Spring has sprung! ...

I know it's not officially Spring yet but Spring has definately arrived at our place. The garden is filled with birds. We have birds with babies nesting in our eaves. I have been watching momma bird dash to and fro to feed her little ones. Birds abound in our garden all year round but at present we are blessed by the prescence of honeyeaters, finches, willie wagtails, magpies, plovers,doves and a pretty blue fairy wren and his mate. Of course we also have our quota of pesky sparrows and starlings.
I get great pleasure watching the garden change it's clothes with the seasons. The trees bud and blossom and the orchard is bursting with new life at present. Flowers on the plums and quinces and buds appearing on some of the other later blooming fruit trees. I wandered out to the garden earlier this week and took a few photos to share.

I hope Spring is bringing you joy at your place too.

wishing you sunshine in your shadows
Helen

Tuesday trinkets 10...

Today I'm sharing a few pretty floral brooches. It seems flowers have been the inspiration for jewellery makers since ....well forever!

This vintage beauty is a rare articulated brooch. Each of the individual petals can be moved to whatever position you would like to put them. I'm not sure what era it is from but it has been lovingly cared for and in almost perfect condition. Goldtone with yellow and white enamelled petals it has a cluster of clear rhinestones in the centre. If I had come across one of these without knowing what articulated mean't I would have presumed the jewellery to be broken!

This little brooch is really tiny measuring approximately barely 3/4 inch across. As you can see in the photograph it is made from the tiniest seashells ever!

This vintage beauty is rather shabby but was once beautifully enamelled. The enamelling on the leaves is still pretty well intact. I love the way the leaves turn over and are decorated with marcasite.

Another enamelled treasure that I suspect is from the same vintage as the previous brooch. Isn't that blue just fabulous? This one has kept it's enamelling but sadly has lost part of it's marcasite stem.

I tried and tried to get a good photo of this delicate floral brooch but this is the best I could get! It has tiny enamelled flowers dotted all over and each has a teensy diamante in the centre. It really is much prettier than my photo shows.

This brooch is a vintage plastic. I believe it is lucite which came into use for jewellery in the 1930s and was offered  as a cheaper alternative to Bakelite. My understanding of this type of brooch is that the pattern inside is carved into the back of the plastic and painted. The colour you see around the edges of this brooch are reflections in the bevelled edge. I have some much prettier examples of this type which I shall share when I find them. Lucite was very popular in the 1940s.

Another enamelled beauty I love the simplicity of this dogwood blossom. Again I am not sure of it's exact vintage but it is certainly a well made brooch that has been loved and cared for.

This is an exquisitely made little bunch of violets. The enamelling and detail is just gorgeous! I think I had a 'thing' for enamelled jewellery for a while lol.

More violets and I think a modern plastic. This one is stamped Avon.

wishing you sunshine in your shadows until next time
Helen

Silent Saturday...

My take on wordless wednesday ;)

Wishing you sunshine in your shadows
Helen

Simple pleasures ...

Some pretty things I found in a walk around the garden this week.

We have quite a few bromeliads in the garden. They look quite unassuming most of the year but waiting for their flowers is well worth it!

One of the roses has developed the loveliest big, plump rosehips. Hopefully that means lots of flowers next season!

I'm not sure of the name of this pretty shrub but it looks a little like a salvia. It is covered in these pretty purple flowers. Who said you can't have flowers all year round?

With a promise of great things to come (I hope) the daffodils are beginning to shoot! We have an edging of them around the lawn. As you can probably tell our garden is 'let go' a bit. We aren't too fussed about weeding etc. We benefit in having a part 'wild' garden with visits and live in residents of the bird and animal kind. Hope the peek into our garden reminded you of the simple pleasures all around us.
wishing you sunshine in your shadows
Helen

Art by nature...

Joy of joys the house fairies must have been watching out for me this week. My missing battery charger for my camera just suddenly turned up! Yayyy! I am so delighted. Today my sweetie and I spent the day out in the bush so I took advantage and took a few photos to share.Nothing too stunning but enjoyable just the same. Unfortunately my camera is only the point and click kind so that limits the kind of photos I can capture. Enjoy the 'art' by mother nature.
wishing you sunshine in your shadows
Helen

I found these few dead leaves left on a tree and thought they looked rather picturesque.

pretty dried seed pods

There were hundreds of these butterflies fluttering around and it took me forever to creep up on one to get a half decent photograph!

Interesting fungi growing up a tree trunk.

This little tree was such an interesting shape I wished i could bring it home to use to display some of my vintage jewellery pieces. (I imagined all the diamante pieces glittering in the sunshine looking like fairy lights)

I saw lots of birds today, unfortunately my camera isn't good enough to get really good shots but I managed to capture this little robin redbreast showing off for the ladies!

Hard to see I know but there is a tiny piece of butterfly wing on this pile of leaf litter.

On our way home I had my sweetie stop the car so I could photograph some beautiful sunflowers that a farmer had planted around his fields. They are so cheerful to look at!