July has a wonderful way of slowing time.
The Garden Room fills with warm sunshine from early morning. The French doors standing open to welcome the scent of roses, jasmine, lavender and freshly cut
grass drifting in from the knot garden. Bees wander lazily among the flowers while swallows sweep overhead. Every now and then a familiar wren appears, pausing just long enough to remind me that inspiration often arrives in the smallest of moments.
Summer is a season of abundance. Every walk through the garden seems to reveal another flower waiting to be painted, another bird calling from the hedgerow, or another colour I’d somehow overlooked before. Sketchbooks begin to fill with quick observations. Watercolour studies and little notes that may one day grow into something much larger.
This month, the worktable has been covered with flowers.
Delphiniums, sweet peas, roses, foxgloves and cheerful cottage garden blooms have all found their way indoors, not simply to brighten the room, but to become part of new paintings and future collections. Many of these floral studies have already begun a new journey, appearing in my Summer Flowers Card Making Book (ISBN 978-1-0684042-3-8), where they are waiting to be transformed into handmade greetings cards, journals and keepsakes.
One of the pleasures of creating books like this is knowing that they don’t end when the final page is printed. Every design is only the beginning. A page becomes a birthday card, a journal cover, a framed picture or perhaps the starting point for someone’s own creative afternoon. I love the thought that each copy is used in a slightly different way.
The shelves in The Garden Room continue to grow too.
New journals sit alongside favourite sketchbooks, while little collections of ribbons, fabrics and pressed flowers quietly gather, waiting for autumn when thoughts naturally turn towards stitching and handmade gifts.
Although summer still feels endless, there are already gentle signs that the seasons are preparing to change. The evenings arrive a little earlier, blackberries begin to colour in the hedgerows, and seed heads appear where flowers were only weeks before. These small changes never feel like an ending to me. Instead, it promises another season of creativity just around the corner.
For now, though, July is a month to linger.
To create while the windows are open.
Pause with a cup of tea on the window seat.
Listen to birdsong drifting through the garden.
Gather ideas before they disappear with the summer breeze.
Thank you for spending a little time here in The Garden Room. I hope these pages encourage you to notice the beauty that surrounds you. To enjoy making something with your own hands, and perhaps to discover inspiration in places you might otherwise have hurried past.
Until next month,
Kay
On the Worktable this Month
Summer Flowers Card Making Book
Bird journals and sketchbooks
New bird cushion designs
Victorian flower fabric panel ideas for autumn stitching
and of course! Fresh flowers gathered from the garden