Free shipping weekend includes new designs

Another Free Shipping weekend on Cally Creates products* including these new fishing net iphone cases and skins when you use this link - offer expires January 12, 2014 at Midnight Pacific Time. *Offer excludes Framed Art Prints, Stretched Canvases and Throw Pillows with insert.

I was yearning for a beach visit but in lieu of that I started looking through old photos and thought these would make nice cards, prints and phone skins. Sadly they aren't large enough to make bigger items but they satisfied my beachy cravings.

September, tiny ponies, red Rowan

Autumn came early to many plants in the garden after a brief dip in night time temperatures, meaning the baby Rowan in the garden turned red long before the mature ones. Also the young Spindle and the Virginia Creeper making seasonal leafy splashes of brightness sooner than expected. Lovely. And then a surprise, tiny ponies 10 minutes from home.

Ulrika Kestere, Hair, Blue Clothes

Ulrika Kestere - Winter horse poster €22 here

Ulrika Kestere - Ice Princess

I was originally directed towards the top photograph by Ulrika Kestere by someone saying she had a similar wardrobe to me. I thought they meant furniture wardrobe but clearly they meant likes to wear lots of different blues with a touch of red. The clothes are nice but it's the photo itself I like most. It is part of a series called "Girl with 7 horses" and she has made this one available to buy as a print here. You can see more of her photographs on her blog Ulicam. I liked the wintery one because I collect blue dresses and have long wanted to photograph them in snow, but it's always been too wet, too cold or too windy. She is tougher than I am.

I was looking at old photos this week and found one of me as a kid on the banks of the Mississippi River wearing blue with a touch of red (loved my bandanna) in 1984 when our parents bundled us all into a Camper Van and spent the Summer driving from LA to New York (having been living in LA 2yrs but returning to live in Scotland). I didn't realise I was doing non traditional hair buns in '84, I thought I didn't bun my hair until college in '89. Ulrika has an animated gif of braided hair that reminds me of why I put up with my really long but infuriatingly prone to tangling hair for so long. I loved playing with it, so many ways to express my mood. But when you have ME every bit of energy is precious and it's pointless wasting it on a daily battle with tuggy hair (you can see the tugs beginning to form a blur in centre of the bottom photo). Last January I chopped nearly all of it off and last month I did it again. But it's nice to find photo's of it long.


Me with my Brother. Watching Mississippi paddle steamer 1984

Me at Big Bear Lake, California 2008

Myung Urso

Myung Urso - Brooch: Dialogue - 2011 (via Klimt02)
Natural dyed silk, thread, sterling silver, lacquer


Myung Urso - Neckpiece: Gray Scape 2011 (via Klimt02)
Natural dyed silk, thread, sterling silver


Myung Urso - Brooch: Hometown 2011 (via Klimt02)
Natural dyed silk, thread, sterling silver, lacquer

Great pieces, I always like when you can see the hand of the maker in the construction, and white/grey/red is always a colour combo I love.

Halloween costume inspiration - black & red

Sylvia Ji 'La Adelita' 2010 via the Joshua Liner Gallery.

I love this Sylvia Ji painting. Although it has much deeper meaning it also makes for great Halloween inspiration and it combines my love of dressing up, Dia de los Muertos and Freda Kahlo in one glorious image. These are large painting in Acrylic and gold leaf on wood panels and you can read more about the background to the works in the Las Adelitas exhibition on the Joshua Liner Gallery flickr page for the show.


Sylvia Ji 'Red Quechquemitls' 2010 see full exhibition at the Joshua Liner Gallery.


Sylvia Ji 'La Madrina' 2010 see full exhibition at the Joshua Liner Gallery.


