A Nostalgic Little Arbour in a Vintage Garden

It would be hard to think of a more fitting and beautiful venue for our all day workshop on April 7th than Waterperry Gardens in Oxfordshire. 'Underneath the Old Arbour' was perhaps the perfect choice of projects to create in  a truly nostalgic vintage garden, even using one of the original classrooms first used nearly eighty years ago when the garden school for young ladies was established by Miss Beatrix Havergall.

 This was the project for the day......either a 1/12th or 1/24th scale old fashioned arbour with vintage and well weathered furniture plus accessories.

The room just before everyone arrived....with our posh new spotty table cloths!

Celia...wondering if everything is ready.....

Then the fun started!

Very quickly the little arbours began to take shape.

 Everyone began to get their hands dirty!

Getting down to the serious business of making a table!

By the end, everyone had achieved magnificent creations.

It really was a lovely, lovely day - hardworking but such fun - and to judge by the smiles on the ladies as they departed with their rustic arbours entwined with flowering climbers, extra flowers to 'plant' later, instructions for a unique water feature, their handmade well-loved and much aged garden furniture in the boxes -  we think they enjoyed it as much as we did! 

A big thank you to everyone who participated and for making it such a special and happy workshop day.  Thanks also to everyone for yet again contributing so generously to our small raffle in aid of Breast Cancer Campaign (a magnificent £44.00 was raised)!! The prizes this time had been chosen from the delightful selection in the plant and gift shop there.

A selection of handmade and vintage items on offer.

 On show for inspiration and also for sale we put together a small table of our own handmade items and also some genuine vintage or antique pieces which seemed to fit well with the theme - it's always fun for us to choose some of our own treasures to 'dress the set' for this corner.  By the end of the day, with some of the purchases added to the scenes  as well, each one was truly orginal and beautifully made.

We are looking forward to seeing some photos of the many finished creations in the near future...(don't be shy ladies)!!


So now.............with more than half the places already booked, we are already looking forward to our next workshop on Sunday 1st September, which will also be held at Waterperry Gardens.

'Let's All Play in the Little Back Garden Workshop'
will be a gentle reminder of those summery days, decades ago, when Mother made a tent  from an old curtain and the toys were brought out to play with on the lawn.  This workshop will be different again from the others, can stand alone, butt into an existing house or be joined onto an earlier garden scene. It will be available in both 1/12th and 1/24th scales and enjoyable whether you are experienced or new to creating miniatures. Details and a downloadable booking form are on our website click HERE and do get in touch if you have any queries.

If you go to the website you'll also see the title for our winter workshop............

'Oh No It Isn't.............Oh Yes It Is!!

Haha....should be another fun project....have you guessed what it will be yet?

Celia and Robin
PS. The Nostalgia In Miniature Website has now undertaken a little bit of spring cleaning and at last  there are galleries of ALL the projects undertaken to date since our workshops began.....hope you enjoy browsing through them all.