Boomarks and Luggage Tags With Pressed Flowers

More items for the holiday craft shows.





These pressed flower bookmarks are done on backgrounds that I created either while paper marbling or painting silk.




Luggage ID tags. These are another new item for me. Thank you Jacki Harrington for the idea, and information. These are her idea, that she kindly shared with me.

Pressed Flower Christmas Ornaments

Christmas ornaments : pressed flowers on glass

So after coming home from China I was inspired to get creating some new things. Since it is the Christmas season, and had two shows coming up, I started creating ornaments. These were fun to do, and helped to put me in the holiday spirit.

Each one is decorated with real pressed flowers. Some I have painted on designs. Others I left blank.

China with the World Wide Pressed Flower Guild

I have been absent from blogging for a great reason. Last month this art I have come to love lead me to China. The basis of the trip was the 2010 World Wide Pressed Flower Guild Conference. While the conference was held in Guangzhou at the South China Agricultural University, I was able to visit the Beijing area and Hong Kong as well.

Accomapnied by friends and fellow World Wide Pressed Flower Guild Members the trip started in Beijing. While there we toured The Forbidden City, The Great Wall, Ming Tombs, and the Imperial Palace. We attended a tea ceremony, which surprisingly had us laughing to the point of tears, watched silk being made, saw jade being carved, and had our names carved in stamps. We shopped. Our mission : to find found great art, art supplies, papers and books, jade jewelry and gifts. Mission Accomplished !
Our long days of walking and walking ended with great meals like Peking duck that actually came with a serial number, and a Traditional Hot Pot feast.


The weather wasn't too cooperative during our visit to the Great Wall, but I managed to climb pretty high.







Steps of the Great Wall

Amazing to see and climb, not to mention a great workout!












Inside The Forbidden City: so much art and history.

From Beijing we flew to Guangzhou for the conference. There was work to be done, and fun to be had.
Judging the competition was difficult with so many great entries. It is however a job I was honored to do.

Teaching at the conference was fun. The students and members, from several different countries, were fun and quick learners.
We made the newpapers every day during the conference, here are some links:

http://news.qq.com/a/20101105/001408.htm

http://news.xkb.com.cn/shouyehuandengpian/2010/1101/99504.html

http://pic.people.com.cn/GB/165652/165654/13110040.html

We laughed, we learned, met old friends and new members. We even played in a chemistry lab.

Picture of mallards from press flowers

On the last day of the conference we had a field trip. One stop was this beautiful street in Guangzhou.

Below: Enjoying our last afternoon in Guangzhou

Final stop: Hong Kong

We visited Hong Kong Island, Victoria's Peak and my most favorite of all, Stanley

Oh, and of course we shopped!

Final Touches

After looking at my sunset picture for a few days, I decided it needed a little more of something, so I added some extra grass, then framed it. Here is the final version of the picture, titled

"Each End A New Beginning"

A reminder, that with each end there is a new beginning.

More garden visitors

Just when I think it's time to start cutting and pulling the plants and flowers from the garden, I found more visitors and residents this week. Guess I can wait a few more days to get ready for winter.

There were two of these monarch butterflies on the bush, enjoying all of the new blooms


The swallowtail caterpillars continue to grow in masses .
.

Each End A New Beginning

The background is on painted silk. Pressed plants that were used to create the water and beach include corn husks, onion skins, bark, ferns, leaves, cosmos, delphinuim and cleome.

This work was created as a donation to a fund raiser where I work.

Birthday and Bookmark Cards

Using some of my summer blooms , I made these cards. The one on the right is a bookmark card. The purple part is a boomark that lifts off of the card.

Flowers On Silk

I am learning silk painting for use as backgrounds for my art. I have made two pieces so far. They were both done using different techniques. I like the bottom one more, as far as backgrounds go. The top picture has more detail and work, as you can see!

Hydrangea, delphinium, cosmos, dogwood, and sweet potato vine are some of the plants used to create this picture on hand painted silk.

On this hand painted silk background I used queen anne's lace, salvia, verbena and geranium
sweet potato vine and cosmos to create the "meadow" and butterfly.

Just an update on those caterpillars. I am just having fun watching these critters grow. New art to follow soon.

Look how big they are in only a few days!

Garden Visitors

I wasn't born a gardener. Neither of my thumbs were green. But when I discovered my love for creating art from flowers and nature, I had no choice but to plant a garden. I didn't know a pansy from a petunia back then. I am still learning. I have come to love my garden, with all of it's faults. One of the things I enjoy most are finding things I am not looking for.

Today was finally the perfect day to do some garden clean up. While I was ripping out unwanted weeds, and thinning through over grown wild things I spotted first, just one Black Swallowtail caterpillar (larva).

While in past years I have had one, maybe two of the interesting caterpillars on my fennel plant, I had never seen one this young. I have only seen them when they are green. At first I wasn't sure it was a swallowtail, but knew I would research it later.

Then while my ripping out of unwanted things continued, I reached down to pull some fennel that was sprouting but instead found two more of these caterpillars.

I went in to the computer to clarify that these were indeed swallowtail larvae, some, maybe just a few days old. Then I thought of all of the Queen Anne's Lace and Fennel I had discarded. Sure enough after an hour of carefully inspecting it all I rescued three more larvae.

This is also a Black Swallowtail larva, in an older stage than the small black ones.

My garden was a fun place to be on this cloudy day. I had so many visitors.

She wouldn't stay still long enough for a good picture, perhaps it was the dog and camera that were chasing her.


He's hiding there, knowing he is not allowed in the garden!

Cafe' Brandi

I was working on this piece for a long time...a friend asked me to make it a while back. I kept waiting for the right idea, or inspiration.

When I finally decided to do a collage, things went together more easily.

I made cups from leaves, flowers and hand made papers.

I added trim, flowers, words and more. I kept adding until I was happy with the result:
"Cafe' Brandi" - A Pressed Flower Coffee Collage!

Flowers And Glitter

I am working on some big projects right now, but took a break to make a few cards this week. I was curious to see how the glitter would look on these. I am happy with the results.

Pressed Flower Jewelry

This week I experimented with different ways to use resin to make these "flower gems". These were made using real hydrangea, daisy, columbine, pansy and fern that were pressed before being turned into necklaces.

More to follow!