Andrea Peira's winning Photo in the World Body Painting Festival 2011

This is exactly the sort of thing I like to do, but when you live in a mobile home and like candles it's just not practical, so I make do with enjoying the work of others unless I'm invite to things in large open spaces. The Photograph above was by Andrea Peira and the costume and body painting was by Birgit Mörtl+Melanie Rodel Body Painting Festival 2011


Birgit Mörtl+Melanie Rodel - Body painting & costume for the World Body PaintingFestival 2011 (via weddingphotography.com)


Halloween make-up via Hairdresser-Models.eu

Halloween costume ideas - Day of the Dead

-2006
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2003

I love Mexican Dia de los Muertos - Day of the Dead. All that colour, art, creativity and food, what a joyous way to celebrate and remember loved ones who have died. Every few years some friends host a Day of the Dead Party instead having a traditional Halloween party. In the early years I started off with simple skulls make-up and a plain red wig but in subsequent years I was inspired by edible Sugar Skull candy and opted for much more colourful face painting and costumes and lots of colourful flowers in my wig to give that true Mexican feel. As always, I did other people's faces first so my own was a bit of a last minute rush, but even messy painting looks jolly when it's in such bright colours. I always enjoy doing them.

Autumn chills

Unexpected chrysanthemum bloom like a firework


Achillea, flowering late after a move in Spring.


Aster 'Tonga' unperturbed by foul weather.


The weather has been so bad I've not even planted my Spring bulbs. The few still dry days we've had have been dedicated to getting the house watertight before winter. We started early so it would be finished by October but after discovering part of the house was about to collapse - the 3 day joinery job has now been 3 weeks so far, and there hasn't been time to even think about getting the heating fixed. I'm getting a bit anxious since they are predicting another hard winter. Last year the big snow blast that halted the country arrived in late November. Hopefully this year everyone is prepared and if it happens we'll deal with it in a less embarrassingly pathetic manner. Snowy countries must have thought we were complete wimps since all our news reports made it sound like the most extreme natural disaster had hit us.

Yesterday the rain stopped for a bit and I really wanted to get out planting, but instead I had to rehang a door (no fun having front door and inner door unattached in go around filling all the gaps I found in the walls and windows as the rain or wind came through them the day before. I hate missing the last bits of colour outside, and have hardly managed to get any photo's with the wind so constant, but here are a few of the Autumn flowers in the garden.


Pyracantha berries at their Autumnal best.


Cherry 'Spire' still good on a grey day despite 1/3 of it's leaves being whipped away in September gales.

Other things doing well just now are the flowers of the large Sedums (the 'ice plant' kind), amazing red leaves on most of the Blueberries, gold and orange leaves on the Enkianthus & Amelanchier. The Rowans lost their leaves a few weeks ago (gales again) so there is more light around for the several other annuals and perrenials still in flower like Dianthus, Verbena, Heather, Primrose (they think it's Spring), Rudbeckia, Lamium, Sweet Peas, Scabious, Lychnis and even some Foxgloves.

Hawthorn Shield Bug

Hawthorn Shield Bug nymph - Acanthosoma Haemorrhoidale, about 5mm

Look at the Panda faced little fellow I founf in the garden this month. It's a mid instar nymph of a Hawthorn Shield Bug. There are very few Hawthorn berries around but they clearly like the Pyracantha too and get the goodness out of them with what I call their 'doober' a little sucking tube, which may or may not be similar to the proboscis of other insects. I know with butterflies they can curl theirs up whereas the shield bugs tend to tuck theirs under their body when they are not using it. I don't know what they eat the rest of he year but they are vegetarian.


Hawthorn Shield Bug hiding out in the Pyracantha berries


Hawthorn Shield Bug mid instar nymph

The distinctive red of this fellow is already beginning to take on some hints of green, which can be more clearly seen on the photo below from a week earlier. I didn't even realise it was there till I checked my berry photo's and spotted it. When I went out a week later he/she was still on the same clump of berries, posing for the shots above (too windy for good focus).



The webstite British Bugs is great for Identifying theses sorts of critters and shows photos and illustrations of them at all difference life cycle stages. I'd seen the much larger adults before but I'd never seen the tiny and variously coloured young. I'm very happy to have a garden they like since they are becoming rarer in Scotland. Below is an adult one I spotted in April and which I tend to see around the garden from time to time. I had no idea about all the variations they go through before adulthood.


Adult Hawthorn Shield Bug - about 15mm long

I'll be watching out for the wee thing over the coming weeks to see if I can photograph it as it turns green and grows bigger, though perhaps it will move elsewhere to blend in.

Another first was spotting a 5th instar nymph of a Parent Bug beside my Sweet Peas, I managed to get it onto a broken terracotta pot for some photo's before returning him to the foliage to hide.


