St Patrick's day at Atelier

In my opinion, there isn't quite enough 'special days', and so, St Patrick's Day is a festivity that I like to acknowledge, if not necessarily celebrate, after all, I cannot boast to be of Irish descent. It's possibly got something to do with the colours, and definitely something to do with the shamrocks - all that lush greenery after a dull old winter.

This year, visitors to Atelier can celebrate St Patrick's Day in style in one of my charming Tiny Toppers, a bargain at 75L, and complete the look with a shamrock choker - a snip at 45L. Additionally, this year I have a limited number of shamrock trees, which I have patiently cultivated and now am able to offer to all at 50L. Just three prims a-piece, they can be planted in the garden, or shrunk down and shoved in a pot for the parlour, they make a welcome change from aspidistras!

Happy St Patrick's Day!

The March Shadowbox

The shadowbox for March is now on the wall at Atelier, since it's late again, I'll keep it out for most of April too.

For a March theme, I had to include a March Hare, and have had the main picture for this shadowbox in mind for a long time. Of course, a March hare theme would not be complete without one of  Tenniel's Alice in Wonderland woodcuts, the March Hare here seen dunking the poor dormouse into the pot. I also added a woodcut I found of the Vernal Equinox, which occurs on the 21st, the image here representing the equal hours of sunlight and darkness at this time. The bronze Roman coin, is a symbol of 'The ides of March', the name for the 15th March in the Roman Calendar. The term Ides of March is best known as the date that Julius Caesar was assassinated, as dramatized in Shakespeare's play, and the coin was commissioned by assassin Brutus after Caesar's death. Two green porcelain hare-shaped buttons and a bottle of pussy willow buds bring the nature theme back into focus, and a line from an ode by Victorian poet Algernon C. Swinburne, on a stained and torn scrap of paper, sum up the madness and chaos of the season.

"March, master of winds, bright minstrel and marshal of storms 

that enkindle the season they smite."

Algernon C. Swinburne, March: An Ode