Fryerstown Antique Fair

I went to the Fryerstown Antique Fair on the weekend, it's a bit of an annual pilgrimage for me and I love having a good rummage in all the stalls!  

Fryerstown is a small village near Castlemaine in the Goldfields region, and the fair is a mix of antiques, collectables, second hand furniture, books, kitchen items and random bits and pieces.  There are heaps of stalls and its pretty impossible to leave without buying something!!

The fair is set up outside amongst the trees and shrubs - which thankfully provide a little shade as it is always very hot, dry and dusty!

I couldn't resist this little old orange enamel coffee pot, or the two vintage linen tea towels featuring a map of the London Underground and a great selection of cocktails!

Castlemaine Festival of Gardens - part 2

Here are some more photos from the Castlemaine Festival of Gardens that I visited a few weeks ago.  The images were taken at a property called 'Lixouri' which has a beautiful Mediterranean style garden.

I love these sheep and guard dog garden sculptures made from scavenged wood and metal - the sunglasses are a great touch!

Nature never ceases to amaze me with her abundance of shapes, textures and colours - and I love these poppies that look like they're dancing in pink ballerina tutu's! 

I love this wire kangaroo sculpture - very cute!  The gardens were very inspiring to visit and think I'll allow more time next year to visit a few more.  

Castlemaine's Festival of Gardens - part 1

I had a lovely day on Sunday visiting beautiful Castlemaine and it's Festival of Gardens. The open garden festival is a bi-annual event running over two consecutive weekends, and features some stunning gardens! 

I am going to have to do this post in two parts - I took heaps of pictures and am finding it very hard to cull the images!  This first part is the beautiful rambling country garden of the Burnett Gallery & Garden.

 The Burnett Gallery & Garden features a beautiful old traditional brick house, with a very long garden stratching down to a creek.  

 

 

The garden was a fabulous riot of colour, texture and pattern - nature at her absolute finest showing off her creations in all their glory!  I love these purple Irises with their delicate watercolour petals. 

 

 

I fell in love with this garden, partly because it reminded me of a very English country garden.  The garden had a wildness to it - it wasn't too structured or perfect, with a mix of flowers and plants jostling for space.

 

 

I'm such a fan of poppies in a garden with their intense colour, tall gangly structure and beautiful large papery petals.  Even the seed pods have a wonderful sculptural quality to them.

 

 

I also love blue flowers in a garden, so calming and the blue tones are off set perfectly against the yellow-green leaves. 

 

 

 

 

A perfect spot to sit and soak up the sun and the beautiful surroundings.  Sooo lovely....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Kangaroo sculptures in the garden made from old corrugated iron sheets.  Cute!