Picking and Arranging Flowers

Making people happy

After painting these flowers yesterday I re-cut them and put them into another vase to give to a friend.

If the bow on this looks familiar it's because the other friend I gave flowers to returned the vase. Things just keep moving through here and making people smile.

When I finished with the flowers I went back to sorting through things at the worktable and using loose bits to decorate my mail. This was letter paper for an aunt. I had some markers handy, some were regular ones and others were the watercolor brush type. I clipped the picture of this set of dishes from a catalog and used it as my inspiration to practice a few brush strokes and designs.

Getting letters written on paper like this really seems to entertain people. Some of them make a bit of a game out of guessing where the pictures stop and the drawing and painting starts.

Today's flowers for a friend

Making changes in the flower pots

 I even added the yellow flowers from the fairy garden and some hosta for contrast in shapes, sizes and colors to make things more interesting. I trimmed a lot of plants back but when they recover from the transplanting I think this will be really nice.

This one didn't turn out quite as well because everything left was more or less the same color.

I'm hoping that I can get these going really good to use as a housewarming gift soon. These pots just match the her place. They don't look too bad at mine either...

Poppies, Red and white floral arrangements

Project update

I just finished this hat, the second one this week:

I'll get back to sorting out the worktable now. I was having a bit of fun drawing and painting on the outgoing mail but I haven't got any ideas for any new paintings yet.

While waiting for inspiration to strike I'm working on a few red, white, and blue floral arrangements for later this summer. This one seems off to a good start-only 15 more to go!

I'm walking around the garden a bit trying to get an idea on the best place to hang that birdhouse I painted recently. Birds are already moving into some of the other birdhouses so we'd best get this one out soon.

Flowers

I spent a few hours shopping for and arranging silk flowers today and all I cold think of is how nice it will be when there are fresh flowers in the garden again. I spend more time growing, drawing and painting them but it really feeds my spirit in a way that fake ones just can't.
Next winter I'll need to get some blooming houseplants to get me through the season in style.

Here's some of the stuff I picked up at a local Dollar Store to arrange in vases over at a local senior center. You don't need to pay a lot for flowers but you do need to select them carefully. Make sure no blossoms are missing, soiled or damaged. Sometimes there will actually be perforated edges because the manufacturer has cut all the way to the selvage edge of the fabric.

I made this out of some items they had on hand over there and we'll use that later in the year. Rearranging and reusing materials is a great way to save money and to keep things interesting.

Project updates

Decorating : finished 7 floral arrangements and 12 centerpieces. Using items on hand and buying a few floral supplies I ended up bringing the whole project in for only nine dollars total cost.

Crochet: I just finished the third scarf from that large skein of yarn. I ran a bit short and used stripes of another yarn to finish each edge. This is one of the reasons that I like to crochet scarves lengthwise. No matter how much yarn you've got the color gets evenly distributed.

This will be donated along with the others to that program for women veteran's and their families.

Paper Crafts: I made a lot of stationery and note cards but dropped them in the mail as I finished them and got my letters written so I didn't get any pictures or scans for you.One project I did today was cutting out a lot of little red hearts in various papers from scraps I'd been given and mailing them to a friend who was a bit down because her family hadn't sent her anything for Valentine's Day. It may be too little too late but I wanted to try to cheer her up.

Dala Horses: I continue carving sanding and painting. So far I've got 1/2 dozen ready to go to a sale with another friend that are done with knitting and quilting themes.

Work Table: I continue to sort and organize things in between the other projects I'm working on.

Gardening: The flower seed and strawberries have been ordered. The indoor fruit trees have been fertilized and are improving. The orange looks about the same but there are a lot of new leaves on the lemon.

Today's Garden Photos

 Here's the arrangement I made from the flowers I picked today

 Yes,we took a bit of time for coffee first. It was 85 degrees but you hardly noticed that while sitting in the shade here.

 There's not much left of the container garden so I thought I'd add some of these marigolds to the floral arrangement.

 As you can see, there's not much left of the wildflower border either.

Considering what I had to work with I think that arrangement 

turned out pretty nice, don't you?

Today's fresh flowers from the garden

Flowers to die for

In another year of tough times and tight finances I found myself going to a dollar store for the silk flowers to do the cemetery arrangements this year. I hate to skimp on flowers and mean no disrespect to the deceased but this is the best I can manage this year. It will be interesting to see how this project works out.

 I wasn't sure how many flowers it would take to fill those big planters so we took them along so that we could start them in the parking lot and keep running into the store until it looked like we'd have enough to fill BOTH planters.

 Believe it or not it took over 3 dozen bunches of flowers. Even using the cheapest flowers I could find they still ran 40.00 dollars.

When I actually get everything arranged and have finished with them I'll have more pictures to share with you.

The first finished Still Life in DECADES!!!

The last few days have been more or less a blur as I worked on this painting every day and night but it's exciting to combine objects and challenge myself to do a wider assortment of subjects. I'm not sure whether or not my style or technique are improving but I do know the effort has been good for me in many ways. The flowers are nearly gone now but I've sketched out 2 more paintings that I'd like to start. I may have to resort to photos but I'm hoping not. It's either that or working the backgrounds and waiting until next years garden. I'll let you know which way it goes.

I couldn't fit the whole painting into the scanner so I'll be shooting some photos of it tomorrow when the light is better.