The eve of eve

It is the eve of Christmas Eve. Already! The year has flown by. I am filled with nervous but thrillingly happy anticipation for what 2016 could bring.

Merry Christmas to you and yours. Have a peaceful, safe and joyous festive season.

Kate  x

Styling and Photograph by Moss & Vine

Clouds of blue

There must be loads of acidity in the soil around the Southern Highlands, because the abundance of blue hydrangeas in the area is staggering! Staggeringly beautiful.

Robertson, NSW

Bowral, NSW

'Popcorn' hydrangea

How to CHANGE THE COLOUR of hydrangeas.

Kate  x

Links to love: December edition

A baked WREATH from Call Me Cupcake.

Floral WINESICLES for an adult summer treat.

So happy to see a SINCLAIR AND MOORE interview on the FLORET FARM BLOG. These are two flower-centric creatives that I love to follow online.

FLORET FLOWER FARM makes me want to live in Washington state and grow flowers. And of course A COUNTRY FARMHOUSE does too.

Current instagram crushes: HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.

It's DAVID AUSTIN season. Woo hoo!

I think I could eat THIS in one sitting.

I love these little illuminated DUTCH HOUSES. If only I had a mantle to put them on.

Garland ideas: HERE, HERE, and HERE.

GARDEN DELIGHT.

Finally, in light of the horrors of the last month, and the world being noisy with hate, fear and ignorance, I keep playing THIS scene in my mind. Yes, I still watch Grey's Anatomy. I am twelve seasons committed. Can't quit, won't quit.

And now, I am off to enjoy the best of stone-fruit season here in sunny Australia. How does that song go?
Moving to the country...



Kate  x



Styling and Photographs by Moss & Vine

Birthday eve

I have been spending my Friday putting last touches to Alex's birthday celebration tomorrow. We're low-key in this house. So some presents, some flowers, and a birthday tart is celebration enough.

No birthday in November can be celebrated without the inclusion of peonies. Embrace their short season. Even if the recipient is a man. Or just buy them for your home, and pretend that they are part of your gift...

Originally I had planned to bake THIS cake for tomorrow. But, truth is, I am not the best cake maker, and I am not well acquainted with my oven. Baking adventures, whilst enthusiastically pursued in the beginning, leave me frustrated more often than not. Plus, that is simply too much cake for two people. Right? Maybe, maybe not. 

So I embraced cherry season and made a cherry tart/pie instead.

A little wonky, and little higgledy-piggledy, but made with love.

Happy, happy birthday.

Kate  x

Lest we forget

11/11/15

Summer roses and milk glass

It has been a wet start to summer, but the first of the roses still manage to look and smell divine! 

I snipped these beautiful old roses from my Dad's garden over the weekend, and I carefully nursed them in a mug of water on my lap on the drive back to the city. The lengths I go to...

Each variety has a subtly unique fragrance. The smaller milk glass vase is on my bedside table, and is a soothing sight and scent to open my eyes to in the morning. 

The large blush flower I believe is 'Albertine', an old variety raised by Barbier. Dark salmon coloured buds open out to large blush pink blooms, and occasionally a pale apricot bloom will appear. It is a rambling rose producing many flower heads. 

The small white rose in the foreground (above) is either 'Albatross' or 'Kiftsgate'. It is a prolific flowerer, smothering its branches in small, delicate, single-layered white blooms.

As usual with mother nature, photographs don't do these roses justice.

I have also brought back with me a large armful of mint, rosemary, lemon balm, sage, marjoram and thyme. And stalks of silver beet and rhubarb. Dad's place is better than a farmers market.

Kate  x

Styling and Photographs by M o s s & V i n e

Links to love: November edition

This CAKE is phenomenal.

I am so in love with this STYLED SHOOT from +White Magazine. It is simply breathtaking.

Could I pretty please move into THIS dreamy little cottage?

I love the foliage GARLANDS in this wedding.

Even though this is a goodbye post, it makes me want to move to the Southern Highlands PRONTO!

So many BOOKS, so little time.

The Atacama Desert in BLOOM.

Current INSTAGRAM crushes HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.

PUMPKIN PIE  from Farmette, timely, as the Northern Hemisphere embrace all things pumpkin. I am giddy with excitement for The Farmette Cookbook to be released in March.

Have you seen the Christmas cover for COUNTRY STYLE MAG this year? It features a joey called Honey who belongs to the master of aesthetics, Annabelle of THE DAILYS, photographed by the dizzyingly cool KARA ROSELUND. I love it when clever, kind, and talented creatives get together to produce wonderful things.

Kara's book SHELTER, has just been released. It looks fab!

HELLO from Adele was worth the four year wait. I will confess to contributing to the song being played in excess of 100 million times in one week on youtube...not sorry.

