Vacation Report: Yellow Lady Slippers in The Wild Gardens of Acadia

The weather was glorious so we went to The Wild Gardens of Acadia.  There is a fabulous set of gardens with all kinds of plants from all the various types of habitats on Mount Desert Island from meadow to mountain to beach land, and more.  We were there at the end of May so there were few plants in bloom, but those plants were really stunning.

The plants with the most impressive blooms were the yellow lady slippers.

They really were great, except for the creepy part that looks like arachnid legs...!

When we were children our father put an iron pipe into a spring beside Jigger Hill which always ran with water.  In that woodsy section of Jigger Hill in the early spring weather we could almost always find Jack-in-a-Pulpits and a bit later some purple, pink, and white delicate tiny lady slippers.  We never picked them, just loved looking at them as we walked by up the hill from school.

That was probably one of the first times I realized I love flowers.  Daffodils and lilacs are my favorite spring and early summer flowers.  I also like carnations.  Well, I like pretty much all flowers, but daffys and lilacs take the cake for me.

Michaels Class: Paper Flower in a Pot for Mother's Day

We had a class on making a flower for Mom at Michaels.  It was another easy craft.

Needed items:  flower-colored card stock paper (I used Recollections Brights colorway), 2-inch clay flower pot, acrylic craft paint, hot glue gun and glue sticks, pencils with eraser ends, scissors.

The first thing you do is cut a strip of the paper 2 inches wide and start wrapping and overlapping it around a pencil to make a tube.  At the end of the tube insert a little hot glue on the inside of the flap and hold it down until it dries.  BE CAREFUL.  It really is hot, thus the "hot glue" in the title.  Remove the tube from the pencil and let dry completely.  You are going to glue the petals around this tube.  My tube was around 5 inches long.  For this size plant pot, you don't want it much longer, and maybe want it an inch or more shorter.  Give it a try. If you make one, let me know what worked best for you.

Cut out 3 long-ish, thin petals and fold them in half.  Using the hot glue on one end of each petal, insert them alternately into one end of the tube.

First try at making this flower.  I may try again to make it more full.  You can barely see the decorated pot rim.

Cut out 16-20 larger flower petals  Run the petals  through your thumb and index finger or around a pencil to make them curve.  With hot glue on the non-curved end of each petal, attach them, staggered, around the tube.  You will do a better job than I did.  The more petals, the fuller the blossom will be.

Final step is to cut 3 leaves from green paper.  These are similar to the large flower petals, but cut them a bit larger and have one end be blunt...maybe half an inch wide.  Curl these three leaves as well and glue to the bottom of the flower "stem".

Put some acrylic craft paint into a small palette or on a plate.  Using the eraser end of your pencil dab a little paint onto the eraser then daub it onto the rim of the plant pot in whatever pattern you like. I chose three colors and put them on in order around the rim, one color at a time, leaving room for the other two colors.  It would probably be smart to let the paint dry between colors....

Michaels Class--Floral Shadow Box

Another not so great photo, but you get the idea. (The background is actually just the book paper you see...)

Tonight's class at Michaels was making a floral shadow box.  It was easy.  It was pretty quick.  It was definitely fun.  It was also something I had never done before...so even a rank novice can do it.

Supplies needed were a 6 by 6 shadow box frame, some scrapbook paper for a background, some floral foam, some bright green moss, some small flower stems, and a wooden sentiment.

Scissors, hot glue, clear liquid glue, and a foam knife.

One thing I discovered is that hot glue does not hold on glass.  Something I did not know at all. I thought hot glue was the cat's meow, but no.  I used some clear strong craft glue.

Since this is a Michaels class I cannot give you the step by step directions, but it is pretty obvious.  I will say that after removing the back from the shadow box and covering it with the same size scrapbook paper, in this case it was book paper, it is an easy matter to cut the floral foam to fit then place the various parts along the glass and top of the floral foam.  The hot glue works really well to glue the moss to cover the floral foam.

Using hot glue to attach the inspirational sentiment to the glass at the front of the box seemed to work, but when the glue dried the sentiment fell off.  Out with the liquid craft glue!!  That worked really well.