Old Fashioned Gardens....Big & Not So Big!

My Real Life Size Old Fashioned Garden
Followers of this Journal will know that I love gardening.   I simply haven't been able to spend as much time out there as I would have wished in 2012 though!  Needless to say, it  has rather more of a "rambling" look than ever these days. But you know....yesterday, whilst enjoying a much needed coffee break out in the sunshine I had a few moments and REALLY looked at my garden through different eyes....and realised that if I ignored the weeds, the broken bits off my lovely ancient arbour, blight on my box hedge etc..... suddenly it doesn't actually look too bad out there!

This year I seem to have more Valerian and Acquilegias than ever before! Nature has worked magic and they have seeded all over the place......wonderful. My Choisya in the background is magnificently in bloom and the heady aroma is delightful. At last, my garden has that real old fashioned country garden feel to it and am chuffed.

 

Even my newly created herb garden from last summer is looking rather nice and well established. I have a huge container of pebbles sitting on my front driveway, currently waiting to be carried round to the back for the herb garden pathway. Hmmmm....guess who will be doing that! They have to be carried en route through the garage in order to get them round to the back. Trouble is, the garage is currently jammed pack with junk that will have to go to the skip first.  I think I'll need to eat double or even treble portions of Weetabix to summon up the energy for that little job!

Now A Video Of Our Four Little Vintage Garden Workshops All Together
We've finally got round to creating our latest Nostalgia In Miniature Workshops promotional video.  This time it consists of a compilation of photographs from all four workshop projects in our Little Vintage Garden Workshops Series. We ran with this theme from last June 2011...culminating in an all day  Little Old Garden Shed Workshop at Waterperry Gardens earlier in March this year. Hope you like it!

You Can Now Take A Peek At The Little Vintage Hall!

With just two weeks to go until our next Nostalgia In Miniature Workshop, preparations are in full swing once more. We can now let you take a peek at what we'll be making as photos of the prototypes are finally complete.

This is The Little Vintage Hall and is the first of three workshops based on an old vintage hall theme. As always with all of our workshops, the project can be worked in either 1/12th or 1/24th scale and although it has been built in the style of a Victorian hall, we will be joining it in the 1930s era.

Above is the 1/2th scale version and participants will be given a choice of contemporary 1930s colours in which to decorate their little vignette. Polished floorboards, aged distempered walls and panelling plus a few odd cracks here and there, will be the order of the day. The noticeboard includes all kinds of interesting information such as an undertaker's advert and various committee rotas. As we decided to stage this hall specifically in 1939, there are some early wartime posters too.

And this is the smaller 1/24th scale version.

 The whole project has been great fun to do with lots of scope for the participants to make this vignette something very special.

For more details about our workshops, see:

http://www.miniatureworkshops.com/

Ere.....whose that creeping into the photo!

Its only good old Fag Ash Lil & Billy No Mates!

Robin Britton is my Nostalgia In Miniature Workshops partner....but also she is a talented miniature dollmaker too and works in 1/12th, 1/16th, 1/24th and 1/48th scales under the trade name of Coombe Crafts!!!!  All the dolls seen above are her magnificent work.

To view more of Robin's dolls, see her blog: http://coombecrafts.blogspot.co.uk/