*soft and silent

Everything I love is soft and silent,

My cat, the morning, the end of day,

Even the moon in its way.

Everything I love is soft and silent,

The water, the forest, the snow at play,

Even the mountain in its way.

Everything I love is soft and silent,

The sun on the sand, a rainy day,

Even the wind in its way.

Everything I love is soft and silent,

The grass, the brook, the leaves at play,

Even you in your way.

 {James Kavanaugh}

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*May and all its blessings

{Music: Cobalto – Matteo De Grandis}

It never has been more beautiful outside around this time than this year, because of all the welcome rain we recently had. There are plants growing in the meadows and forests that we normally do not see that often here and it feels a bit like living in a different country. The tulips were blooming extra long and also the animals seem to appreciate how it is at the moment. Everything is growing nicely in the garden and I spend a lot of time in the greenhouse and beds and just enjoy nature around me. I hope you are having a  merry May as well!

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*a little happy list in May

• a flock of ducks waddling across the street

• lots of welcome rain

• seeing bee-eaters for the very first time in my life and that directly in our garden

• crafting paper daffodils

• the scent of lily of the valley

• opening the ceramic stove

• starting a new book

• planting new sorts of flowers

• rhubarb compote

• making surprise packages

• blowballs everywhere

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*love comes in all forms

One day when I played with blue art graf in my sketchbook, painting dogs and flowers, I thought that this would be a great design for new writing paper. So I painted a flower bordure on a big sheet of paper and included the little happy, running dog on the bottom part and also designed a fitting card that comes with a pretty envelope. It took a while until the ordered notepads and cards arrived from the print shop which made the unboxing extra exciting. It is always a special moment and also a bit scary at the same time, because you never know how they turned out, but everything turned out really pretty! I'm very happy with the outcome, what do you think? I can't wait to use it myself and of course I added it to my little Etsy store, in case you would like to order one. There are two versions, one is the single notepad (A4 and 50 pages) and one has the card included in the offer. I will design smaller size writing paper soon, but for this design I liked the bigger version more!

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*thousands white blossoms

My film is back from development and those are the first pictures of the roll, I made them on the most pleasant walk we made in April, all the cherry trees have been in full bloom and the overall atmosphere was amazing! I finally started firing my ceramic pieces that were waiting patiently in my shelf since the beginning of the year. I glazed the first batch yesterday and hope to be able to prepare the remaining pieces for the last firing the coming week. The rainy weather is perfect for such things and I don't have the pressure then to work in the garden. I also got new writing paper & cards from the print shop, that I designed recently. It's always a special moment and I really like how it turned out, I made some product pictures already that I will share here soon, so stay tuned and have a nice weekend!

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*garden wildlife

First of all, welcome in May!

It has been a while and to be honest, I don't know where all those days have gone! Temperatures here are still not as warm as usual at this time of the year, we still having to heat the stove and because of the cold nights, the plants are growing rather slow, but everything looks so lush and green right now, it is a wonderful time of the year nevertheless! I thought I share with you some recent wild cam pictures:  those are the animals that are regularly visiting our garden: foxes, rabbits, pheasants, neighbor cats, martens, hedgehogs and deers. A nice variety of wildlife!

I finished reading "Once Upon a River" by Diane Setterfield and I truly loved it, I got completely absorbed by her story and admire her writing talent! What was the most recent favorite book? Or do you have a book on your reading list that you absolutely want to read this summer?

I hope to be back soon with some analogue pictures, I'm still waiting for the film to return from development! Until then I wish you a fabulous May with the scent of lilac in the air!

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