first sun

Although you wouldn't know it if you were looking out my window this minute, Summer is on it's way. Being back in Auckland I now realise how much the seasons blur together here, and I guess that's why we're having a huge downpour despite me taking these photos above only last weekend - it's Spring, only I hadn't really noticed.

We're only a week out from school holidays (just a two week-er), and then it will only be a short seven week term before Summer break and we can all catch our breath a bit. I'm planning on embracing Summer a bit early though, with beach trips and more of that incredible ice cream (Richard had the lemon curd yogurt  and for the first time in my life I regretted choosing chocolate). This transition time is one of my favourite parts of the year, warm enough for bare feet and shoulders, putting in the veggie garden and evening walks, but still with days like today where I can watch the mist and rain roll over the harbour perched up here on the couch.

What I did on my holidays.

Hello! So good to be back after such a refreshing two weeks. I'll admit that pulling myself away from here was a little tricky at first, I had a hard time feeling like I was missing out on stuff! I read an article the other day about a recent tv appearance of Fidel Castro who mentioned something about the US attacking Iran (hypothetically) and I freaked out that we really had missed the beginning of the end of the world by turning off the internet. Dooms day worries aside, it was such a great time. I listened to records, went on picnics, lay in the sun, sketched, read (actual books, man it's been too long), ate outdoors a lot, attended a marathon labour, wore summer clothes, cleared our patio and ate pizza with herbs from our garden. Pretty perfect really. I started this post with the intent of filling you in on all that I got up to, but I think when it comes down to it what I really did was step back from the business that I'd let take over and take stock of how I'd really like to be living. To be inspired, take naps, eat breakfast and fruit, remember the vitamins, etc.

Thank you so much to all the lovely people who helped me out by guest posting here over the past couple of weeks. It was such a treat for me to not only have the break, but also to host all your wonderful stories and pictures here. And hello to those of you who found this blog during the break, I can't wait to get to know you.

Best Parts of Summer

Hello Bliss in a Teacup readers!

I am Abby of Abby Try Again. I am so pleased to be here today, sharing a bit of my summer favorites with you. Thank you, Becka.

As some of you may know, I recently moved from the rainy and cool Pacific Northwest to the hot and humid land of Texas. So far it has definitely been an interesting adjustment, but I am trying to remind myself of the best parts of summer....so here they are; my summertime favorites in no particular order.

I love eating outdoors in the summer. Cooking outdoors is almost just as fun!

Summertime is the perfect season for long evening bike rides with friends.

Fruit trees are bursting with goodies right about this time of year.

Barefoot weather is quite nice.

Outdoors games are a must this time of year.

Summertime is the best time to explore the woods.


What's your favorite summer activity?

Sand Dunes & Lakes

Next up, a post from my lovely friend Erin of Atlantic Treefox. Erin is ridiculously talented, I have both her needlwork and her beautiful film photos on my walls (you can pick up one of your own here) and can't wait to see what more she comes up with now that she's back in her homeland and getting ready to head off to art school. Thanks for sharing a bit of Ontario summer with us, Erin!

Since I've been back home in Southern Ontario I've been making a point to soak in as much as I can before I move off to Nova Scotia in September.

Nick & I went up to Lake Muskoka to stay at a cottage for a few days & it was so beautiful. Looking right out onto the lake, huge granite with lichen all over it & all the pine trees, it was such an amazing place. The sounds & smells really make it. We took a canoe out, saw a little inukshuk, sat out talking on a party boat & got amazing ice cream in town.

This past week we went out to The Pinery Provincial Park on Lake Huron. It is a little bit of paradise out there let me tell you! Some of the only sand dunes like it in Canada are there. The white sand & the aqua blue water, you'd think it was the Bahamas! We enjoyed a huge campsite with hugely tall trees all around, beautiful trails & wavy waters. The beach is so long & isn’t crowded at all. My favourite part is that the water has a couple good sand bars so you can really swim out far!

