Springtime at Modern Country Lady and featured in www. houzz.com ideabooks

Wishing you a very happy April!! It's been pretty hot and now pretty cold which makes it for a really changeable Spring here at Modern Country Lady.Things are now really starting to burst into flower and blossoming away like my weeping cherry here above- I just love it best when it's just about to open up and some of the flowers are still into buds.Spring really is my favourite time of the year.

And what about these sweeties.. coming up year after year ! I love these grape hyacinths, never any trouble- not like other bulbs I could mention that never appear again after the first year !

Actually, these tulips here below have surprised me completely, as these are the first that have come back after the first year !

They were waiting for me on my return from the Country Living Spring Fair..aww.. so sweet.
I feel very inspired to make a good go of my fledgling business "My Aunt Agatha" and the fair has helped a lot with loads of contacts and inspiration.
At the moment I working my way through the orders that stacked up on the order-book during the fair , from all the people who wanted " My Aunt Agatha" products, tailored to their specifications.
I am also thinking about and researching into fabrics and designs for  a new collection which wil entail hand embroidery but will still be affordable and which will be interesting for my trade customers as well, so life is very busy.
Here are some of the things that inspire me which I may taking as a starting point. I just love beautiful embroidery....like this

..and like this..

Being surrounded by beautiful needlework when you grow up surely must inspire you- my mum Philomene is an amazing needle-woman..
Here is my beautiful mum with my step-dad with whom she has been happily married for more than 25 years now..

And here is a picture of my mum and me some years ago...

Anyway, I digress..what I wanted to say was, I will be working away on my orders and new designs and hope to keep you in the loop of developments .
And on of the exciting bits of news is that I was emailed by the editors of www.houzz.com a few days ago, that one of my garden designs, for a potager or kitchengarden,  has been featured in their ideas books..
This is the design..

and the link to the idea book on Houzz.com is here.

Hope you have a lovely rest of the week and enjoy the Spring!
XOXO
Bea

linking to photography Friday

Home sweet home.. inspiration, and other bloggers..

Much as I liked going to the Country Living Spring Fair in London, there is no place like the countryside itself once Spring arrives, and I super glad to be in the countryside with everything bursting into flower.
There is just nothing like it!
A nice walk in the countryside is definitely a good way to re-charge your batteries and there is so much to see..the first dandelion...

and then this lovely flower...broccoli I thought :-)

..but seen in the field where some are already flowering,you can tell it will be a whole filed of bright yellow, so this is rape seed, my dear friends ..I was so wrong there with the broccoli, hahaha.

I would not mind having a wallpaper that would be exactly like this, wouldn't you?

I feel very inspired by all that I have seen on the Country Living Spring Fair and have found a few really interesting blogs of fellow standholders which I can really recommend.
One , the Sea Garden, had such a stunning display that is has really made me think about how to plan your stand( instead of paiting the walls just plain white )..They painstakingly pinned the whole wall of their stand ( and quite big too) with old maps, pages from old books, old texts and old prints of flowers.It was magical ! Their blog is called A Mermaid's Tale.You must go and have a look.
You can read their experiences about the fair here and also see some of their work, their stand and their display.

                                              copyright and source picture The Mermaid'sTale
Just amazing, and if I had not gone to the show I probably would never have seen them, as they are based far away, in Cornwall.
Another blogger, whom I did not meet in person, but did "meet" through her blogpost about the Country Living Spring Fair, is Ali from Message in a teacup-Tales from Betty and Violet.
As I had a stand myself, I did not have much time to look at other stands, but I did pass by a stand that I loved with vintage embroidery, that Ali wrote about in her blogpost, from standholder Chloe Antiques or Chloe Vintage.
Such gorgeous cushions!

                          copyright and source picture Message in a teacup-Tales from Betty and Violet.

As we are so lucky with the glorious weather we are having right now it's fabulous to be able to relax in the garden with a nice coffee..and to ponder on all these creative people and their inspiring work...
                                             

And go for lots of walks....to relax and be inspired....there is nothing like a little walk in the countryside...

and if no-one is coming..then Maud will simply go on her own .Don't you just love this little bottom ;-)

Have a great weekend!
XOXO
Bea



                                                                  

The fabulous adventure of the Country Living Spring Fair in London

Phew!I am sure you would love to know a little bit about the The Country Living Spring Fair in London last week and how it all went...It was a very busy week last week- and pretty exciting! ...The fair was pretty packed and super busy.There were more browsers than buyers and the fair had even been busier last year ..:-( I guess it's the recession which bites all of us ! )  ... but overall it was quite an exhilirating experience !!

