Where Flowers Bloom So Does Hope

Yes, I borrowed the title of this post from Lady Bird Johnson and her highway beautification project.

“The Earth laughs in flowers” – Ralph Waldo Emerson (also, E.E. Cummings said this but Ralph was born first so I’m going to attribute it to him for the time being)  Wordsworth called them “the poet’s darling.”  Of course, you don’t have to be a poet to appreciate flowers.

I’ve been thinking about doing this project for a while now.  You see, I love the way a nice vase of fresh flowers look in a room, but it’s hard to consistently keep fresh flowers and fake silk flowers often look…..fake.  Well, I have found the fabled fountain of youth (That’s right, Juan Ponce de Leon!!!).  For flowers, that is.   It’s really fun to make flowers out of fabric, ribbon, and lace. This way, you get the look of flowers, but they are clearly NOT flowers so you avoid the phony flower look and achieve a more “ah, yes, this is my folksy, artsy, flower-inspired decoration” look.

Flowers that bloom all year long!

  For the lace ones, you just do a sort of basting stitch along the bottom, then pull it and gather, shaping the lace into a circle.  I used pearl beads and buttons for the centers.  For the ribbon flowers, I just folded the ribbon into pretty shapes and used hot glue to keep it that way.  Then, I painted some thin wooden dowels “antique white”  and cut them into different lengths.  I used hot glue to fix the stems to the flowers.  I picked up a glass vase in which to place the bouquet and used river rocks to fill it.  I made this for my friend Jessica, who very kindly gave me permission to post about it on here.  The lovely pictures were taken by my friend Sammy, who is a really excellent photographer.    

You know that stray thread in this picture is killing me.