Thursday 15 May 2014

Lilies of the Valley - the May Birth Month Flower


The flower for a May birthday is blooming right now in my front garden. It is, of course, the superbly fragrant Lily of the Valley.

Such is my love of the scent of Lily of the Valley that in previous homes I’ve tried over and over to grow them by planting the rhizomes in my garden - but, sadly, I never succeeded. 



So it was a wonderful surprise to discover, a month or so after I moved to Abergavenny, that I have a front garden half full of them!

Each year they take over more of the area under the gorgeous magnolia tree. And I’m happy to let them because very little else wants to grow there, apart from spring bulbs and wild violets.

(You can read about the care and conditions for Lily-of-the-Valley HERE – 
and the article also points out that they are both invasive and poisonous
neither of which is a problem as far as I’m concerned.)

image from thelabelman.com

As you can see from this Lily-of-the-Valley Pinterest Board, this pretty little flower,that often hides it’s bell-shaped blooms beneath its large, sword-like leaves, was a favourite with the Art Nouveau and Art Deco designers and illustrators.

So I think that must have been somewhere at the back of my mind when I designed my first May Birth Month Flower birthday cards a couple of years ago.


                

But although these cards have been quite popular, especially for Mother's Day, I feel that they are a little more stiff and formal than my usual style. 

So, last month, I set about creating a new collection of Lily of the Valley patterns, hoping to find a way to retain the ‘vintage’ feel of the Edwardian era, while allowing my more ‘natural’, flowing style to come to the fore.

Here are a few of the sketches I made for the new ‘For the Love of Lilies’ collection for my Posh & Painterly store:




And here are a few of the Greeting Cards I’ve made – all in a choice of three background colours that keep reminding me of the costumes of period dramas such as ‘Downton Abbey’!




Here are the rest of the
'For the Love of Lilies' 
collection in my
Posh & Painterly store 



1 comment:

Emilio Fernandez said...

Good morning, how are you?

My name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.

I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because through them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately, it is impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are very small countries with very few population, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.

For all this, I would ask you one small favor:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from United Kingdom? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in United Kingdom in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:

Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Avenida Juan de la Cierva, 44
28902 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain

If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.

Finally, I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.

Yours Sincerely

Emilio Fernandez