Hi I'm Bea this is the first post on my very first
blog and it is dedicated to my dear friend Marija. She is my paper mentor the one who enlightened me into the paper flower world and she encouraged me to start this blog. Thank you Marija for your kindness and for always sharing, I value our friendship.
Ok my story goes as such I come from a long line of proud women from who made everything by hand--the clothes for their family, quilts and rugs for their homes, and the food they ate. My mom made our clothes, cooked every family meal and grows the most amazing flowers in her flower garden, my grandmother was a weaver and worked the family farm alongside my grandfather, my great-grandmother hand-stitched quilts along with her families clothing, and I studied art in college and got a BFA - making things. I have always made things - it's in my blood. From having my own garden to feed my family, to drawing, painting, weaving, quilting, basket making, knitting and now making beautiful paper flowers.
I love paper, all kinds of paper and because of that I began making flowers to make one beautiful brides dream come true - my own daughter.
All of this started when my daughter Lizzie became engaged, during the planning phase of the reception we were trying to decide on how to decorate this "Ginormous Big Brown Wall" at the venue. It's called the Huntsville Roundhouse Depot an pre-civil war antique railroad depot. This place is huge ...
The first thing I did was to go to Etsy and send a message to a shop named
Momicka who made paper flowers and said "HELP". Marija answered all of my messages and then asked for a picture of the "Ginormous Big Brown Wall" (see above straight ahead) and thanks to her in a few days and alot of brain stormming later we had a plan for a beautiful wall of paper flowers.
Marija, myself, and others made floral decorations, cards, tags, matchbooks and favors all out of paper for the pre-wedding parties, all of the bridal showers, the bridesmaid luncheon, and ta da the reception - lots and lots of flowers. Marija kindly shared her templates with me for the beautiful flowers, LED candle flower holders and we were both became flower making machines for months and months.
A special note: the templates that she shared were ones she designed herself and used in her own beautiful wedding, see her own ETSY shop for all things amazing and her beautiful designs
http://www.etsy.com/shop/momichka. The rest we designed as we went along and we had a blast dreaming up one thing after another.
Fast forward - I had so much fun playing with paper that I haven't stopped making paper flowers since the wedding. Now I am expanding my paper flowers to include flowers made out of speciality papers, card stock, old dictionary, magazine, music, and map papers. I'll try any kind of paper once, some work, some don't so if they don't work I move on and find something else that will.
In fact I made so many flowers that they were taking over the house. It just so happened that my youngest daughter Sarah came home from college and said we needed to start a little business and she took alot of the flowers that I had made back to college with her and put them around her house. As her friends, and their friends came over to her house and saw the flowers the orders started. Sarah has really had some amazing marketing ideas and I am really enjoying doing this with her. Lizzie my married daughter is quite busy with a full time job and a husband to care for, however when time allows she too has been showing off my flowers. In fact she and I are doing a bridal shower the first of June but more to come on that later.
Here are some music roses in an antique bottle that I just made for one of Sarah's friends. She loved it and I think it turned out perfect for that special music lover wouldn't you say?
I know that you want to see the "Ginormous Big Brown Wall" decorated with over 100 handmade flowers so I won't make you wait any longer - Here is the wall that love built.
To conclude I will do a special wedding blog to show off all of our decorating and the rest of the magical things that were made when we get the wedding pictures from the photographer.
I am in the process of taking pictures of all the new flowers that I have made that are for sale, and of course special orders are welcome too! I can't wait to show them to you all.
Until next time - blessings.
Bea
and lastly I bought some buttons from a shop "blacksheepyarns" on ETSY and when they arrived the shop owner had wrapped the buttons in the most beautiful old ledger paper, well I couldn't resist and this is what the sheet yielded -