Here's the fabulous architecture of St Pancras station near which we were staying...I just love the architecture in London, it's so amazing and impressive.
And here below is my stand for My Aunt Agatha on the Country Living Spring fair.

I am very glad I went and explored the Top Drawer Trade fair in January in London , as it showed me a stand without spotlights really does not stand out enough- so I decided to go for two spotlights .

Here below you see a bit of the hustle and bustle of the fair, it's sometimes a real stampede of people! And the fashion and the accessories the ladies are wearing are really something else- a real pleasure to look at!Not for nothing they call London the fashion capital of the world! 

I would not have been able to do the show without my fabulous and supportive mother-in-law to be, Theresa.
She decided to come with me at the spur of the moment when I , at the last minute realised that just manning one stand all by yourself could actually be quite difficult- as when you have to leave the stand for a break, or to chase things up.What a woman !

She was just so great to have around, as she has a great sense of humour, a good business sense and a super sweet disposition- and she is great with people.
We had some great and fun people around us on the stands in the same area,all with fabulous products.
We were right opposite Zinnia Shoes.

Aww!! Aren't these fabulous?I have stood opposite these shoes the whole show and I can't tell you how hard it was to resist them and how people love these!!You must check out their website!!Nagi, the fabulous chap who runs the business, was super and so supportive as this was my first year and he was full of handy and insightful tips about pricing, body langauage and running a business.It just makes the whole thing so enjoyable when you have great people around.
Next to me was Whinberry and Antler
I was so impressed as this was their first show and the stand looked super and had loads of sales and interest.
It was all really lovely with a rustic feel and so very well done.I think they did spectacularly well.

Then at the end of the row was St Gabriels , run by a lovely girl called Miranda.The stand was amazing and super clever , and the bags were just fabulous! You really must have a look and check out their website- this picture is a bit too small to get an idea.

Right next to us were two girls with their fabulous fake flowers, but sadly their business, "Funky Bunch" does not have a website yet!
To sum up the Country Living Spring Fair : not as many sales as I would wish- but that seems to be the case with others as well... but on the first day, and on Saturday, a lot of interest from the press, - about 4 journalist took my details and my card ( although you never know if this may come to anything but we will see..).. and some trade enquiries too, and some sales...so not too bad :-)

Here are some of my bestsellers at the fair by the way :
 

                                                                   and

                                                                           and ( Cafetiere warmer )

                                                                           and
                                                     

You can find all these on the My Aunt Agatha shop here


Sunday was a crazy busy day at the Country Living fair with people queueing around the block.... and in the evening the great surprise of being visited by the assistant editor for the "Home" section of the Evening Standard who wants to write about My Aunt Agatha ..AND a visit from the lovely lady from Country Living Magazine who would like to feature me in the "Emporium" pages.....!!!!! Yippee!!

I think it's time for a cup of tea and a relaxing evening in the garden after all the hustle and bustle in London,as the Spring weather has arrived while I was away..and then tomorrow we start with new plans and new designs!
Have a great week!
XOXO
Bea 

PS I just noticed there was already some coverage about My Aunt Agatha, in a review on the Sewing Directory Website..here is the link in case you would like to take a look!

Preparations ...

Phew! I can't believe I have neglected all your lovely people for so long, but I have been head down making stock for the Country Living Spring Fair show next week , so here are a few shots with apologies !!
 ..some embroidered hearts....

And some more Spring -themed ones...can't wait to get back into the garden !!

Some snowdrops to keep in Spring mood :-)

..cute little child's aprons and some more embroidered hearts..and of course there will be loads more on the show like tea cosies, oven gloves,laundry bags and all kind of pretty things ;-)

..and this is what I would like to say to all my lovely followers for keep on hanging on :-) : " Thank you, darling ! "

Hope you have a great week this week and .. keep your fingers crossed for me for next week!!