5th instar nymph of a Parent Bug - Elasmucha Grisea

It's hard to believe but the wind here still hasn't stopped, I'd hoped the tail end of Hurricane Katia would mark the start of a calm period but I was very much mistaken. Last week continuing gales trashed my coldframe and lots of the propagated plants inside. They represented months of time and love and were going to make a huge difference to the new bit of my garden next Spring, and for filling out gaps left by winter casualties.

I've saved what I could but it was a very sorry mess, and now I have nowhere to house the 100's of plants that need winter protection. Time to cobble together something that can handle wind, rain, pest invasion and possible heavy snow (and on that note the men still haven't replaced the garage roof that collapsed in the snow in December).

Summer foods change to Autumn foods

Nothing says summer like wild tomatoes on toast. But already the Summer veg is showing hints of Autumn. The raspberries are almost done and being replaced by brambles, though they are mostly not ready just yet, another week or two of warm sun needed.

No more Elderflower, Hibiscus and Lemon cordial (below). I can probably start picking rose hips soon so perhaps something along that line for days when I want rose coloured liquids and a boost of Vitamin C to ward off those colds that so often catch you when the seasons change.




The Rowan berries have been fully red for a week, a sure sign of the Summer winding down. It feels like we never really had a Summer, so much rain and wind, but then I look at my garden pictures and there was so much happening, I can enjoy what I snapped over a few days for the rest of the year. Not that the garden has stopped giving, there are lots more flowers to enjoy as well as edibles. Still picking what the wind left of the Blueberries and the Aronia 'Viking' is so abundant it's more than made up for the missing Blue B's.

Yesterday I pulled my first carrot, A beautiful Organic Early Nantes variety, so tasty and one of the few vegetables not bothered by pests this year and the Rainbow Chard seems to be perking up a bit and has the loveliest stems of bright yellow, red and raspberry. The Alpine Strawberries seem to be going on forever, they've clearly loved the wet weather.

Garden Blogger's Bloom Day - Hot berry colours

Achillea 'Red Velvet' (twice), Cornflower 'Double Black', Viola 'Rose', Mimulus 'White Flame, Aster chinensis Matsumoto Crimson





Viola (possibly 'Red blotch') with Heuchera 'Purple Palace', Pelargonium 'Lord Bute', Sanguisorba officinalis 'Red Thunder', Osteospermum 'Sunny Sheila'





Clematis Purpurea 'Plena Elegans', Knautia macedonica (twice)




Allium sphaerocephalon, Persicaria amplexicaulis 'JS Caliente' (not as red as this photo implies), Osteospermum (unknown variety grown as an annual)

Renamed my post as I realised it was the August Garden Blogger's Bloom Day and May Dreams Gardens, something I've been meaning to link into all year. There are so many things flowering just now I can't keep up with the photo's but these ones I had uploaded already and are all in flower on the 15th, looking very summery in their hot colours. I may do more posts of other colours this week.

Of course there are plenty of other colours in flower just now, Yellow stars include Rudbekia, Tagetes Orange Gem, Coreopsis, Fennel, Ragwort, Santolina. Blues come from Hyssop, Nigella, Monkshood, Clematis, Viola. Whites are everywhere making the garden glow at night mainly from the Feverfew and the various large flowered Daisies but also Clematis, Dianthus, Cosmos, Sedum, Foxglove. Purples from Verbena bonariensis & Rigida, Clematis, Osteospermum and my beloved Kale. Paler pinks from Phuopsis (which has been flowering for months and months), Brachyscome, Mallow, Hydrangea... the list for so many of these colours goes on and on.

I'm so thrilled that my new patch which is only a year old has so much thriving in it already, mostly grown from cuttings, divisions and seed or gleaned at bargain prices. I've spent less on this than the 'average' UK woman spends on clothes and make-up each month. And on that note, I was shocked to read that 85% of UK women over 50 spend £1500 on their holiday wardrobe!!! I'm stunned, I doubt I've spent that on my entire wardrobe in 10 years. Imagine how many plants you could buy. And that was a report done during a recession, goodness knows what they used to spend.

Anyway, I'm going to spend some time today doing a bit of an update on my FOLIA
garden tracking page to get photo's on for as many of this months flowering plants as possible. I invite you to take a look and maybe even start documenting your own growing activities there.