roses roses roses

 I love roses - I love the shapes, the fragrance and the colours. I love the poem by our bard, Rabbie Burns

O my Luve's like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve's like the melodie
That’s sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I:
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry:

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun:
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee well, my only Luve
And fare thee well, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho’ it were ten thousand mile.

I have been painting roses for about 12 years and have enjoyed teaching  others. For some reason my passion for painting has faded away and I hardly ever pick up a brush although, I must admit, I still have about 250 brushes! the main reason is that I don't have a studio any more and this means I can't "slaister" about with paint as I make too much mess in the house!

There are, however, many other crafts involving roses 

I recently dried some roses my daughter gave me

There are lots of ways to dry roses including including using sand, desiccant, silica gel, microwave (got to be careful) and freeze drying. The method I use is more simple and has a good success rate

1)  strip all leaves from the stems

2)  cut the stems so that they are all different lengths to allow warm air to reach each individual one

3)  wind an elastic band around around the stems about 1" from the ends (as the stems dry they will   

      shrink and so will the elastic band) 

4)   hang in a warm airing cupboard  for 1-2 weeks until they feel "papery" to touch

I added the dried roses to a concrete head I have in the hall (I bought it from a garden centre, painted it and added a vintage  effect in the crevices).

The hydrangeas are from my garden and were dried by standing in about 1" of water for a couple of weeks.  The ones pictured are about 2 years old but I really do like a vintage faded look.They should be picked in Autumn after they have flowered and, interestingly enough, hydrangea flowers are actually the tiny centres which look like stamens rather than what looks like coloured petals.

Dried hydrangeas and roses

Also  I have now discovered the beauty of ribbon embroidery, thanks mainly to the beautiful book simply called "Roses" by Di van Niekerk.  Her work is breathtaking and the photos in the book are such a delight to look at.  Di had very clear videos on Youtube and tutorials on her website.

and so...........yet another craft. This time the house will be filled with coloured ribbon in silk, taffeta, linen and more. I have some beautiful French ombre (shaded) silk ribbon and have waited a long time to find a use for it and now I have

Today I hand painted a batch of white ribbon ......

I;m going to use the top one to sew hydrangeas and the other for variegated leaves.

There is so much to learn in ribbon embroidery but that is what, I think, makes a craft worthwhile.

anyway........thank goodness for crafts - the weather here in Scotland is what we call dreich, in other words dull, grey and wet.