Happy days!
In today’s virtual holiday we are visiting a very special place – The Looking Glass Garden in Te Puke (pronounced teh-pook-eh) which is themed on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland storybook.
Te puke is a small town just south of Tauranga (pronounced toe-rong-a). It’s known as the "Kiwifruit capital of the world," and is the centre of an industry which supplies a large percentage of the total world production of the fruit.
Let me tell you why the Looking Glass Gardens are so special. Firstly, I’ve spent a lot of time there as my friend used to live in a cottage at the gardens. The picture below is of the main house, not the cottage.
This is truly a magical place.
As you wander down the driveway you see the house first. Then there are a few cottages where you can stay.
Next you can explore the gardens. It’s so beautiful in spring with the blossoms are out and the daffodils are blooming.
There are lots of tiny nooks and crannies which hold wonderful whimsical features like this tiny cottage below amidst the beautiful autumn leaves.
I’ve been there lots of times but I never took very many photos. So if you would like to see more of the gardens you could take a visit with Emily from Will and Grace. She has some lovely photos of the garden.
Unfortunately, the gardens are now closed but I thought I'd post anyway. Just because they are closed, it doesn't mean we can't take a virtual tour.
It was quite a quiet week on the blog this week. No major home DIY projects going on.
I made these pretty Pastel Stardust Earrings and Affordable Jewellery Supplies is giving away either the kit to make them or the earrings themselves. This one is open to anyone in the World.
To go in the draw all you have to do is watch the tutorial and follow the instructions.
Good Luck!
I also shared some early ideas for Mother’s Day gifts. I know it’s still a couple of months away but with delay times for postage, you want to get in early.
This was actually a really emotional post for me to write because I talked about my Mum.
Does it get you down when the space you live or work in is disorganized?
A disorganized space really depresses me so, when my house is a mess, generally I'm a mess!
This week I spent some time cleaning and organizing my house - this got me thinking about a more organized and functional space.
It's also getting colder and so I'm starting to think about what we can do to make our house more comfortable for the upcoming winter.
If you read last week’s post you may remember that it was all about reimagining, cleaning and organizing your laundry and bathroom. I thought I might do that but I didn’t. I did however, do a major clean-up of my office.
My office is the ‘messy room’.
It’s the place that stuff gets put in to be dealt with later. I’m not even going to share a photo as even in its cleaned state, it’s still a mess.
This really got me thinking about how to reorganize it – I don’t have any answers yet but I have started a Pinterest Board of what I'd like it to look like.
While I was looking, I found this great post on how to create a design board for your home office.
I think that’s where I will start.
Stay tuned for a future post about my home office.
We have lovely (said with sarcasm) 1970s bronze coloured aluminum windows. There’s nothing pretty about them - they are faded and single glazed so they spend half the day in the winter wet with condensation - not healthy at all!
As the weather is getting colder, I'm dreaming of replacing them with new pretty double glazed windows. (Emphasis on dreaming!)
Wouldn't it be wonderful to have beautiful windows like this one I saw on This Old House.
While I was doing some of that dreaming, I came across this post about how to use old windows for things other than letting light in.
I particularly liked this one where Cheryl used a beautiful transfer to transform this old window into a piece of art.
I also found this great informational post on how to replace a sash cord in a window. I thought some of you might find this really useful.
I can only dream of such a beautiful window in my bathroom.
While we’re on the subject of DIY, here’s another great post about how to stain wood without getting it blotchy. So much great stuff here I hadn’t thought about.
AND ...
One more for the road.
This one is for my Northern Hemisphere friends. I found this wonderfully refreshing and super easy spring garland to make with feathers.
Every week when I look for things to share with you, I’m always amazed at what I find.
There are such talented people sharing amazing things. I’m so glad that I can support them and help to get their message across.
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March 13, 2021
Hi, my name is Carol Karl. I live in little old New Zealand. My family and I strive to live the most ‘real’ life we can – by that I mean that we eat real food, we live real lives and just generally be our most authentic selves.
