A Year in Review

An inspiring year was 2009. How I hoped to have a single bee in C&H's hive and today I'm at 599 with a goal to get to 600 by 2010 (we have 24 hours my friends). Thank you for your support - I had a very unhappy time for a few months this year and this blog was my saving grace, my escape, my promise of beauty to be found in ordinary everyday things - so easy to overlook when a grey cloud is hovering above our heads. Wishing you a stunning new year and gorgeous things for 2010 and thank you for dropping by, leaving comments, enjoying, emailing and following C&H.

Images of snippets from my life used in my headers throughout the year roughly in this order:

1. a rose from mum's garden & David Austin's l 2. my desk & my couch l 3. my lounge & my desk after I've rearranged (again) l 4. details of my gorgeous sister's adorable house l 5. gardenias in a my latte cup & the colours I mean when I say concrete & honey (caramel & stone) l 6. a new found love for papery poppies & Turkish tea glasses (on my coffee table) l 7. Paris street and Paris flowers l 8. my desk and mum's roses from the garden in front a set of her storage boxes l 9. my neighbourhood - a lingerie shop & a Chinese restaurant (funnily enough its postcode is 2010)

Earthy

What sits on my tables and hangs on my walls.

How's The Serenity?

There is something I find so delicious about this combination of images...I made this single bulb chandelier with Christmas droplets I bought in Belgium years ago / my beloved collection of fine whites / that's left over wrapping paper reflected in my dining table / the makings of Christmas pudding ice cream.

Merry Christmas

My Christmas looks like this. This is my mum's house. She made the silver bird tree to hang gorgeous little favours from for the Christening she designed for her grandchildren (lots more gorgeous pictures on her blog here).

It's What's on the Inside That Counts

My presents are (almost) all wrapped and there is joy in my heart this Christmas thanks to all of you...the little bees who keep the Concrete & Honey hive humming merrily along. I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and thank you for all the pollinating the blogosphere with inspiration and making it bloom with the beauty we find in most everything. I cannot tell you how much I have enjoyed reading your comments and paying you visits this past year.

Feast

Oh how I would love my xmas table to look like this.

Images from The Society Inc. themes, paperwhites & sea gypsy

Society Xmas

Images from the society inc.

White Christmas

Stunning crafy Christmas countdown ideas by Sweet Paul. Stunning! It starts here.

Leftovers

I was eating these leftovers and remembered reading about this which resulted in my faded peonies and hydrangeas stacked and stuffed in Thai takeaway containers, like leftovers discarded in the fridge until you pull them out and try and redeem them - and as always, they're still so good...sometimes they're even better than they were the day before.

Peonies & Posing Women

Row 1: Peonies I have been waiting for all year are finally in my home. On the back of my door are my sketches, postcards and favourite images of the moment. You'll see in the last image that all the women, real or drawn, are in similar elegant positions.
Row 2: Oh hello beautiful.
Row 3: See my new top in the mirror - do you like? It's my favourite self portrait yet. Notice the pink hydrangeas and peonies in the background, full and alive and the pink gouache painted canvas sitting on my old analogue TV. Remember the flowers alive as in the next post they've joined the beautiful dead.