Playing with photography!

We had an over-wintered leeks and I was preparing them for the freezer, I decided to play! I love the color green with the off white that showed up on all the slices! Then I played with the images a bit with Abobe Photoshop.

Some of you will recognize the black and white from my kitchen floor cloth. And the green leaf is a placemat I picked up at TJMaxx (got a set)

My Spring collection of BEADS!

I love this set of old glass beads I have had for years! They always remind me of Easter time or Spring!

Pearls & Shells

I have been collecting faux pearls for decoration. I do love them in a dish just as they are mixed with shells! Below is my collection of 12 metal shells (from Target called table scatters) shown with another set of faux pearls I found from a thrift store in silver metalic finish.

Stands for dishes

This is my thrift store stash. A few of the candle holders are from the dollar store (crystal). All for less than $5. The arrows show which parts I combined to make the stands shown just below.This is a clear glass votive that could be used upside down or as shown. I used hot glue to hold these together while I decide which will stay permanent. Then, I will use glass to glass glue to make a permanent bond for those I want to stay paired. Below is that votive at the bottom, an antique plate, then the little stand shown above sitting on top. I have this picture on share my craft (HGTV )I have been collecting some wooden plates and candle holders (thrift store trips) for my Tropical settings. I combined a few of them to create these elevated food serving surfaces. The plates were made in the Phillipines and are treated with food safe mineral oil.

I had a large candle holder, a wooden platform/plate and a cloche. I covered a bird's nest we found in our yard lined with the hair from our Siberian Huskies.

My husband made a more substantial base for it and permanently joined everything. This is a heavy piece now and won't topple (safer for that glass cloche now)! Then we used a darker gel stain to make the whole base more uniform (since we had used different types of wood with different finishes. I wanted to coordinate with my mahogany furniture.

Accessories

Above, my antique store finds! The smaller silver bowl put into the pineapple motif milk glass bowl in picture below.

Then the cut work milk glass placed into the silver plate bowl (that is inside the pineapple motife bowl) Looks interesting! That is one of my coffee filter roses that I made from the natural color filters. And some faux pearls I picked up to use as decoration for Christmas.

COFFEE FILTER ROSES (1)

COFFEE FILTER ROSES:

Have you seen this? This is an image from http://www.mommymakesroses.com/ It is one of the assortment of colors and types that she makes. I am trying to make something like this.

This is the link to the Martha Stewart site. The directions are written, click on the 'video' part to watch them being made! 
http://www.marthastewart.com/portal/site/mslo/menuitem.3a0656639de62ad593598e10d373a0a0/?vgnextoid=225e759a91841110VgnVCM1000003d370a0aRCRD&autonomy_kw=coffee%20filter%20roses&rsc=ns2006_m1
by Cassie Mae Chappell.

The gal has a website to sell them, I put the link here cause they mention it on the MS site.
http://www.mommymakesroses.com/

They LOOK so REAL! All with a $4 package of cone coffee filters and some water colors!

I set out to try a couple of these roses! Here are my pictures! I got the coffee filters at Costco as was recommended! Under $4 for 400! BTW, this stash makes about 50 roses! It takes 8 to make one depending on the size. If you print the directions and then copy the pattern again at 30% shrinkage for example, you can get a smaller rose. I want to try this next for a white topiary I want to make!te in the crevices and interior. Then I used white water based paint on the individual petals. I dried them with my low-air hair dryer. This made the petals more opaque.
Below: shows one rose made with painting the edges green and leaving the petals alone. The light from the sun through the window shows how see-through it is. The 'rose' on the right shows how opague the watered-down white water color paint made that rose. I did want the rose white on purpose.

I played with natural color filters I had in my home already and that we use for making coffee.Here are two pictures of how that rose came out. I am going to try another one with the petals stained in coffee first.

I used this spray sealer on the roses after they were dry to keep them with more body and to preserve them longer. It makes removing dust much easier.

I took the orginal pattern from the Martha Stewart site and reduced it on my copier to 60% and 75% of their original size. I am playing with scale to see which sizes will work best for the topiaries I want to make for Christmas decor.

The next picture down shows the roses from the front view. I have painted the (two smaller ones) this morning, so the petals are a bit limp. The 60% is on the bottom. In that picture it looks like the two smaller ones are so similar in size, but in real life the 75% does show more volume.

Since the petals stay limp for a while, I used a small dixie cup (bathroom size) to hold the rose until it is completely dry. I just poked a hole in the bottom of the cup and slipped the wire through.

At the smaller sizes, the roses take up 1/2 the wire length and 1/2 the cone filters. So, instead of yielding 50 roses or so from the 400 pack, you will get about 100 roses out of it!

Below: Pictures of the 8 more 50% sized roses I made along with the ones I had done. Double click on picture to see it larger. In that bottom picture are MY roses too!

I got these elements together for a topiary arrangement. This is why I wanted to make roses in the first place. Light green reindeer moss, faux pearls, and the coffee filter ivory/white roses.  

Coffee Filter Roses  (2) link here