On the Road #3

Consider this an ode to my favourite flowers – peonies.

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I think people could hear me for miles at the Berggarten in Hanover, when I was emitting sounds like “aaaahhh…” and “ooohhh…” looking at all these varieties.

P.S. Boundaries between species are not clear and estimates of the number of species range from 25 to 40!

On the Road #2

Have you heard of The Herrenhausen Gardens (in German – Herrenhäuser Gärten) in Hanover?

These are probably the most impressive gardens I have ever seen (I haven’t seen much of France though). They are made up of the Great Garden (Großer Garten), the Berggarten, the Georgengarten and the Welfengarten. I’m not sure how much time you need in order to see everything, but we’ve spent the whole day wandering in around and taking in that beauty (also discussing how many people they need to keep everything that tidy).

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Quoting Wikipedia & sharing my photos:

“The Great Garden owes much of its aesthetics to Sophia of Hanover, who commissioned the French gardener Martin Charbonnier. As its name implies, it is indeed a large garden, comprising 50 hectares of lawns, hedges, walkways, and statues arranged in strict geometrical patterns.”

“The Berggarten was created in 1666 as a vegetable garden for the Great Garden on a hill north of the Herrenhäuser Castle. Sophia of Hanover later transformed the Berggarten into a garden for exotic plants, and in 1686 a conservatory was erected.

The garden once served more than an aesthetic purpose – it was used to experiment with the breeding of plants normally native to southern lands in the northern climate of Lower Saxony. This experiment failed in its attempts to grow rice, but was successful with some other plants such as tobacco and mulberry.”

“The Berggarten has been transformed over the years from a simple vegetable garden into a large botanical garden with its own attractions.”

On the Road #1

Every time I go away this blog remains silent, which is rather boring, isn’t it? On this occasion I was determined to post at least a few times while I’m on the road (no matter how tired I was). Here’s post No.1 – it tells a short story that will of course lead to a bigger, more interesting one, so please hop on board!

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My family is in love with Germany, we go there every year and, although we have already seen quite a lot of this country, it never ceases to impress us. We start our journey by deciding on a place we definitely want to see and then just keep going. We don’t book any hotels in advance, which of course might cause some anxiety, yet it always makes us feel that we are on a constant adventure.

The place we definitely want to see this time is Trier (South West), the oldest city in Germany,  and we started in the island of Rugen (North East) – this pretty much covers the whole of the country, so lets hope it doesn’t take us too long to get there.

During the first day we almost reached Hanover. We stopped in Celle for the night, where we found a small hotel run by an extremely friendly Scottish guy named Leslie (I’ve never been looked after that well!).

That’s what caught my eye so far:

Perfect fields that reminded me of David Hockney’s paintings – it would be nice to paint these patches of different greens (the outskirts of Sassnitz).

Red poppies and blue cornflowers – stunning colour combinations (the outskirts of Sassnitz)!

A huge bridge connecting the island of Rugen to the continent – it has a vertical clearance for ships of 42 meters (nearly in Stralsund).

June is the month for peonies, no wonder they had so many for sale on the market in Celle.

By the way, it’s a very beautiful town, definitely worth mentioning, so here are a few lines from Wikipedia and then some photos:

Celle has a castle (Schloss Celle) built in the renaissance and baroque style and a picturesque old town centre (the Altstadt) with over 400 timber-framed houses, making Celle one of the most remarkable members of the German Timber-Frame Road.

Summer Muse

Summer issue of A Muse for Life went live today.

Summer 2013

Make sure you don’t miss the latest articles and interviews, as we have put lots of effort into finding interesting people who like art, music, crafts, gardening, cooking and baking, traveling. By the way, you’ll even meet a talking dog – Shilton, who is looking for a loving home.

You can read this magazine online or download it onto your computer, here’s the link:

http://issuu.com/decorartuk/docs/muse-summer2013

I hope you will enjoy reading it!

