Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Coupons anyone??
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Flower Preserving Par Deux!
- A 11x14" Shadow box
- 2 pieces Fabric (one solid white and the other sheer purple)
- Ribbon (one sheer white and the other solid purple)
- A Hot Glue gun with lots of extra glue
- Pearlized Pins
- All of those beautiful dried flowers
- A wedding invitation
- Cut both pieces of fabric and glue them directly to the back of the shadowbox.. Be sure to pull the fabric tight before you glue. It will make a difference!
- Get some inspiration. I'm not very artsy, so I used the internet to find a style that I liked. The one that I found looked nothing like the flowers I had, but the concept was good. At the wedding Meghans flowers were cascading, and the flowers in the picture I liked (and Linked) were cascading as well, so I used that as my guide.
- Glue down the invitation.
- Glue down the greens
- Glue down everything else! This is such an easy project. Don't be shy of your glue gun, just use it! You might be suprised with the result! Here was mine:
- Get a second opinion on how the flowers are arranged. Sometimes we need a little perspective. Josh told me that I needed to fill some of the space on the right side of the flowers. Can you tell a difference?
- Add the ribbon and pin it down.
- Using a some leftover sheer white ribbon, finish the border of the frame.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
How to preserve flowers
The wedding weekend was filled with many different activities for the families and bridal party and I was honored to be part of the happiness that was shared by the happy couple.
The wedding was simply gorgeous with the bridesmaids wearing a deep purple and the flowers, a bright variety of Gerber daisies, orchids, calla lilies and roses. The bride was stunning! Her dress was layered with lace and satin, and she wore an elegant veil with a lot of detailing around the edge. Because I don't feel that my words do her justice, I've decided to add a picture:
She was (and is) so beautiful!
Now on to the flowers... are they not beautiful? Luckily, when I was in high school, I worked at a florist which did flower preservations. I offered to do that to Meghan’s flowers, and after some specific discussion on what exactly I would be doing to them, she agreed!
Here's the first steps of what I did to prepare her flowers to be preserved.
1. Cut all stems down to 1 inch
2. Dry any dew-like moisture that may have been remaining in the flowers with a paper towel
3. In a shoe-like box (do not use a plastic container. Flowers might get moldy if you do), fill about a quarter of the box with Silica and place the flowers (bud up) in the powder (or beads depending what kind of silica you purchased. I've used both and they do an equally great job).
4. Carefully fill the rest of the box with the Silica, meaning, don't dump it all in at once. Fill around the flowers first, then the inside the flowers.
Here is what my finished product looked like.
and
(I used both Powder and Gel)
There were a few extra orchids that I could not fit into the two boxes that I filled and the stems were cut so I couldn't put them into a bouquet like arrangement, so I did this:
Orchids last a long time, so this pretty arrangement sat on my kitchen table for about a week and a half! Not too shabby if you ask me!
Back to the preservation; It only takes about a week for all of the moisture to be taken out of the flowers, so be patient and don't peek. You'll be able to see the finished product before long!
Here is how mine turned out:
Color definitely got darker but they are beautiful. Much more vibrant then if you just hung them to dry, plus wait until you see my next post when I give you the steps on how to make something of these lovely flowers!
No onto my exciting news: Joshua booked us on a 1 year anniversary honeymoon cruise which leaves in about 8 hours!!!!!
I'm SO excited! Bahamas, here we come :)
I've got the most wonderful husband...
Until next time,
Suzanne