All things garden'ey

Happy Easter Peeps!!

I hope you've all had a lovely time out and about during this gorgeous little spell of sunshine.
Unfortunately I've been battling a horrid cough the last couple of weeks so have had less 'studio time' than I'd like, but it has given me the chance to do a spot of much needed gardening at home.

I found out today that it's 'National Gardening Week' so I thought it quite apt to do a wee post about my gardens. I'm lucky enough to have some outdoor space at home, and a lovely plot in the walled garden at the National Trust's Gibside Estate, where my studio is based.

My lovely Botanical Plot at Gibside Estate

My home garden has seen lots of weeding and clearing happening this week, in between bouts of coughing!! I'm planning to make up a couple of raised beds to grow veggies this year, making space by expanding my meagre herb bed and getting rid of some gravel and (sadly) a tree...but it's blocking all my veggie growing light, and the lovely evening light that dances in the sun catchers hanging in my window. I've always grown herbs, spuds (in re-claimed tea chests), and the odd crop of chard, carrots and salad greens but nothing substantial. Hopefully this year will prove more fruitfull (veggiefull!!). The spuds are in, spinach, shallots and sweet pea seeds are in the propagator, and the tree felling should hopefully happen next week, then I'm good to get really cracking. Watch this space.

Do you Pinterest? I love to gather inspiration for things here, take a peek at my gardening board if you like...it's a bit of a guilty pleasure.

Follow Oakwood Soaperie's board Garden gubbins on Pinterest.

Meanwhile in my botanical plot at Gibside, the ground is being cleared ready for the lovely ripe seeds of blue and red cornflowers, marigolds, chamomile, poppies and lots of lovely lavender plants going in over the next few weeks. They are all organically grown without the use of any pesticides or artificial fertilisers specifically for me to use in my soaps, bath salts, bath bombs, truffles and bathing bubbles..

Natural and handmade bath bombs.

Gibside Gardener's soap with my beautiful botanicals lashings of fresh honey from our bees, clays and pumice.

Soap making in action...freshly poured and decortated batches setting overnight.

The real heroes (apart from the beautiful blooms) are the National Trust gardening volunteers who do all the hard work tending and tidying the plot and generally looking after them for me. I'd love to be able to do more in there, but running my little soapmaking business takes over. I do however help with the weeding, watering and do all the harvesting and drying later in the year.

Frosty spring morning looking towards the Chapel

Garden Cottage at Gibside in the morning sun

Here's a little shot of the plot earlier in the year, and then once it was in full bloom last summer, fingers crossed for lots of sunny summer days ahead.

Flowers flowers everywhere

Cornflowers and Calendula

The studio, festooned in drying blooms

Continuing on the garden theme of this post...a date for your diaries...I'll be holding a stall at the beautiful Blagdon Estate just north of Newcastle on Sunday 17th May as part of their National Garden Scheme, garden's open for Charity. The event runs from 1 - 4pm. I'll have lots of flower related soaps, bathing goodies and more on my stall, pop along if you fancy a day out, hopefully the weather will be kind.

Well, that's all for now, I'm off to make candles...Enjoy your garden time folks...I'd love to hear what you're planning in your gardens this year.

TTFN

Ceri
x

Our little sneak away...

Well, it's been a pretty busy start to the year so far, I can't complain, but sometimes...just sometimes...I need the odd bit of down time to recharge the batteries and refresh my brain so I can come up with oodles of new goodies for you, my wonderful customers.

Last weekend, we were lucky enough to be able to go and stay in a Mongolian Yurt at Wild Northumbrian, a beautiful little haven of tranquillity, way up on the moors just outside Kielder Forest in the Northumberland National Park.

The surrounding Northumberland moors, such a gorgeous setting!

Our incredibly cosy home for a few days was 'Brock Yurt' a 16ft traditional Mongolian tent, settled next to a babbling stream within a little woodland clearing in a meadow...bliss!

Brock Yurt

We arrived on a sunny Sunday March afternoon and were very keen to go exploring. It was our 4th visit, but we'd not seen the delightful 'Brock' before. After unloading our car and winding through the free range ducks and hens, we found our way over the meadow and settled in to our gorgeous little hideaway.

