Welcome back dear blogging friends and readers to a November garden update and a teaser at the end of this post on the upcoming Vintage Christmas blog parties that I'm preparing on participating in this season.

We had such beautiful fall weather this year, even the November days are mostly sunny, although at night it can get a bit frosty already but nothing too bad so far. This Saturday I took advantage of the sunny weather and took some November garden photos to share with you. Above you see the Santolina Chamaecyparissus also called Lavender Cotton in a pot and my white iron bunny who is keeping an eye on the freshly planted bulbs in the clay pot. We planted lot's of beautiful fresh spring bulbs in pots and borders last month to have something to look forward too next Spring!

I decorated the garden tables for Winter/Christmas already but minus the color red, I only like red as contrast to white snow, so the red decorations have to wait in the garden shed until the first snow at least.

The plants that I want to overwinter and that are not frost resistent have moved inside or like the rosemary and echeverias in the picture above at least close to the house so that I can take them inside in not time in case a sudden strong frost should arrive.

We had no rain for several weeks and I must always remind myself to water the patio plants from time to time.

Here is a view intp my boxwood garden, in the back you can see the wrapped pots of my neighbor.

A few roses like this Leonardo da Vinci are still producing flowers. Sorry it's blurred looks like my camera prefered to focus on the blue french iron chair instead lol

This fall we even had enough time to clean up the garden and rake all the fallen foliage not like last year when we were surprised by early strong frosts and snow and the illness of my mom not to forget. Thank God she's feeling well again and was also helping me in the Garden a bit on Friday's.

I also had the time to cut back most of my perennials this season only left a few with seeds for the birdies.
I think the garden looks still beautiful although it has less flowers and leaves, wouldn't you agree?

I love my little cabapple tree this time of the year:

and the fresh moss wreath I made for my garden table:

The patio walls and shelves are also decorated for the Winter season:

and I hung up food for the birdies too

The sun shone really warm but I couldn't stay, I had to go back inside after my photo session to prepare the Christmas decorations inside and take photos for upcoming events as long as it was still so bright and light, since this time of the year during the week I go to work when it just gets daylight in the morning and come back home from work in the dark, so photo sessions are only possible on weekends.

The patio wall on the other side, with my Verbena bonariensis still in bloom:

Close up of some easy peasy Winter decorations:

Everything in the garden is ready to sleep and waiting for the upcoming Winter to arrive:

and also in the Christmas blogger block party - see the photon & link button in my left side bar!

Above and below are two more peeks on what's new and what I'll have to share with you very soon:

So will you come back and visit me in December?

xoxo~ Carola

 Can you guess what this is here on my kitchen counter? Nope? Well it is our new cupcake shelf, what else lol, everyone should have one!

 We opened our own private cupcake manufacture! Ha no not really, but almost because actually making cupcakes is my daughters latest passion!

 Not any cupcakes though, nope they must be 100 percent vegan, which means no butter, egg, dairy or any other animal products have been used to make them. She even makes her own vanilla essence from 100 percent biological Madagascar vanilla which smells simply wonderful.

And oh all the other pretties you can use to make cupcakes, like the yummy rose elixier or the colorful paper liners in the big jar:

So of course when she asked me for a shelf for all of her new cupcake equipment and the cupcakes itself,  I just had to come up with something pretty too and gave her my vintage Dallmayer (an old German coffee brand) Advertise coffee shelf, which I used for storage up in my studio before.

 I also gave her some of my favorite white vintage scalloped paper border and my favorite aqua polkadotted giftwrapping paper and some Dresden borders and wooden scrabble letters to embellish the old shelf, picked some late roses and other still blooming flowers from the garden for a pretty pink glass vase, lit a rose candle in a pink glass jar and this is what came out of it.

It also looks good from the backside where the door is to open it!

 Mocha Baileys cupcakes and Rasberry Lemon cupcakes ready to savor hmmmmmm

I had such fun taking pictures of the embellished vintage coffee shelf, the pretty ingredients, the equipment and the yummy cupcakes in my kitchen, can you tell?

Here is another close up of the rasberry lemon cupcakes to share with you - mouthwatering isn't it?
She got the recipes from that great book:
http://www.amazon.de/Vegan-Cupcakes-Take-Over-World/dp/1569242739
in case you are interested in trying out to make yummy vegan cupcakes too. That book is very fun to read and published by two women who also have a blog http://vegancupcakes.wordpress.com/

So to change the subject and after Halloween is over and all the Halloween decorations are put away again I can finally share with you my latest antique market finds from Sunday October 30th:

Yes I know I was very lucky again! My favorite thing is that small old German tinsel tree with tiny candles and ornaments and the old silhouette Santa postcard of course. I'm also happy to have found another vintage silver glass Christmas tree topper and another old tinsel garland as well as some sweet pinecone and other old glass Christmas ornaments for my collections.

 I also finished up this huge cone, inspired by the wonderful cones my talented US friend Ann Perry creates. I used vintage German sheet music paper, a vintage lace handkerchief, an old cabinet card, some millinery and glitter stars and think it came out quite pretty. In the picture above it hangs from a bird cage in my roof top studio.

To finish up this post for today I'd like to show you this little group of snowmen in the picture above that I created during a crafting afternoon I had lately with my sister and cousin Stefanie. Two of them are made from spun cotton balls with acorn cap hats and the slightly larger one in the middle with the tiny top hat is made from polymer clay. Ans aren't these tiny rusty sleighs ever so gorgeous? I bought them from Janice's Papier Valise boutique last Spring and was already looking forward to use them in this years holiday decor.

Now I only hope that you like what I shared with you today and I'm looking forward to share more of my holiday crafts and decorations for this season with you my dear blogging friends and readers very soon!

xoxo~ Carola