Love Is In The Air

Posted by Mr Wong at 7:50 PM 0

Love is in the air, everywhere you look around.

Love is in the air, in every sight and every sound.

That was Mr. Comforts and my song.  We met 34 years ago and married 33 years ago.  

So this weekend for our anniversary we are taking a little 2 day trip to Blowing Rock, NC.

See you all in a few days.

Welcome Friends

Posted by Mr Wong at 2:00 AM 0

 Welcome Friends!
           I am glad you could come because I want to show off our little rose garden today as the roses are at their peek in here.Some of our roses haven't started to bloom yet but these hardy ones are always early.. It is a small enclosed garden at the south of our Gardener's Cottage. If you are new here and would like to see inside the Gardener's Cottage click here and here.

  I see you took your bicycle-it does look pretty.

 Come on in and have a seat.

 The vintage wicher pistachio green chairs are pretty comfortable.

 The roses are climbing high this year.

 My angel adds some charm.

 I love this antique pitcher with a big bouquet and the sweet little birdhouse.

 Have a cup of tea and enjoy a book for awhile.

 It is a cozy little secluded spot-don't you think? This area is surrounded by roses(mostly Therese Bugnet) and a beautybush behind the angel.

 Of all the pictures I took that day(last week) this is one of my favorites. It makes me smile every time.

I have been getting some garden questions lately and one day soon I will do a post on the making of our garden. If anyone has any questions-fire away and I will answer them in the post. We have a few more tours in the next five days and then a break so I will have a little more time then-although I confess it is hard to drag me indoors in summer!

I am joining My Romantic Home for Show and Tell Friday and The Rose Garden in Malevik for Show Off Saturday.

Take care,

 Carolyn

Aqua Daze

Posted by Mr Wong at 5:18 AM 0

Hello!

One of my pleasures in summer is eating out in the garden.

    And since I am loving the color aqua lately I have been collecting bits & pieces of aqua when I am out thrifting.

 Last week I found this pretty aqua tablecloth.

 Lemonade is so refreshing on a summer day.

 Pretty vintage aqua plates.

 I love aqua with touches of pink too.

 The pink beautybush is in full glory right now behind the angel watching over us.

 I painted these old wooden chairs aqua.

Hope your daze are going well!

I am joining Between Naps on the Porch for Tablescape Thursday and Home Sweet Home at The Charm of Home.

Thank you for visiting,

Carolyn

Special Garden Visitors

Posted by Mr Wong at 6:09 AM 0

 Hello everyone,
         I hope you are enjoying your summer-still can't believe it is already here. We did get some badly needed rain but now the sun is shining again. My computer was being upgraded the last few days so I was missing in action. I am happy to have it back with a lot more space for my pictures and hopefully it will be a little faster as well.
       

 The peonies are blooming away and I haven't even shown them to you yet! I hope to have time to take some photos today to share.

 I love the combo of the peonies,lady's mantle and magnificum geranium so they have been interspursed around the garden.

 The hardey roses are blooming thoughout the garden.

 Now,for some very special garden visitors- I am very honoured to have had Lauriane and her husband come to visit our home and garden all the way from Brazil.  Some of you may remember that Lauriane sent me some beautiful handmade gifts awhile ago-click here if you would like to see.Anyway,a few weeks ago Lauriane wrote to me that they would like to visit our garden in June and I was amazed and thrilled that someone would travel so far to visit because we had connected through blogging! It was a beautiful sunny day and we enjoyed our time together.

 Lauriane came bearing gifts again-you can image how delighted I was to see this beautiful painting that Lauriane did from a blog photo . I love how she captured every little detail right down to the bracket under the birdhouse that Andrew built.

 Lauriane also made these sweet little hearts for me-she knows my taste so well!

 Thank you so much Lauriane- I will cherish your visit and of course the gifts too forever! We did very well comunicating in spite of a language barrier. You can visit Laurieane at her beautiful blog Atelier Cantihnho  das Artes.

 Before Lauriane's visit we had  five tours in three days and it rained on one of the days so umbrella's came in very handy.

 My husband shot these from an upstairs bedroom.

 And last but not least we had this little pink fairy(Lila) land in our garden one evening!

A small bouquet of peonies-love their fragrance!


Thank you for joining me today 'I have a couple of tours from Japan coming up the end of the week but next week is free so my camera will be put to good use.

Enjoy your day.

Carolyn

Mid week musings and a giveaway!!

Posted by Mr Wong at 4:28 AM 0

Hi looks like this mid week musings thing is now a regular gig, so why not...a great way for me to talk about a whole bunch of randomness. Hope you are having a great week...mine is good, busy and productive. I cannot say summer has been super relaxing so far but I have managed to squeeze in some down time and the little I have had has been wonderful! I am also offering a wonderful giveaway....all details on bottom of this post.

I am actually headed to New Orleans on Friday morning and cannot wait. Its been a few years since I have been there  and I cannot wait to hit the antique shops on Royal st., indulge in french pressed coffee and a piping hot sugar laced Beignet and go to some of the wonderful restaurants we had the pleasure of visiting last time. This is absolutely NO time for a diet.....the food in New Orleans is off the hook amazing! Any suggestions are more than welcome!

