Caught In The Act...AGAIN!

Remember my white rose bush?

Well, this year the Red Queen´s gardeners have been up to their old tricks again! She seems to have pardoned them last summer but it looks as if she means business this time. At least she´s only caught one of them in the act. If the other one´s careful he might get away with his crafty repainting for many years to come.

On the other hand, he might find it easier to remedy his original mistake and actually plant a RED rose bush. I hope he doesn´t though. It´s always interesting to see how many roses these rascals manage to paint in one summer.

Click to enlarge

The little that can be seen of the background is from Nature Notes and the photo mask is the one I used to create one of the frames in the kit. The long-stemmed rose is from Vintage Bouquet. As before, the wonderful b & w illustrations are by Tenniel from an old copy of Alice In Wonderland daubed red by the Red Queen´s gardeners. Well, they get blamed for everything else so why not that too...

OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!

Of all the rose bushes in my garden the white tea rose bush is my favourite. Not because it´s prettier. It isn´t. And not because it smells more fragrant. It doesn´t. What it does have which sets it apart from all the others is its remarkable ability to change the colour of its flowers. Sometimes it produces a white rose with just one scarlet petal. Sometimes it daubs red over several roses and occasionally it goes all out to astonish me by producing a whole cluster of red roses. It´s so quirky it reminds me irresistibly of the scene in the Red Queen´s garden in Alice In Wonderland where her gardeners are hastily painting all the white roses red and are caught literally red-handed by that ferocious monarch bellowing, "OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!" See for yourself...(I promise I´ve recoloured nothing apart from taking liberties with Tenniel´s wonderful black and white illustrations.)

Click on the image for a larger view of my quirky roses.

I´ve used one of the freebies from Heart Of Gold for this page. The quick page with its bouquet of roses and jewelled heart-shaped frames seemed ideally suited to display not only my whimsical rose bush but also the equally whimsical drawings from my vintage copy of Alice In Wonderland.

If you´d like the QP, you´ll find it HERE.