Wild Things

Tiny Happy was also one of the first blogs I started reading, and is still a daily read for me. It is one of the most beautiful and calming spaces on the craziness that is the internet, and Melissa never fails to inspire. I am so thrilled to have you posting here today, thanks Melissa!

Hello, lovely readers. My name is Melissa, and I'm honoured to be guest-posting here at Bliss in a Teacup.

One of my favourite things about summer are wildflowers. In 2008 and 2009, my partner, two kids and I lived in Norway and I think that's where I really fell in love with weeds and other plants growing along the motorways. Here in New Zealand, our seasons are less extreme, so quite a few plants are flowering during the winter months. I never quite appreciated the bold and rebellious nature of wildflowers until I'd driven through the Swedish countryside one summer, taking photos out of the window from my passenger seat. When I got home, I made embroideries and drawings of the plants I'd found.

Here are some of the wildflowers I gathered over my last three summers- in Norway, Sweden and New Zealand.

Looking through these has me longing for summertime- we are currently deep in winter here at the bottom of the world.

Hope you get to gather some wildflowers this summer.

Summer Projects and Tanned Skin

tui and found leaf

Emma's blog, Small Town Stories was one of the very first I started reading and it continues to be one of my favourites. I love seeing what she's up to back in New Zealand, very near to where we hope to settle, watching her and her husband Tom carve a little life out for themselves in Featherston. She is also a very talented maker of pretty bags, brooches and beautiful prints (I hope to have one of my own one day!), to see more take a look over here! Thanks, Emma.

Summer in New Zealand falls at the end of the year, beginning in December and wrapping around the last month to begin the year in warm weather, tanned skin and swimming holes. As the working year ends, as a parting gift we’re all given a boost of serotonin, peppered with a touch of Christmas and some New Year resolutions.

Summer for me has always also meant projects. I don’t really lie on beaches. I’m pale for a start but I’m also always thinking – what can I built next, what print should I create, is there something I can sew that I haven’t thought of yet?

When I was younger, my brothers and I spent our school holiday summers building BMX tracks in the bush (forest) out the back of our house. We constructed jumps from ashes collected throughout the year, cut and hacked through branches and raked and dug and cleared pathways before spending afternoons with friends who we dared to go faster and jump higher than we knew how.

These summers I like to plant flowers and vegetables in the garden, when growing seems easiest. I like to nap in the afternoons to avoid the heat. And I like to set myself summer projects so that when I return to work I can look down at my tanned arms and know I have achieved something greater and more tactile than a few shades of darker skin.

A couple of years ago, my husband Tom and I spent two weeks clearing neck-high weeds, raking over earth and sewing grass for our back section. The summer before last I built a gate in the middle of a fence that blocked me from a great blackberry patch and painted the kitchen floor. And although this summer is still five months away for me, I know that I’ll make an edition of prints and paint the little bedroom that we hope will one day be our baby’s.

A New Zealand Summer

I am so happy to introduce to you my dear friend Tilly, for the first of this weeks guest posts. I am so happy that Tilly has started blogging, as she is one of the most inspiring people I know! She's right though, the perils of having friends from back home post is a pretty strong pang of homesickness. I miss all those faces, sights and New Zealand beaches! Thanks for stopping by, Tilly!

First of all, may I just say that it is such a treat to be guest posting on this lovely blog. I just love the space Becka has created here. Bliss in a Teacup was one of the first blogs I ever read and has been the inspiration for starting my own.

Let me introduce myself. My name is Tilly. I live in Auckland, New Zealand and  have just recently started my own little blog called A Marvellous Victory.

As Evie mentioned in a previous post, it is a bit painful to be writing about summer from all the way down here, at the bottom of the world, where winter is just settling in. Today it is cold, wet and grey and I have the fire roaring.