XOXO 

Bea

Country Living Spring Fair 21-25 March and Gala evening and Daytime tickets give-away

As you may know by know, I will be attending the Country Living Spring Fair in London,in the Business Design Centre in Islington,  with my shop My Aunt Agatha from Wednesday 21st march till Sunday the 25 March ( as you can see from the button at the top right on the blog.)
 The link to the Country Living Spring Fair Website is here.
There is a whole range of My Aunt Agatha Products and also eight ( 8 ! ) approved press releases which are now on the site, about Modern Country Lady and My Aunt Agatha.

In order for you to visit this lovely Spring Fair for free ,there are 5 tickets available for the Gala evening on Wednesday the 21st of March from 6.30-9 pm, and 5 tickets available for a daytime visit.
 In order to qualify for a ticket , please leave a comment and become a follower of Modern Country Lady blog, then pop over to my  Facebook page and become a " liker".You will find the link to Facebook on the right handside of the blog. I will put all your names in a hat and will draw the winning names on Wednesday the 29th of February.
Good luck- and I am sooo looking forward to seeing you all at the show - it would be great to say hello!!!
XOXO
Bea

 

Embroidered Valentine's Heart instead of Valentine's Card

Happy Valentine's Day to all your lovely people out there, whether you are all loved up or not  !!
The main thing is to love yourself, allways remember that!!
Instead of a card to give to your Valentine- and if you have a minute to spare and some needle and thread- you could make a quick heart that you embroider instead, which will be so  much more personal.
You will need some natural linen and some white embroidery thread for this, and some filling for the heart, plus a pretty ribbon, and you're done.Super easy!
An embroidered heart is really simple to make. Get a heart shape from the internet ( Google->Google Images -> Heart )  and enlarge it to a required size, then print off and use as template.

If you go on this link  you will find the font I used, Baroque Script.

You can download this but then you have to pay ( which I did not want to do ) , but you can also do a "custom font preview", which basically means you can try out a few words for free.
There is a little  box in which you type the word or words you would like in the Baroque Script Font.
You can put in "Happy Valentine's Day" or whatever you want.You can only do a few words at a time, so for my letters, " You're perfect", I had to do the below procedure twice, once for " You're" and once for " perfect".But then it's absolutely for free!
Then do a screenprint of the whole page ,
paste that on Paint, cut out the letters and paste that on a  Word Document, you then have a document  you can print off to use as a template for the words for your embroidery.
How you can transfer your design can be found here or here.

I used a simple embroidery stitch, a tiny satin stitch.
If you want to know how to do this you can find it here.

Have fun and have a great Valentine's day, and love the ones you're with! And if you are not loved up, do not stress! You never know what's round the corner!!
XOXO
Bea

A cute Spring Wreath for your front door

If you are even a tiny bit handy with a needle and thread, and you  have a discarded Christmas wreath at hand, now is the time to craft yourself a super simple Spring wreath to brighten up your front door.
I used these old  Christmas wreaths which I had made myself from willow branches in December.

I stripped the pine and apples and pine cones off, then started to play around with some dried flowers I still had to give the wreath some body.

I then added some fabric roses which I made from purple and white check.
I simply cut of a lenght of fabric..

Then twirled it around in my fingers...

and wound some thin wire at the bottom of the " flower" to keep it all together.

..then attached it to the wreath.Think symmetrical when you build up your design.

Then add an embroidered heart for some extra oomph and you have got yourself a super sweet door wreath.

An embroidered heart is super easy to make.
Get a heart shape from the internet  and enlarge it to a required size, then print off and use as template.
Now for the embroidery.
I was thinking "Spring" so did a quick hand drawn design of snowdrops,

but if you do not feel confident you can pull this off, then go on Google , then on Google Images, then put in " snowdrops".
It will come up with a whole host of images for you to use.
Choose the one you want, then print off, and transfer the design on a fabric of your choice.
( In my case a natural rustic linen).
How you can transfer your design can be found here or here.
Then embroider with a simple embroidery stitch.

This is a detail of the embroidery.

I have used a super simple backstitch for the outline for this, and if you want to know how to do this, you can find instructions here.
To fill in the petals and stems, I have used a satin stitch, and if you want to know how to do this you can find it here.

Have fun!
With the weather as it is here today, you may as well keep warm and cosy and stay indoors !!
Have a great weekend!
XOXO
Bea