Tag: nature blog

A day among the flowers

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography5 Comments

Hey friends!

We’re beginning to get increasingly closer to all the beautiful flowers being in bloom and I thought I’d share some recent clicks of pretty flowers I’ve taken. Some from my garden and some from the wild and I wanted to take you guys along with me so you can enjoy the relaxing atmosphere and pretty plants too! 

It wasn’t until I sat to look over my photos that I realised I’d been focusing on pink flowers! I hope these photos bring as much joy to your day as much as they did mine.

Its funny I hadn’t realised just how many plants are pink!

Starting off my wildflower quest is a little light pink Scabious, I love these and am actually growing about a dozen of these plants in my Wildspace, as long as you cut the faded heads off they flower all summer long and the butterflies love them.

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Embroidered Butterfly #6 {Speckled wood}

On By ArtyMissKIn Art, Needlework Bugs6 Comments

Hey friends! 

A couple of weeks ago I posted a One Frame of a Speckled wood butterfly – a rather pretty brown and cream chap who usually lives in the woods, I felt so super excited to have seen one of these so early in the year that I couldn’t help but want to create a needlework version. 

A Speckled wood has a real life wingspan of almost 5cm. There isn’t too much difference between and males and females so I just made the one – but might add another to this post later. All in all my needlework version has a wingspan of about 10cm to keep it inline with my ‘twice life size’ scale.

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Speckled Wood butterfly {One frame}

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography2 Comments

Hey friends! 

I’ve got a little one frame to share with you this week, lets be honest it wasn’t going to be long before butterflies took over the theme of my posts again was it! I was actually planning to post some new bug illustrations I’ve been working on but this little guy (or girl) fluttered into the garden a couple of days ago.

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Embroidered Butterfly #4 & #5 {Large & Small White}

On By ArtyMissKIn Art, Needlework Bugs7 Comments

Hey friends! 

Are you enjoying the last of the summer sunshine?

A while ago I posted a Complete Lifecycle of the Large white and then a couple of weeks ago I shared a One frame of two Small white butterflies mating…I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for cabbage butterflies – purely because of the fact that they’re treated as pests, in my mind it makes ‘em a bit of an underdog.

I thought that as they’re so similar I’d create both types in needlework at the same time, so this is both #4 and #5 on my Embroidered Butterfly challenge – only 53 more to go!!!

Similar to my Orange tip butterflies, you can easily distinguish between the two sexes of both types and can clearly see the size difference as well. They’re white with black wingtips (although the female have slightly creamy lower wings) and I thought it would be fun to create both a male and female, size wise the little pair of Small whites are about 7cm across (so they’re slightly smaller than the others I’ve already made!) While the Large whites have a wingspan of almost 14cm!! The body of each one has a crocodile clip sewn on so that I can attach the butterflies to plants, but I’ve also been wearing them in my hair.

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Embroidered Butterfly #3 {Painted Lady} (updated May 2024)

On By ArtyMissKIn Art, Needlework Bugs9 Comments

Hey friends! 

**This post was edited on 17/5/24 as I’ve remade the butterfly and updated the pictures**

How ya doing?

I’ve got a new embroidered butterfly to share with you this week as we’re coming to the end of the Butterfly Count. Over the last six weeks I’ve been raising twelve Painted lady caterpillars (I did a post on them a couple of weeks ago) who all successfully pupated into beautiful butterflies that are now living out free in the big wide world and I couldn’t resist the chance to create a needlework one!! 

So this is #3 on my Embroidered Butterfly challenge. Seeing as there are 61 types of butterflies in the UK I’ve got quite a few more to do.

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Raising Large White Butterflies

On By ArtyMissKIn Conservation, Photography4 Comments

Hey friends,

How are ya!?

I’ve got a new butterfly tale for you! This post has been a while in the making and actually began in May…when I planted cabbages in my Wildspace so that the cabbage butterflies had a place to lay their eggs – I really dislike that vegetable growers sometimes treat them as pests and decided that the little patch of nature I’ve been blessed with would welcome these butterflies.

Anyway, on the 2nd of June I sat and watched a Large white (Pieris brassicas) flutter around the garden and she took a fancy to one of the cabbage leaves…they’re actually really picky about what leaves they lay eggs on and watching her, was like she was trying all the leaves for size.

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Butterflies of Cornwall {book review}

On By ArtyMissKIn Conservation2 Comments

Hello friends! 

Have ya had a good week? Since its week two of the Big Butterfly Count I thought I’d try something a little different from usual and write a book review!!

Incase it hasn’t already been established I’m a little bit crazy for butterflies and since I’m trying to entice as many of them into my newly designed/planted Wildspace, I thought that I’d try to find a book to give me an idea of which butterflies are most likely to visit the area (and grow the plants accordingly).

Butterflies of Cornwall, atlas for the twenty-first century was published by Cornwall Butterfly Conservation in 2021.

If you’ve not heard of them Butterfly Conservation is kinda like WWF or the RSPB, you join for about £3.00 per month and are sent an amazing welcome pack including postcards, and a lovely little book on gardening for moths and butterflies as well as a handy caterpillar guide and then you receive the Butterfly magazine three times a year (I get ever so excited when I know its on its way!) It’s a really lovely group to be involved with. They organise field trips and everything which is awesome.

Plus I love a book!

So here’s my review…

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