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P.S. I’d really appreciate if you could let me know what you think or maybe suggest what should be added/changed.

June Flowers in a Vase

I’ve been so busy lately (Doing what? … You will see tomorrow, as that’s when the next issue of A Muse for Life comes out.) and this blog got neglected. I know that I haven’t been paying enough attention and the best indicator is the number of spam messages – this time 26! (Do people believe someone will read them? Dear Spammers, I never do.)

Anyway, the other day I had to think of some illustrations, but got sidetracked… Of course I felt guilty, but I couldn’t stop myself. Beautiful music + paint and brushes can do wonders. Oh, and lets not forget the subject – you do need something that would inspire you. After this relaxing session it wasn’t too difficult to decide what the illustrations should look like, so it seems that I didn’t loose anything at all and that sometimes it’s good to choose, lets say, a different “path”.

There you go, the result:

June Flowers in a Vase, 2013

Any ideas what the flowers are? I once again invite you to be my art critics.

Fabulous Books – #8 A Life Less Ordinary

2013 is for reading and enjoying fabulous books.

Decor-Art is happy to announce that our cooperation with Cico Books and their sister company Ryland Peters and Small (RPS) has opened up brilliant opportunities to introduce you to their new publications on crafting, gardening and interior design. Every month we will be reviewing amazing books that inspire to create and to recycle, books that encourage to discover and to shape beautiful surroundings.

All reviews can be found on this Blog under the category called “Fabulous Books” (right hand side).

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If you happen to come across “A Life Less Ordinary” I am sure you will agree that this is a beautifully published book, that has nothing to do with the dull word ordinary. Full of attractive images, old photographs, wise words and enchanting stories it becomes an album that has recorded the birth of Igigi – an inspirational lifestyle store in Brighton.

I’ll be honest with you, this is the first ever book on interiors and inspirations that I read as a novel!

I fell in love with the views of the two main characters – Zoe and Alex, who have allowed us to have a glimpse at their lives. Once you find out how fate brought them together it becomes clearer that we should probably forget coincidence and take a closer look at everything what happens around us. It seems that throughout the years working together and creating something that might be called little fantasy worlds, where muted colours serve as a perfect backdrop, they have found a recipe for a life less ordinary - “making a connection with each person along the way”.

I feel that Igigi should be included into the list of places to visit in Brighton (that’s my No.1 stop next time I’m there), as looking at the photographs and reading the philosophy, that hides behind each item, it must be a completely different world to the one we are used to.

I picture it as a safe harbour that shelters from anything that is too strong, too bright, too artificial, too much… It must be more than a shop - it looks like a place where one can learn that vintage and reclaimed things have to be kept, just because they are a big part of the story that doesn’t necessarily have to end with a new decade or century.

A Life Less Ordinary – a perfect gift inspiring to slow down and live your life to the full. Tasteful interiors, brilliant antique and vintage things, wise words and even a few recipes! + little envelops with small surprises for the readers.

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A Life Less Ordinary by Zoe Ellison and Alex Legendre is published by Cico Books at £25.00 and is available from www.rylandpeters.com

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By the way, you can always visit Iggi online and experience the virtual version of the life which is far away from being ordinary: www.igigigeneralstore.com

Spending Time Wisely + 2 Desktop Images

Summer!? Yes, it’s finally here. Now all I have to do is… try and spend time wisely – do as much as possible (I don’t want to regret that summer’s over when the autumn comes).

How do I achieve this?

I managed to find some advice on the internet. Below you will find 5 ideas that should help (fingers crossed):

1. Resist the urge to rush.
2. Single-task.
3. Wake up earlier or go to bed later.
4. Silence all distractions.
5.  Stop doing things that don’t bring joy or results.

Some more ideas can be found here, you can choose what might work best for you.

Oh, and as this is the 1st post this month, here are 2 June desktop images:

(Please click on the image to see its full version, then right click and choose the “save  picture as…” option to download it onto your computer.)