Summer jewelry with Flower Beads
Monday is jewellery day! Welcome back!
June is a busy month for florists. Not only is it one of the more desirable months for weddings, it’s also grad/prom season for a lot of schools. Personally, I hate receiving cut flowers because I love the sentiment behind them. Thus, I hate watching them die and having to throw them out. I’ve had more than one bouquet hanging around my room for months at a time. Sometimes it works, like a bunch of red roses that dried to a gorgeous deep red black and kept their shape, looking like a planned, sexy, Gothic piece of art. More often, it means that the petals shed, the stems rot and insects enjoy sudden bounty. Yuck.
So, what does one do with the flowers that have sentimental value? I’ve still got my high school graduation (1997) corsage of yellow roses preserved by hanging upside down in a planned desiccation. They look pretty good, but a corsage is small and easily stored. What to do with a huge bouquet, or several if it’s a wedding? How about making beads out of the petals? This is inspired by a piece of jewellery that my mother owns from when she graduated from a Catholic high school. All of the roses that she and her classmates received were turned into beads and strung into rosaries to be presented to the graduating class (shown in the picture to above and to the right). Preserve your memories in beautiful, wearable art!
There are many recipes available online to prepare your petals! Here are just a few: Wendy Mukluk’s page, a recipe by Diane Merrill and one by Home and Garden Television
If you don’t want to make your own beads, you can also send out flowers (both fresh and dried) to shops who will make the beads for you, and even make beautiful finished jewellery for you to enjoy. One of these sites is Florage but there are many other places online.