For anyone else who has "a thing" for New Orleans....this book is one of my favorites. Got it about a year ago and it just captures that New Orleans essence to a tee, a really wonderful book!

Many of you are so kind to ask about sweet Teddy, he is doing well.....hair 90% grown back so its good to see him whole again. Heres a few pics of him doing what he does best......yep, relaxing!

Does he think he is CZ Guest here or what? 

I like to share the results of my weekly Which would you choose and thought it would be fun to see which girls bedrooms took the top prize from last week, so here they are in order of their votes!

1st place (and my personal favorite)!

A close 2nd place 

Tied for 3rd place

Several of the others vied for 4th place...what can I say, my readers, you have excellent taste!

Finally ordered the wallpaper for the back powder room (this is off the kitchen and the bathroom we use on a daily basis). I decided it was one of the first I loved and often times we go back to the original choices.....this was the perfect blend of something elegant but not too formal, fresh and crisp. I really like it and it gives off the exact vibe I am looking for......will finalize the check I will do the window treatments in and likely have some cute little fabric shades made for the sconces too.......

I also like covering shades with fabric for a custom touch...experimented here, me likey!

I really like Anthropologie and think they are one of the stores that are getting better and better. I recently ordered a bunch of these exquisite glasses...love love them! I am a sucker for anything etched and these look really old and are just beautiful! I cannot wait to use them....what do you think? I have found so many unique and beautiful things there.......

Can you believe I am STILL waiting (only six months and counting) on the Thomas O Brien rock crystal sconces? Crazy! But I have looked and looked for a suitable replacement to no avail....so wait I will. Every time I look at them, I realize they are perfect and I can envision them in my room so hopefully the newest delivery date of August is finally the date that I can see these babies and get them up and get this bathroom done!!!! Once they are up above the tub and at my vanity...I just need my chandelier, a chair and I am set...woo hoo!!!!

Here they are.....by Thomas O Brien

They will go above the tub and on either side of the mirror (single ones) on the vanity....

And on either side of the mirror

And very excited finally got these gorgeous Ralph Lauren sconces ordered for the living room....cannot wait to get them! They are really beautiful, leave it up to Ralph!

They will go on this wall (one either side of botanicals) as well as between all the French doors in the living room.

Moving on.....I love costume jewelry, well I love all kinds of jewelry but being paranoid about losing (lets just say I have done my share) I don't  wear "the good stuff' unless I am going to a wedding or special event and it is all locked up in a safe spot. But I love fun costume and have quite a bit, just ordered some jewelry drawer boxers/liners and cannot wait to start organizing, but in the meantime how cute is this? Its a dress form with hooks for jewelry its finished in a muslin fabric and has French writing. Believe it or not found it at Michaels for $14.99!! I love it and think it adds such a sweet whimsical touch to my closet.

Store biz......I am not going to be adding anything over the summer. While business is going wonderfully I am hoping to take a little time to enjoy summer as it goes by so fast. I have a few brackets left and this is it as well as a few other items I am just about sold out of. I am planning to revamp things come fall, phasing a few things out and adding some exciting new things, so stay tuned and thanks for your continued support and enthusiasm!

I have one of the black and gold brackets on the right and one pair of the antique white painted brackets. I am selling the one black and gold for $45.00 and the pair of large ant.white for $100. This is the very last of my brackets and these prices are far far below retail. Email me if you wan them.

Also......

Last antler pillow.......

Last gray chinoiserie pillow..........

Last small dough bowl, since I have one left I am selling this for $100 even. A great deal if you know the price of dough bowls...contact me if interested!

Last small olive tray (they will be in again sometime later August).....

Last black chinoiserie tray......$90.00

And last have two of these beautiful blue and white scalloped dishes left and that is it! These are soo pretty, I kept one for myself! If you are intersted in this item, you can purchase online (have only two left)!

If there is something in the marketplace you feel there is a lack of, or you would like to see me carry, shoot me an email. I love hearing your feedback!!

Now onto my giveaway, giving a stunning silver cake spade and a darling set of crown bookends to two lucky winners!

All you need to do to enter is leave a comment on this blog after visiting my online store and tell me an item or two that you would love to receive. That's it! I will announce a winner on Tuesday morning. Click here to visit my store.

 First the beautiful crown bookends...........

And the beautiful silver highly decorative cake spade.....

Thank you Kristy and Beth from one of my favorite blogs Design Chic for featuring my butlers pantry in your gorgeous post today about pantries!! Great post, click here to visit!

So that's my randomness for a few days. I am leaving early Friday for New Orleans and will return early next week. I will miss visiting all of my favorite blogs but it will give me something to look forward to when I get back. I do have access to my emails while gone so feel free to contact me if you need to. And if you have any must see or do suggestions for the Big Easy, please by all means pass them along! Wishing you a wonderful rest of the week and a fabulous weekend ahead! Until next week........