Eight colourful cards for autumn

My card deliveries seem to come around more quickly, but that’s ok as I’m still enjoying receiving them - and using them. And even more so now that we don’t have a shop around the corner it’s handy to have a selection of cards to choose from. The Card Boys also do a Christmas selection, but once again I’ve decided against that hoping that I will make most of ours, and supplement those that I don’t with charity cards.

Once again though for my homemade cards I’ve gone for Christmas trees - it’s definitely a theme of mine, which also seems to have slipped into the charity cards I’ve bought unintentionally. It’s not something I’m sad about though!

As before the eight cards in the quarterly subscription box are all blank inside, and usually only a couple of the cards in each box have determined use, in this box two are for birthdays, but in previous boxes there has also been a thank you card.

ARTIST: CLAIRE PAUL

This month I’ve photographed them on a colourful, tropical background which works well for many of the cards which also have vibrant colours, but also works with the more muted colours in the mountain and valley scene above.

ARTIST: LAURA BARNES

The three cheeky monkey cards is one of my favourites in this box and may just have influenced the background - if you look in the top left corner you can just spot part of another monkey! I’m not sure if this was an intentional plan of mine or not.

ARTIST: MARTHA DUNCAN

I like the simplicity of this swimmer shot, and the squiggly ripples that they’re making. It has a calm about it and I can see this card having many uses. The asterisks with faces card below is cheery and it’s clear what its intended purpose is from a single glance.

ARTIST: ABBIE INGLEBY

ARTIST: MARTHA DUNCAN

The cards in these boxes often feature flora and fauna, and these two are no different but their approach in entirely different. Above you have the punchy oranges design, and below a more delicate line drawing of flowers.

ARTIST: REBECCA DIGGLE

ARTIST: MELISSA DONNE

The final two cards are by the same artist, and you can see that they’re related both with (and I mean this is a good way) splodgy flowers, which have an almost folklore feel to them.

ARTIST: MELISSA DONNE

My other favourite in this box is the dove card above, it just has a special feel about it and I think could be used for many occasions and correspondence. It also symbolises peace, which I’m sure we all agree the world could do with a lot more of right now.

Post Comment Love 10 - 12 November

Hello there, and welcome back to this week’s #PoCoLo - a friendly linky which I co-host with Suzanne, where you can link any blog post published in the last week. Please don’t link up posts which are older as they will be removed from the linky. We know you’ll find some great posts to read, and maybe some new-to-you blogs too, so do pop over and visit some of the posts linked, comment and share some of that love. If you were here last week it was great to have you along, if you’re new here this week we’re pleased you’ve joined us.

This week has been a week of excursions starting last Friday evening when we popped into Newark to view a light and sound installation at the church just off the market square. It was good to see the event, put together by local students and art group Newark Creates, well supported - and another example of how churches can be used by local communities.

Then this week we went into Nottingham on the bus, which was eventful. It was only a small mini-bus and we were the last ones the driver let on - clearly a popular service, which needs a bigger vehicle. On the way back we got on the hourly bus and got a seat, but once again it was pretty full.

In Nottingham itself there was plenty to see, and plenty more to explore on future visits, though if truth be told I think I’ll be going in the car next time!

Yesterday evening we went to a wine tasting in Newark, once again travelling by bus - I’m writing this post before we go, so fingers crossed it all goes well!

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My garden in October

I ended last month’s post wondering where autumn was, well it definitely arrived! In less than a month, while there are still glimpses of sun, the weather has most definitely changed. So much so, that there’s a nod to winter’s arrival already too. That’s reflected by how much time we’re spending in the garden too - at the start of October the weather was still warm and sunny, so we started (and finished) painting the trellis around the heat pump. Between us we covered the three outer sides, then MOH quite literally picked up the brush to complete the inner three sides, once we’d replenished the paint.

The result is a much smarter housing for the heat pump, which now blends into the garage rather than being the prominent feature. It’s no surprise that this was one of the first jobs we tackled as even when we were viewing the house, this was something that was on our list.

WE DID PAINT OVER THE 1990S SHELL SUIT DIAGONAL DESIGN!

This month I’ve been tracking the mahonias and hebes which have started to do their thing. We had neither in our previous garden, though many years ago there was a large hebe at the end of our garden - it had grown so big that it didn’t enjoy the pruning we gave it, oops! Here though they’re smaller so we’ll be able to control those more - they’ve some really pretty flowers too, at the start of the month the flowers were just starting, so I’ll save the pictures for later in this post.

We have two mahonias and I’m keen to see how each do in the spots they’re in. One definitely has more sun, and it’s that one that I’ve snapped during the month. The other is in the inner border, and it’ll be interesting to compare them - though it’s currently much smaller and less developed. They’re fascinating plants, this one I’ve snapped leaning over the wall to get a top-down shot of it in the outer border.

As well as this there’s been other major news. Remember the potted rosemary that I brought with us from London, which I thought had died? Well, it seems not to have died after all - early in the month I snapped this admittedly blurry photo, with its returning green tips. Most bizarre, but perhaps it wasn’t a fan of the spot it was in - too much wind maybe? Anyway, I’ve moved it somewhere a little more sheltered to see how it gets on - hopefully it will pull through, but even so I may get another just in case.

You may have seen my post last week about Bramley Apple Day, well my crab apples have been having their say this month too. I wasn’t sure when to harvest them, and if I’m honest I think October was too late - they looked more apple like in September, so that’s something to note for next year.

They turned a glorious yellow shade though on the tree, with the branches truly overladen with fruit. I’d hoped to pick them and use them to make crab apple jelly, but even in the first week of the month I think they were too ripe. So a bit of a fail on using them, but definitely a learning point.

The hebe flowers are making up for it though, aren’t they delicately beautiful?

And look at the difference to the mahonia during the month - I can’t wait for this to burst into flower, and for the top to be crowned with its yellow flowers.

As you can see we still had gloriously blue skies in the middle of the month, and the butterflies were still regular visitors to the buddleia which is clearly enjoying its stay of execution - I’m so glad I went on easy on it, though it’s also blessing me with plenty of seedlings in the gravel so I know that if I choose to move it away from the tree then I can, as long as I do some pre work to ensure that if it doesn’t go to plan, I’ll have a backup plant ready to put in its place.

Towards the end of the month, and after Storm Babet which gave us a month’s rainfall in a single day, causing lots of problems and flooding throughout the county (thankfully though not for us, though the fields near to us did flood), the crab apples took a turn for the worse, and the poor tree looked even more laden down than before.

MOH gave the grass its last cut - once again prompted by the brown bin collection - and it was clear that more and more of crab apples were falling onto the grass, so as the tree was growing a little taller than we’d like we decided to give it a trim. The ladder came out for the first time since we’ve been here and I gave it a gentle prune, realising that the branches would spring up once the weight of the fruits was removed. I left them longer than perhaps I would have cut them, reasoning that if anything were to happen to it over winter, there’d still be room to manoeuvre.

It still has some fruit, though much less than before, and its retained its shape. Our plan is to keep this at a height that we can manage ourselves, but also to make use of the fruits. Since I made my autumnal wreath I’ve also plans to incorporate some of the fruits into next year’s version!

The rowan tree is also looking quite autumnal and suffering a little from Storm Babet, but I think that adds to its charm.

But it really is the hebe flowers for me this month. I’m not sure I’d ever looked at the detail of them before, but they are exquisite.

And talking of detail, I couldn’t help but take a photo of the dew on this spider’s web on our garden furniture.

Another pretty thing, though I’m less keen on its inhabitant not that it was anywhere to be seen - it was most likely making itself comfortable indoors, but that’s a whole other story!