This seems like a good excuse for a trip out to ORANGE. Which is, incidentally, a place I've been wanting to visit more and more recently...

I adore KATE'S CREATIVE SPACE, and I had a serious case of envy when I read about her FLEA MARKET FORAGING success recently. I have been lusting after a vintage printers typesetting tray. But all of the ones I spotted on etsy were very pricey, and shipping costs made it a pretty prohibitive purchase...until...last weekend. I found one on my travels to the Southern Highlands! Thank you Dirty Jane's in Bowral.

Kate  x

Styling and Photographs by M o s s & V i n e

My happy place: The Southern Highlands

We spent the past weekend wandering around gardens and vintage shops in the Southern Highlands. Last autumn we visited Red Cow Farm in Sutton Forest. This weekend we returned to the garden to see it looking utterly different in a contrasting season.

The garden was pretty spectacular in autumn, with an abundance of golden and amber coloured leaves. But I am so glad we saw it again, looking impossibly lush with all its fresh springtime growth. 

Kate  x

Photographs by M o s s & V i n e

RED COW FARM

Thrifted

October is BUY NOTHING NEW month. I am currently on a year-long mission to refrain from buying any new clothing items; the only new items going into my wardrobe as of June 1st 2015 will be thrifted and gifted. It's working out fine, I already have more than enough clothes anyway- most of us do. The impact of cheap, fast, and disposable fashion on our environment and society is horrendous. The 'buy less, make it last' movement should be a standard mantra, but sadly it is not in our modern world where status and materialism reigns supreme. It is crazy, especially when you can find the things you need- or the things you think you need- through other avenues. Make do, borrow, thrift. Sustainability is everyones responsibility. In the FLOWER INDUSTRY too.

I have always loved thrifting for vases. Some of my best buys have been found in charity shops and on market stalls. I thought I'd put together a post to illustrate the beauty brought to my home through thrifted vases. I've chosen four of my favourites.

What: Vintage depression era glass,

Where: from a market stall,

Featuring: pink and blush ranunculus,

Cost: I can't really remember the cost of this one, but under $20 certainly, 

it was bought for me by my Mum a few years ago now.

See it filled with stunning roses HERE.

What: Vintage brass bud vase,

Where: from a collectables store in Robertson, NSW,

Featuring: my favourite blue hue of hydrangea,

Cost: from memory I paid $17 or $18 for 2.

See the pair of them filled with sweet smelling stock HERE.

What: Vintage milk-glass vase,

Where: a retro collectables store called S t o n e C o t t a g e in Berridale, NSW,

Featuring: creamy white ranunculus,

Cost: this was $15 (I got a small discount because I know the lovely owner).

See it filled with garden-cut spring blossom HERE.

What: Vintage milky-green agate vase,

Where: charity shop in Crows Nest, Sydney,

Featuring: may bush,

Cost: this was $13 or $14.

See it with blush tulips HERE.

It is also possible to create beautiful displays just with what is already in your cupboards, or growing in your garden, like I did HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and even HERE. 

Of course, buying second hand vases isn't saving the world. But applying this approach to all of the purchases you make, goes some way to ensuring that you are treading more lightly upon the earth. When it comes to flowers: choose in-season flowers, buy direct from the grower if possible OR take your snips into your garden to see what might be available, invest in good quality artificial flowers, avoid imported varieties which are sprayed with an array of chemicals in order to pass quarantine, take your vase along to a florist and ask them to create directly into it rather than wrapping your flowers in waste heavy packaging, and limit the flower food you use- clean water and freshly cut stems should be enough.

 Below are helpful links with information about sustainability across many aspects of everyday life:

GOOD GUIDE

THE TRUE COST

FRIENDS OF THE EARTH

1 MILLION WOMEN

+1 Million Women (Australian Climate Coolers) 

Kate  x

Styling and Photographs by M o s s & V i n e

Links to love: October edition

An English garden in BLOOM.

I have pet and studio ENVY.

This is a FUN idea. But before you go out and buy a whole new wardrobe, THIS should be compulsory viewing. Succinct facts from the film by +1 Million Women HERE. Everyone should THRIFT.

I have nothing to say about THIS except, swoon! And some MORE!

THIS satire account is so on the money, it's scary. SO good!

Such pretty WEDDING INSPIRATION.

I am drooling over some of the furniture in this HOME. That bedside table...magnificent!

I could move into THIS SPACE tomorrow!

MASTER FLORISTRY at its finest.

 I would spend my life scouring flea markets and vintage stores if I could get a set of mis-matched dining chairs as wonderful as the set in THIS HOME.

Crushing on this WEDDING DRESS.

The anthropologist in me loves THIS.

A gorgeous BOHEMIAN STYLE elopement.

STYLING TIPS I am trying to employ in my 'fake it till you make it' approach.