That afternoon we had a stroll up to Sidwood approx a mile away, up the track and into the very edge of Kielder forest. We found an unexplored track (for us) that climbed up over the crest of a hill, to a stunning view over to 'Black Middens' a Bastle house dating back to the bloody battles of the Border Rievers. The sun kindly decided to show up again, this was the view!!

Black Middens Bastle House.

After winding our way back down the track to our little haven, we decided to get a camp fire lit in the handmade fire pit, it was starting to get pretty chilly by now and we were getting hungry, so we were very grateful of all the logs and kindling left for us inside the Yurt, We soon got a good blaze going to cook our tea on.

As the light was fading fast, we lit up the candles inside too, doesn't it look so pretty! Once the log burner was going inside, it was really toasty too. No need for the lovely hot water bottles (provided).

So Cosy...I want to move in!!

During the night, we listened to owls, deer and the stream twinkling away to us which was extremely relaxing and comforting out in the wilds. We even had a decent sleep...which for me is a rarity!!

The next morning, I was hoping to be brave enough to test the outdoor Bush Shower, just along from the Yurt...but I'm afraid to say, it was just too chilly a morning for me...and it was raining, so we hopped up to the shower block instead for the luxury of underfloor heating and warmth, sorry Rob & Vic, I promised myself I would too, maybe next time ;) x

Our Aussie Bush shower, with special cupboard for your smalls.

Eco friendly compost loo (left) and bush shower (right)

The next morning we decided to go adventuring up to Kielder Water to explore the North side of the reservoir, so off we went in the car, picnic packed...forgetting the hot chocolate (my fault!!).

We chose a route from the 'Shepherd's Walks' taking in the lakeside, sculptures and a forest track and had a really lovely day, and quite a challenging walk, Despite hail and more rain, we headed back with smiling faces, we were well prepared with woolies, waterproofs, warm boots and lots of layers, just without a warm drink.

Secluded inlet at Kielder Water.

Love the texture and colours in this tree stump.

Beautiful Lichen

Nature taking over

Beautiful Kielder Forest.

Stone textures...these colours really shone, despite the rain.

Robin & Freya's Hut.

To reward ourselves for our efforts, we headed off to The Hollybush Inn, a 300 year old coaching inn, just a mile from our Yurt...I think we'd exhausted ourselves too much to campfire cook that night! Besides we felt we'd earnt a pint of local brew by that stage, and some hearty grub.


Heading back to our cosy yurt, we were looking forward to a snuggly night infront of the log burner again, and it lived up to expectations again, lighting with only 1 match!


We'd hoped to take some Dark Sky photographs while we were here but the clouds were against us this time, Guess we'll just have to come back for a 5th visit sometime...

Our beautiful real tree bed!! Feather pillows and duck down duvet too...BLISS!!

A gorgeous Spring welcome awaited us...we had some beautiful, colourful ducky eggs too, but had scoffed them by this point, sorry x

Our little kitchen area...better equipped than home!

The beautiful handmade door...with hatch.

I wish we could have stayed longer, but I'm sure we'll be back again. If you get the chance to visit...DO IT!!  You need to experience it at least once to know the real rural beauty of this fabulous place, and the gorgeously helpful and generous people who run it all. 

Until next time peeps,

TTFN xx

Winter blues and a drop of golden sun.

Hello again peeps,

I'm sitting here contemplating after what was a horrible day yesterday! Nothing to do with where I am, what I'm doing or how to progress with my business, but with tiredness and I admit quite a dose of stress.
I put it all down to unnecessary fretting, the darkness of winter and the lack of sun on my face, so to cheer myself up and banish those winter blues I wandered into Pinterest, my happy place. If you've not found it yet, go take a peek here and wander around, it's my little haven of prettiness and joy.

My 'other' obsession is textiles (I have an Honours degree in Textiles and Fashion Design from a million years ago), so I started wandering around boards dedicated to all things textiles, and found some beautiful boards on natural printing techniques, I kept being drawn back to images of eco printing with leaves and flowers, rusty nails and even sunshine (cyanotype)!! It must have been my lucky day, I found just what I needed to banish the blues, a good dollop of the sun. I now have a positive and lovely thing to look forwards to trying and can't wait to try experimenting with some of these techniques, once I give myself a few sunny days off from soaping that is, ROLL ON SUMMER!!


Follow Oakwood Soaperie's board Eco print, fabric and paper on Pinterest.


I hope this will bring a little sunshine into your day too,

Till next time,

TTFN,
Ceri  x