Preserving Flowers into a Christmas Ornament

It's flower season!  My daughter just went to Prom a few weeks ago and I wanted to preserve her corsage into a Christmas ornament.  If you want to preserve your own flowers, I have bulbs ready to purchase here.

fresh corsage after prom

I prefer the glass fillable ornaments I can normally find at my local craft store but it's not the right season to find those now.  However, I did find these plastic ornaments on Amazon. 

fillable ornament

I cut apart pieces from the corsage

stuffed the ribbon in first

I put the ribbon in first.  Since my daughter wanted to preserve the corsage, I only took some of the flowers off.  Normally, I would have stuffed all of them in.  I used a wooden dowel to ease the flowers in the bulb. The finished ornament is below.

I wrote the event on the side with a permanent marker

Ornament Video below:

 

Things I made yesterday

 Just a quick post to share what I made yesterday.  

blue and rose pigment filled pendant

white painted fern and green leaf pendant

oregano flower and green leaf pendant

tiny baby's breath squares for earrings

All of these lovely frames can be found at Nunn Design.  What projects have you been up to lately?

~Katie

Soldering a Fern Leaf - Part One

This week I'm working on some soldering.  Specifically making new pendants and wall art.  This first part focuses on the steps prior to applying solder.  Next time, I'll cover the steps for applying solder.  I really enjoy soldering but these first few steps are somewhat tedious to me.  

The first step is picking out what I'll frame.  That's the easy part.  :)

fern from my garden and glass

Next comes cutting copper foil to go around my glass.  A little more effort.  But still fairly easy.

cutting foil to go around the glass

The third step (most tedious to me) is sandwiching the fern between the glass, whilst also making sure there aren't any dust particles, finger prints, or that the fern has shifted.  Definitely, a bit of a pain.  I feel like I always see dust and am constantly cleaning it out.  But when I feel it's finally dust-free, smudge-free, and hasn't shifted, I use binder clips to keep it all together.

binder clips hold the glass and fern together

Lastly, I wrap copper foil around the glass.  Still tedious but not as tedious as the previous step.  The hardest part of foiling is making sure that I'm square in the middle of the tape with my glass. For this piece, I cut the foil a little bit short and covered up what was missing.  I'll use an hobby knife to even up the tape on all sides.

the glass is foiled and ready to be cleaned up
 on the edges with a hobby knife

Next time, I'll show the steps for soldering.  Happy Tuesday!

~Katie

 

Doodling again...

I really like to draw.  Especially flowery things.  I'm not the best drawer but I find it to be a very calming exercise.  A mindful exercise.  I draw when I'm restless, stressed, or bored.  It helps keep me grounded.  

What do you do for mindfulness?

~Katie

fern

yellow flowers with butterfly

abstract leaves

You can find my dishes here:  kateemarie

Polymer Clay Earrings

I've been playing with clay again.  A long time ago, when I first discovered poly clay, I made tons of beads.  Mostly in a swirled pattern.  Boring.  Meh.

One of my first beads. I suppose it's kinda cute.

But recently, I've found so many beautiful patterned clay slabs on Pinterest that I've been inspired to try my hand at slab work. 

First attempt at patterned clay cut outs.

Since I didn't have a very fun mix of colors for my first batch, I picked up more clay.  Stay tuned. 

~Katie

Purple bead and polymer clay earrings.

Soldering!

I like learning about new things and lately I've been trying out soldering. 

soldering stand, slides, solder, flux, and coffee (of course!)

I've made some flower and leaf microscope slide magnets.

I'm not sure that they're sales-worthy and my soldering iron tip disintegrated while making them, but it was fun to try. 

After I replaced my soldering tip (and bought a different iron because I couldn't find a replacement tip for the original) I tried out stained glass pieces. 

The far right green one looks like Illinois, right?!

It went a bit easier this time and the soldering tip survived!!!  I might even make these into necklaces or charms for bracelets for KateeMarie.