ADORABLE.

What an ADVENTURE.

This is making me want to play about creating WREATHS.

I love this PLAN BEE seed idea. So important. So clever.

A RECIPE to try.


Kate  x



Styling & Photographs by M o s s & V i n e

Jasmine: The Language of Flowers, part 3

September, when the smell of jasmine is carried on the warm evening air. My nose 'spotted' this flowering jasmine vine long before my eyes had a chance. 

Sensuality // beauty // grace // elegance // friendliness.

The smell of jasmine is particularly strong at night. Its fragrance is said to be an aphrodisiac, and a relaxing antidepressant. Jasmine oil is therefore used extensively in aromatherapy. Burning the essential oil of jasmine in Eastern cultures is considered to promote love, wealth, and prophetic dreams.

"No perfume without jasmine."

Kate  x

Styling and Photograph by M o s s & V i n e

PART 1

PART 2

Spring in our nest

It is finally spring! 

(Although a part of me feels like winter never really got going). There has been much talk of this being the coldest winter in years! But i'll admit, I didn't feel it. 

I spent much of May and June thinking, 'It can't be wintertime again already? It seems like only weeks ago that we were living in Canberra and snowboarding every weekend?!?!?!'

When I finally accepted a whole year had gone by, the snowfalls didn't arrive as further proof of the seasonal shift. We have only been up to the ski fields twice so far this season. Another trip is imminent. A third trip is necessary to validate the purchase of ridiculously pricey season passes. And to gather more muscari as they bloom in the lawns.

I digress! Back to spring. Here is what it has looked like so far...

Reading... QUIET: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

Enjoying... Ranunculus season

Watching... THE HONOURABLE WOMAN

Planning... A February trip to Japan

Dreaming... About baking AN IRISH COFFEE CAKE

Trying... to eat a vegetarian dinner once a week, to buy only thrifted clothing, and starting a new exercise regimen.

Talking... all things cake, snow, Myers-Briggs, thrift shop finds, & new suits.

Kate  x

Styling and Photographs by M o s s & V i n e

Covet

If it is not a sin, it probably should be. But I covet a whole lotta things...

Mostly antique furniture,

vintage kitchenalia, 

and

a never-ending supply of ranunculus.

I am beginning to put together design and decor ideas for a home*. Which sees me trawling blogs, instagram, and etsy like it's my job. Which it kind of is these days. 

SOURCE

I would love a kitchen with open shelves, styled with silverware, flowers, milk glass, and ceramic treasures.

SOURCE, SOURCE

SOURCE

An armoire would be fantastic. A beautiful piece of furniture, and so functional too.

SOURCE

SOURCE

I think I will be waiting a long time for the scientific discovery that allows me to have ranunculus in my home, all of the time.

Kate  x

*Tentative plans are afoot for a home in the countryside.

Links to love: September edition

Why are there pink magnolias on bare branches in winter, and white magnolias on glossy green trees in summer? This is the question I asked my Mum recently. HERE is the answer for all you readers who don't have a green-fingered parent close to hand.

My Dad gave me a sweet, mossy birds nest on the weekend. It makes me want to start a COLLECTION. (Only nests that have been blown out of trees, of course).

I am sharing this just for the CUTE FACTOR!

FIONA has given me a supreme case of wanderlust.

Aesthetic perfection HERE, HERE & HERE.

This is the SWEETEST idea, and perfect keepsake.

This was the INSPIRATION for seeking out my own milk glass vase. Success! If you are ever in the Snowy Mountains, stop by Stone Cottage, Berridale where I found the above milk glass vase that I promptly filled with white ranunculus.

I mean, seriously, RANUNCULUS make me stupidly happy.

THE MRS BOX just launched a new collection. Yes, I had to buy another one to join the one I was given for my BIRTHDAY. They are hard to resist.

A simple, fresh, spring MEAL I am itching to make/eat.

THIS new-born shoot incorporating flowers is beautiful.

This would be a DREAM COME TRUE to attend.

Wishing you happy spring days.

Kate  x

Styling and Photographs by M o s s & V i n e

In my nest this week

I bought a $5 bunch of erlicheer on Saturday, I split the bunch in two, plopped them into two matching vases and put them on each side of the bed. We're waking up intoxicated on the scent.

Could somebody please bottle it? I would buy that perfume, pronto!

I then spent the rest of the weekend internet window shopping on etsy. I'm lusting after so many things...

a hobnail milk glass vase,

a silver tray,

an antique letter press drawer,

an old garden sieve,

rustic wooden chopping boards,

vintage kitchenalia, etc etc.

I really cannot get enough of vintage kitchenalia.

Or the smell of erlicheer, it seems.

Kate  x

Styling and Photographs by M o s s & V i n e