Northern Rose and Silver leaf

I have been trailing sparks of silver all around the house today. There are flakes in the cracks in the floorboards and a dusting of glitter down the stairs. I have been putting some finishing touches to the piece of furniture I am transforming using silver leaf and shiny fragments are following me around.

It started with this old Queen Anne style dresser which was an ugly brown.

I experimented a bit with different shades of blue, but decided the Annie Sloan Chalk Paint Louis blue straight out of the tin was perfect. A velvety powdery blue.

It reminded me of the painting 'Blue Dancers' by Degas.

Inside the drawers is another story! I hand mixed a pink that looks like strawberry ice cream and this gives the drawers a little surprise of colour, what Sloan calls a ‘quiet riot.’ Restrained on the outside but with a bright interior. Just like me!

The drawers were then  lined with Graham and Brown ‘NorthernRose.’ This is their wallpaper of the year and you can see why. The deepest richest blue, the purest pink roses and a rococo swirl of silver, which brings me back to special effects on the exterior of the dresser.

I have painted the handles with ‘Painters Touch’ by Rustoleum. This is a water based paint that will stick to metal, wood, paper and card. This has transformed the dull brass to a vintage silver.

Finally before waxing I applied three or four leaves of aluminium to the two ornamental side pieces and the top of the drawers. I could have used the silver paint, but I wanted to create a decadent silvering effect reminiscent of old mirrors. I think it’s worked beautifully. 

A coat of dark wax gives it an antiqued finish. I love the imperfection with the cracked edges and little bits of blue peeking through.

The silver was  a bit too bright so I added a coat of dark wax to that too which toned it down and gave it a faded decadence.

Now I just need to brush up all the silvery remnants.

These are the days of roses.

I love roses. I love the smell, the fragility, the way the light filters through the petals, their short lived beauty. Somewhere along the way the rose became the flower to lift my mood. It adorns my tea cups, sweetens my bath and most of all delights my senses.

I don't mean the stiff stemmed, tight budded display rose that would-be lovers give their valentines, all prim and upright in their cellophane sheath.

No, I mean the sprawling, heady, riotous rose that spills over the garden wall. Summer boiled over;
the damask rose redolent of Moroccan courtyards; the wild dog rose that studs the English hedgerow in June and the arching abandonment of the garden rose allowed its fragrant head.

In our Spanish garden we grow four roses, one bought by each of my four daughters when we moved to the house. The first is Gloire de Dijon, the second Kazanlik, the third Albertine and the fourth Madame Alfred Carriere.

 Gloire de Dijon also known as the Old Glory rose was chosen for its beautiful coppery pink colour and its delicious slightly peppery and spicy old rose scent. It’s the first rose to come out in Spain where they are ahead of us in the UK. Often it blooms as early as April.

Kazanlik is next, chosen for its strong scent. This is a damask rose and its petals are used to make attar of roses. It’s a deep pink and its petals are soft and papery and fall like fat confetti into the courtyard.

Albertine is my overall favourite. It begins its display with tightly held buds that open out to loose flowers like a ballerina's skirt. The scent is heady and decadent. I chose Albertine to be the name of this blog, because I love the rose and I love the name.

My final rose is Madame Alfred Carriere and this is the strongest and most vigorous, climbing all the way high into the fig tree that overhangs the stone wall. It’s a creamy white with a faint hint of palest pink and has a lovely rich scent and silky open flowers. It just keeps on coming!

I bought all these roses from David Austen and they were sent out to Spain in a van. They transform my courtyard garden into a fragrant oasis every year.

 This is not a blog about gardening, but about things that please me and I hope you too. As one of my heroes William Morris said: ‘If you want a golden rule that will fit everybody, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.’ This is a blog about the beautiful and the useful.