Show me your garden and I shall tell you what you are. ~ Alfred Austin

My friend Todd Action is quite a gardener in real life. He’s also a reader, so he built a reading shed in his back yard in the middle of a city—a cozy area where he can go out and read a book, enjoying the peace and quiet of his beautiful garden. Todd, like many of us, however, will have to wait to get out in that shed because this has been one heck of a winter.

I was inspired by two sets of gardening items that have recently hit the grid to replicate Todd’s set up for myself. My reading nook is Sway Dench’s newest little build, a little “half-timbered” Summerhouse based on German design. Sway also made all the fencing that goes around it. Now this house is not just a joke—when I visited Berlin, my host pointed out huge areas of these little houses with little gardens. People from the city owned them and would plant their garden and spend their weekend sleeping in their tiny house and tending to their garden and of course, going to the biergarten in the evening. It is a restful respite from the stresses of the city, though the houses themselves were not far out of the city and seemed close together. I made Sway’s little house into a reading shed complete with Cory Edo’s Cabinet Bed.

My other inspiration is Tya Fallingbridge’s charming gacha set for the Arcade. She has attended to each piece with loving detail, from the seed packets hanging from a string to the garden tools and the spare birdhouse. There is even a coiled hose to add to the collection. And it all goes with the wonderful potter’s bench she is offering. For any gardener, this set would be a wonderful gift, and the great thing about gacha items is that they are transfer, so hit the Arcade and buy your favorite gardener this darling set.

Of course I don’t garden in a dress but I was so inspired by the folksy details of AvaGardner Kungler’s tunic dress that I had to wear it. Done in spectacularly detailed mesh (notice the tie at the waist), this darling dress is really perfect for a flower child. Flowered wellies from Moonbubble Gothly are the right footwear for muddy patches and Maxi Gossamer’s turtle-shaped necklace adds a natural touch to the look. Mina Nakamura has just released this lovely loose braid with her signature HUD coloring system.

My skin is Aida Ewing’s base skin for the Arcade, the pretty Aria skin. I wore eyebrows from the set to shape the face but it’s otherwise untouched so you can see it in its glory. The package that Aida offers has confused some, so I hope I can shed some light on it. She has packed the gacha at the Arcade with complete skins (already made up) and then a base skin and add-ons. The 12 “combination” skins are complete skins with complete make-up and are counted as commons. Then she has rare items that are all accessories: a base skin, 3 packs of different lipsticks, a pack of eyebrows, a pack of different noses, a pack of eyeliners and a pack of freckles and moles.

This is the thing: if you put your money in and get a combo skin and then try again and get a pack of accessories, you are set! The accessories can be laid over your combo skin to alter the look of that skin. So imagine you got one of the combo skins and then the package of brows. You can now make 7 different looking skins with the different brow configurations. (And the brows come in several tones for each of the 7 designs.) So nothing is really a loser in the Glam Affair gacha. You don’t *have* to get the base skin to win. It’s a generous offering on that gacha. I imagine the yard sales will be full of items you can pick up later.

The garden suggests there might be a place where we can meet nature halfway. ~ Michael Pollan

Hair: MINA – Nanda NB by Mina Nakamura for MINA *

Skin: -Glam Affair – Aria skin – Asia – Clean Base with -Glam Affair – Aria – Eyebrow 05 – C by Aida Ewing for Glam Affair, available at The Arcade *

Muddy knees: ~Soedara~ Muddy Knees by Marbella Provonost for Soedara

Eyes: .ID. Bright Eyes / REG / Feb Gift by Audrey Lamede for Insufferable Dastard

Dress: (Kunglers) Laura tunic dress – Concrete by AvaGardner Kungler for Kunglers *

Necklace: MG – Necklace – Teardrop Turtle – Orange by Maxi Gossamer for Maxi Gossamer, available at The Arcade *

Hands: Slink Mesh Hands (av) Casual Left and Slink Mesh Hands (av) Relaxed Right by Siddean Munro for Slink

Nail applier: Nailed It – French Manicure – Pastels Set HUD (wear) by Giela Delpaso for Nailed It *

Boots: [ bubble ] Cat Wellies by Moonbubble Gothly for [bubble] *

Poses: Di’s Opera – Those Seventies by Di Hoorenbeek for Di’s Opera, available at Limited Bazaar

Featured décor:

Trompe Loeil – Cabinet Bed Morning Light Fabrics by Cory Edo for Trompe Loeil *

Sway’s [Zwerg] Garden Gnome by Sway Dench for Sway’s *

Sway’s [Zwergin] Garden Gnome by Sway Dench for Sway’s *

Sway’s [Andersen] half timbered Summerhouse by Sway Dench for Sway’s *

Sway’s [Andersen] Fence by Sway Dench for Sway’s *

Pixel Mode – The Happy Gardener – Arcade March 2014 by Tya Fallingbridge for Pixel Mode, available at The Arcade *