Growing A Cottage Garden Part 1

Hello Everyone! I know it's only been a couple weeks, but it feels like I've been away so long! Work on the house stuff has taken priority, so my mini time has been in stolen moments here and there. Progress on the Storybook Cottage's garden has been slow! But I do have a little to share, so here goes...

I gathered up all of my kits and flower making supplies - I was surprised how many things I'd collected over time. But with no idea how many plants and flowers I'll need for the garden and flower boxes, I decided to make loads of them. If I end up with extras, I can always use them in future projects, or send some of them on to mini friends.

I have lots of different punches, silk and rice paper, covered wire, flocking and sand, but I decided to make the kits first and see if I could use the supply stuff as a supplement to the kits. I have several kits by SDK Miniatures, Bonnie Lavish (out of business as far as I know but new old stock can be found), Moonflower Miniatures, Artistic Florals and Modern Miniature Succulents + Sundries.

I started with the SDK Miniatures kits. I really like them because they come with everything you need, including the clay pot. Susan also sells inexpensive individual laser cut petal and leaf sheets, so if you want to make more than a flower pot full, it's more economical to do so. She also has an extensive variety of plant and flower species to choose from, and she ships very quickly.

I am focusing on plants and flowers that make good tea blends and also that bees like. I started with Black Eyed Susans, a favorite of honey bees. I noticed in photos that flowers tend to be in varying degrees of bloom, so I made some stems in earlier stages using the kit's paper margin and my punches. The kit came with plenty of extra black sand for the centers. I dipped the end of the 28 gauge wire in Fast Grab Tacky glue (because it's thick), let that dry for a bit, then dipped in Elmer's glue before dipping into the sand. The Elmer's is a lot runnier so it coats the Tacky Glue and makes the sand stick well. This gave a nice bulky center.

Since these were in earlier stages of bloom, I only needed a peek of yellow and a green calyx. Once they were dry I closed them to varying degrees.

I used the three leaf punch for the leaves, cutting off the two outside leaves and using the center since it looked so similar to the kit's leaves.

18 full blooms from the kit plus my 8 partials.

Next I made 59 Conflower. It was handy to have a photo on my phone to reference when coloring and assembling the kit. Another thing I like about the SDK kits is that most come on white paper. I like to pick my own colors.

Next I chose the Aster kit. I really liked the alcohol ink effect on this paper for the leaves. It dries much faster than paint, doesn't bulk up the paper, and looks more realistic with it's variegated color effect. An added bonus is that the top side dries a little darker than the underside just like real leaves.

I also made up some more immature blooms based on the reference photo. The younger, the darker, it seems.

I think my favorites so far are the Sunflowers. One kit makes six, but I had ordered an extra set of petals and leaves so I made twelve. There was plenty of sand in the kit for the centers of all twelve with leftovers.

I did a rough count and came up with 20 varieties of plants and flowers still to make. If four kits took two weeks to complete, I might be at this a while! Fall is definitely in the air here, so thank goodness this kind of gardening can be done indoors! Hopefully, I'll have more flower making and guest room progress to share in the next couple weeks.

xo xo,
Jodi