget-Me-Not) is one of my favourites.
• Use groundcover plants such as Pulmonaria, in between shrubs to help keep weeds down
• Recycle old pots, crates and other second hand items to break up the planting and add a splash of colour
• Mix climbers, such as Clematis, Roses and Sweet peas on the same trellis to create a long lasting display of colour and height
• Water features will attract wildlife such as birds, and frogs
• Why have a separate bed for your vegetables?  Some veggies will actually benefit from being grown within your flowers and other plants, so mix them up together!
• Grow flowers that are good for cuting (some of my favourites include Tanecetum, Gladioli, Delphiniums, Stocks and Sweet peas….) so that you can take a bit of the garden in to your cottage.. or semi-detached!

The thing I love most about any garden, is how it naturally evolves each year.  Herbaceous plants can be divided at the end of the year and replanted in new locations, or given to friends for their gardens, and the weather always plays a part in how well your favourite Rose bush or apple tree is going to perform.

So what are you waiting for?  The weather forecast for the next couple of days is sunny (on the Isle of Man anyway), so get your shorts and suncream on and get out in your garden!

Painting, sewing, cleaning and squealing at frogs

My other half went away at the weekend, so what do I do with the flat to myself?  Get my girlfriends round to watch chick flicks and drink cocktails?  No, no, no… I took the opportunity to spring clean the place, which led to all sorts!

I am an impulse decorator.  I don’t plan colour schemes with mood boards and fabric swatches.  I wake up in the morning and decide ‘I’m going to paint the bedroom today!’, so after work on Saturday I paid a trip to B&Q and had a mooch around.

The colour scheme was going to depend on one thing… I needed to get a new curtain as I despised the old red bit of cloth that currently hung over the window, and because the window is on a door, I needed a 90″ curtain and the only one that length that was in stock was ‘Duck Egg Blue’.  So that is what colour our room shall be!  I realise there would be so many more possibilities if I sat down and planned these things but if I did that, the job would never get done!

Is it silly to get excited when you realise your new curtains match your new shoes??

I picked up some Crown Period Colours paint, also in Duck Egg Blue, a lampshade from the bargain bin and some really pretty beaded fringe, which I used on the new lampshade and on the bedside lamps that I already had in the room.

As I was putting the room together and clearing out old junk, I came across 2 large cushions that had been gathering dust under the bed, and knew exactly what to do with them!  I had some blue and gold cloth from a photoshoot, and some moss green cloth that I used to use for display in the shop, so dusted down my sewing machine and made a couple of covers.  The blue and gold cloth was reversible, so each cushion is a slightly different colour.   I also made them slightly too big, but remedied that by stitching a flat hem around the edge!

This weekend has seen me fall in love with this colour, it is so elegant and pretty… perfect for a wedding as it can be mixed with vintage and shabby chic or go for more elegant styling.

Here are a few more pictures to inspire you…

The above pictures were taken by Shan Fisher on her Spring Bridal Photoshoot (see the rest of the photos here) and we mixed soft pink, peach, and ivory with pearls, lace and vintage fabrics (can you spot my cushions!?)

These two sets of wedding invites by Nikki at Knots & Kisses would go perfectly with a ‘Duck Egg’ colour scheme,  the Vintage Cameo design has a very elegant feel, and the Country Garden Design is a bit more shabby chic.  Visit the website to see the rest of her beautiful collection.

This bridal posy is a very simple design of white Phalaenopsis orchids, wired together and bound with a neat blue ribbon bow.

Moodboard Credits: Ruby Plum, The Greatest Cakes, Monsoon, Ella James, Coast, Meninafeliz,  ManxMiss, Irregular Choice,

Oh… what does any of this have to do with squealing at frogs?  During my cleaning frenzy I was scrubbing the bay windows of our basement flat, and there is a damp dark corner that litter collects in… I picked up an old sandwich wrapper and a frog jumped out and landed on my foot.  I squealed.

A Year in the Life of a Rose. Part 1.

This is the first part in a series of posts which aims to show you how to care for your rose plants.  Some of my customers are put off buying rose plants because they believe they are difficult and time-consuming to look after, but the reality is not so.  If you want to spend hours pruning and training your rose, then you can, but they perform just as beautifully if left to their own devices to ramble through a hedge or around an old tree stump!

This year we have been honoured to stock the stunning David Austin ® Rose plants and they have been selling so quickly we can hardly keep up with the demand.  For those of you that haven’t seen (or smelt!) a David Austin ® Rose, come and visit us down here at Tynwald Mills, because the plants we have down here are just bursting in to bloom and the flowers are absolutely gorgeous!

So, with the help of McVitie, we have put together this guide, starting with the planting of your rose…

A Whole Lotta Limes…..

Last week I had a follow up wedding consultation with a lovely couple whose wedding I am so excited to be involved with in July and as part of the meeting I made up a test piece of one of their table centres.. which involved limes… lots of them!  I wont tell you any more just yet as I don’t want to ruin the surprise of what they are having, but this couple are so creative and super cute, I just know it is going to be an awesome wedding!

So, what do I do with all these left over limes?  I put the questions to my followers on Twitter and Facebook and boy did I get some good suggestions!  From Lime Curd and Lime Sorbet to Key Lime Pie and slicing the limes into segments to go in the freezer ready for a G&T (genius!), I finally decided on an idea from one of my other lovely Brides and made Courgette and Lime Cake.

My other half is quite used to me baking cakes, my speciality being a rather yummy banana cake, but when he saw me grating courgettes up to go in the cake, he was less than impressed!!  I vowed to prove him wrong!

The recipe I used ended up being a combination of about 4 or 5 that I found on the internet so if you want to have a go yourself, here it is…

For the Cake:

• 3 free range eggs
• 125ml vegetable oil
• 150g caster sugar
• 225g self raising flour
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 2-3 medium courgettes
• handful of sultanas
• zest of 1 lime

For the Icing:

• 200g cream cheese
• 150g icing sugar
• juice of 2 limes
• zest of 1 lime
• chopped pistachio nuts

Make your Cake…

• Mix together the eggs, oil and sugar until creamy and then sieve in the flour, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder.  Mix thoroughly until all the ingredients so far are combined.
• Grate the courgette and pat any excess water off with kitchen towel before adding to the cake mixture.  Add the lime zest and sultanas (or do what I do with my banana cake and experiment with nuts, choc chips, pumpkin seeds etc!) and mix again until your arm starts to ache.
• This mixture fits into two loaf tins but you could also put it into two sandwich tins as well.  Grease the tins, and divide the mixture evenly, then pop into a preheated oven (180 deg/ Gas 4) for 25-30 minutes.
• While the cakes are baking, beat the cream cheese in a bowl until smooth (by this time I had moved on to my electric whisk!) and add the icing sugar,  lime juice and zest.
• When the cakes are cooked, take out of the oven and place on a cooling tray.  I iced them while still a little warm so the icing drizzled down the sides a bit.  Sprinkle the pistachios over the top and pop in the fridge to set the icing.

The result?  A deliciously moist and tangy cake that got the thumbs up from my other half, his workmates and a few of my lucky customers who called in to The Flower Studio before it all disappeared!  I love how the grated courgette gave the cake a pretty green speckled look and I can definitely see this recipe being used again in the summer when we have a glut of courgettes from the allotment! 

Tomorrows post is going back to flowers with a buttonhole extravaganza but do let me know if you have a go at this recipe and what you think!  Happy Baking!