Monday Love: Spring flowers

"Novels are like paintings, specifically watercolors. Every stroke you put down you have to go with. Of course you can rewrite, but the original strokes are still there in the texture of the thing. "
Joan Didion

Just a bit of watercolor happiness to get your week of to a lovely start.  I once did it for a series of potscards and it reminded me of how long it is i sat outside with my paper and colors, painting "al fresco" - something i really wish to get back to this spring! Easter is coming realy close now - have yo planned anything fun?

Painting: "Honeycourt" by MartinaVoigt-Schmid

Friday Pretties: Girlfriends in the garden

Gardening is how I relax. It's another form of creating and playing with colors.
Oscar de la Renta

 Everything is more fun, if you do it with a girlfriend. Yesterday, instead of getting back to my canvases, as i had planned, i got engaged in a day of heavy gardening, helped by a lovely friend of mine and my son, who both developed Crocodile-Dundee qualities in tearing out huge elderberry branches and other things, that made the place look like a djungle. In fact, it felt like creating a huge - 3-dimensional painting!

This weekend however, i hope to relax and enjoy the well tended greenness, look at the flowers, bronze my legs, do my toenails and maybe eat that yummy strawberry crumble we tried for the magazine some time ago. The crust is made from oatflakes, a bit of flower, sugar, melted butter and a bit of Cardamon - so good!

Chin chin to girlfriends - and by that i include YOU! You make the world go round in a nicer way and you totally rock!

Photos: 1st: Vogue, 2nd, 3rd and 4th: Martina Voigt-Schmid

Monday Love: A day in the garden

With a lovely sundress 

by Emerson made. She used to make and sell just gorgeous handmade flowers, and i always thought, wow, her style is so unique and special, i would like to buy almost every piece she's wearing. And it seems like i was not the only one thinking this way. The other day i looked at her page and - voilá - she has her own clothing line now. It's worth checking out!

With tea at 4.30 - served in pretty china
- one more thing on my  ever growing wish list!  Teatime is a custom i love, although we only practise it on special days - complete with scones and cream and berries .... hmm, why not today?
Foto: Country Living

With a self made bouquet of flowers
- let's see if i still have some roses left to pick in my garden. What i certainly do have is elderberries - they grow like a wildfire here!
Foto: Country Living

With a baby boxwood
- just got this cute little one - it needs a proper pot now! My dream garden is a combination of formal and wild, and nicely cropped boxwoods are perfect to add some stucture here and there.  Foto: Moi

And with enough time 
to get around doing all these things - and maybe some more. Heeeeelp, so many things on my desk! See you outside!

Cherries & Mint

We'll take the cake with the red cherry on top. Navjot Singh Sidhu

Red cherries are irresistible if you see one of them on something good. A bowl of them, freshly picked, looks delicious.
But a HUGE tree of them can be overwhelming. Like the tree we have in our garden. So many cherries up there, we could feed all the birds of the village!
Sometimes, like now, i wish i had more time to revel in making things from what the garden offers, but mostly, we just eat it as it comes.




An exeption was the Mint-Cashew Pesto i made the other day from the abundance of fresh mint growing in our herb-patch. You just blend it with Cashew nuts, extra vergine olive oil and a bit of lemon peel and orange juice. If you're a mint-lover, it tastes great over pasta or in a salad-dressing.

You need:
75 g Cashewnuts
40 g fresh mint leaves
15 g fresh basil leaves
170 ml olive oil extra vergine
grated peel of one lemon or lime
Dash of orange juice
salt & pepper

Mix Cashews, mint and basil leaves, olive-oil and a dash of orange-juice in a blender. Stir in the lemon-peel and salt and pepper to taste. In a tight jar, the pesto keeps in the refrigerator up to 2 months.

Photos 1-4 MVS, last photo and recipe: Living at home

Little dots - Forgetmenots

A photoshopped picture from Robin in the garden - i love those light blue dots! Have i mentioned before, that dots make me happy? That's why i want to paint them all the time!

Bonnard Garden

Did i tell you i love Bonnard? His garden scenes are great and i'd like to have one of those in my living room. This is our garden photoshopped in Bonnard style (well - kind of). This spring is so wonderful - all things blooming at once!