Living on an island means that the beach figures most prominently in all of  my summer memories. Here is my list of what makes a New Zealand summer particularly special (be prepared to miss home, Becka!): New Zealand summer means long days at the beach, surfing, bicycle rides for ice cream, sandy feet, road trips, salty hair, sun burnt toes, sand castles, rope swings, picnics, bare feet, bonfires, bush walks, Christmas, camping, canned tomatoe sauce, jandels, exaggerated freckles, beer in the sun, strawberries, frujus, coconut smelling sunblock, pre-cooked sausages, river swims, snorkeling, outdoor movies, floppy hats, boats, BBQ's and sun.

Here are a few holga images that remind me of summer. A few (marked with an +) were taken by my beautiful and  talented friend Coralee on our most recent summer holiday.  Enjoy xx

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Road Trip

I have recently had the pleasure of getting to know Kenzie of Secret Pocket, and living vicariously through her road trips, summer drinks and candy making adventures. Her blog is full of such colour and inspiration, and her wee magnets are such a favourite of mine. Thanks for stopping in, Kenzie!

This summer I've been enjoying the classic American road trip. We already live in a small town in the middle of Pennsylvania, so our trips mean driving through mountains, farms and tiny towns. We love to stop old diners and ice cream parlors to take a break. The custard at The Meadows, in Duncansville was my favorite, I got a mix of chocolate and coconut. We got vanilla soft serve mixed with "reesie cup" at Mini Freeze in Orbisonia, and potato donuts at Spudnuts in Charlottesville. We add hours to our trips stopping at yard sales, thrift stores, and scenic pull-offs.

I think I was so used to driving as fast as you can on freeways to get to a destination, that this way of traveling is so much more enjoyable. I find that I enjoy road trips infinitely more, it's an adventure! Have you had any expeditions this summer?

Summer Goals

Please join me in welcoming Alison of TeenAngster for our next guest post. You might know her from Etsy's 'News From the Craft + Style Blogosphere' where she curates the most amazing finds from around the web. I never cease to be inspired by what she digs up, and now that she's started her own personal blog I'm constantly over there to get my fix of witchy women, talking dogs, leather and lace. Thanks, Alison!


 

Summer is here and it's sweltering. While I'm usually an "inside kid" (pale as the day is long), the oh-so-excellent blog Summer Goals has inspired me to cultivate my own list of summer aspirations, many of them not do-able in my apartment. Here's to not sitting like a stone in front of the air conditioning. 

 

1. Make a campfire and sleep in an ancient tent, like I did when I was younger. In fact, I so loved my orange pup tent that I attached it to my waterbed and slept in it for about six months, long past summer's end.

 

2. Visit Dead Horse Bay and search for hidden treasure.

 

3. Take a class at Flower School. I want to make my own arrangement!

 

4. Watch the sunset from my rooftop.

5. Learn to make vintage cocktails from The Savoy Cocktail Book. (Slings and smashes and fizzes and flips!)

Here's to summer, friends!

images: gordon_iowa, gears, cosmic dust, curious expeditions, saipua, teenangster, susan/the well seasoned cook.

Summer with Evie

Please join me in welcoming my very first guest poster, Evie of Handmade Romance. Be sure to check out her blog as she always manages to find the cutest things to share, along with her own adorable work in her store over here. Thanks, Evie!

Hello Bliss in a Teacup readers! Its so nice to be guest blogging over here today. I was pretty chuffed when Becka asked if I'd like to help out and with such a fun subject like Summer, how could I resist?!

For those new to me, my name is Evie and my blog is Handmade Romance, I currently live in Melbourne, Australia. Thinking about Summer at this time of the year, in these parts is a little cruel but thinking of all the good things about Summer has been lots of fun.



For this post I've decided to combine my favourite things/memories about Summer along with another fave of mine - Etsy. So here is a little Summer Etsy Lovin' from me to you. Enjoy!



Sundresses I UV Protection

(in the form of a cute floppy hat!)

Mojitos I Melting Icecream

(I love this fun alternative to the real thing!)

Eating Outdoors I Really Cold Beer

S U M M E R!