Growing A Cottage Garden Part 3

With all those Geraniums ready to go, I only needed to make a couple other flowers to have what I needed to fill the flower boxes. I didn't want them to compete color wise with the house structure, but instead be a cohesive complement to it. So with all those pinky-peach Geraniums, I decided some nice off white Dahlias would be lovely. For these, I had Bonnie Lavish kits. I needed twenty of them, and luckily, had four kits - each kit makes six. The challenge was that petal sheets from two kits were a perfect off white, and two were white white. I was able to color the petals in my palest yellow ProMarker, Buttercup, then use the blending pen to wash out most of the color. I also brushed some alcohol ink onto the leaf sheets to give them more depth in color. They came out great!

To plant the boxes, I followed the recommendation for planting in pots from the SDK Kits. I also dipped each wire into glue before pushing into the air dry clay. The soil I used is Woodland Scenics Fine Turf Soil.

And here are the flower boxes all planted. I needed to keep the long box pretty low profile, since it will be placed across the back opening, separating the upper and lower floors. To the small flower boxes, I also added pale pink Daisies from Bonnie Lavish kits. I'll get some photos of them installed onto the cottage soon, but don't want to install them yet until I know I am ready to attach the house permanently on the landscape base.

With the flower boxes filled, it was easier to know how much more I'd need to make to fill the planters and pots for the rest of the garden. So next, I decided to tackle the tea blend planter. I don't necessarily have kits for all of the herbs and flowers that make good tea blends, so for these I'm going to have to attempt my own. One of the easiest looking flowers was Chamomile.

I thought I could create a reasonable facsimile using flower punches, yellow Floral Foam, Lycopodium, and floral wire.

I dipped the end of each wire into Fast Grab Tacky Glue to create a nice ball on the end, then let dry.

Once dry, I dipped in regular Elmer's School glue, then into the floral foam. I used my fingers to gently shape and press the foam into the glue, then let dry.

Meanwhile, I punched petals from plain white printer paper, and calyxes from some left over green colored silk paper.

Once the floral foam centers were dry, I assembled. Push one white petal up, almost touching the floral foam. Add a tiny dot of glue, then seat the petal  against the floral foam. Do the same with the next petal, offsetting the petal from the first. Then add the green calyx. I also made a few stems without white petals to simulate flowers in earlier stages of growth. To these, I added and extra calyx petal.

For the leaves, I made a bundle of the flower stems, wrapped lycopodium around them and secured with a wire. I cut off the excess wire, squirted hot glue into a water bottle cap, inserted the bottom of the bundle and held there until the glue was cool and the flowers secured. Then I cut away the bottle cap.

Then I just fluffed, shaped and arranged.

It came out pretty well, and I'm glad I gave it a try! I hope I have as much luck with the rest of the tea blend plants that I need to make for the planter. Luckily, I have kits for the Mints, and some leaf sheets I can use for the Lemon Balm!

Back soon, I hope, with more tea and bee garden goodness!

xo xo,
Jodi