My Journey into Victorian Style Ribbon Flowers

When something piques my interest, I seem to dive right in.  What? Me try to do just one and see if I like it?  Oh not me! Exploring in depth is more my style. 
I love vintage hats, hatpins, perfume bottles and ribbon flowers.  My mother-in-law gave me some very old family heirlooms – tiny ribbon flowers.  I treasure them.  So when my friend, Jay, asked me to go to a class with her and learn to make ribbon flowers, I just had to do it.  Jay is an accessorizer extraordinaire - http://www.plant-effects.com .   The class was held at http://www.askrenandsons.com a floral warehouse business in Tucson and I came home with lots of gorgeous silk wired ribbon.  I had such a good time with Kathy Askren (instructor) that I bought several books and kept learning different techniques.  After several months, I also had lots of flowers! 
They were used on beautiful packages as part of the ribbons and worn on dresses and coats.  They went on hats and in hair and I made a spectacular floral arrangement. 
A little more than a year ago, we moved to Prescott AZ and people are finding out about my various artistic tangents and talents.   October 22nd I will be teaching a ‘wild rose’ ribbon flower class at Bead-It. 

I’m also selling some of my creations this Saturday (Sept 17) at Hidden Valley HOA Saturday Holiday Sale (Haisley and Senator Hiway).  Bring a friend and come  from11 a.m. – 5 p.m.!  (I take credit cards too.)  Or look at my etsy shop, www.etsy.com/shop/brittdesigntoo and see some the handmade items.  Great for holiday gifts!










Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Learning As We Go!

Image
Viking knit is the oldest method of chain making and I've become fascinated by it.  Once I conquered the single knit, I decided to add beads.  I could have googled or asked how it was done but it seemed like something I could just figure out.  And I've learned a lot as I proceeded first with tumbled turquoise beads and then with pearls.  I thought I'd share a few of the things I've learned.   Iif you want a great tutorial on viking knit technique, Trina Ann at http://blog.trinaann.com/  has written a clear concise easy to understand tutorial.  I highly recommend it.    Tumbled tuquoise beads in viking knit  I used tumbled turquoise beads in the first viking knit chain and I did not really know what I was doing.  But I went right ahead and as it turned out, I liked the end result.  Since the beads were irregular in shape there was a random quality to the finished product. During that process, I began to really understand the technique of viking knit.  Loo
Read more

Spring Do-Over Challenge

Image
Re-do of Original Pieces Plus My Art Beads  I’m hooked!  The Do-Over Challenge that Jeannie Dukic ‘JKD Studio’ www.jkdjewelry.com offers has become something I look forward to.  Jeannie sends pieces of her ‘old’ jewelry to those of us who sign up and we get to create something new from them.  It does not matter if we like the piece she sends because we take it apart, add beads from our stash and create a completely new piece.  It’s a great way to recycle. Original Necklace and earrings When I received my piece to re-create, it lay on my bead try for a while as I sorted through the possibilities.  There were 3 art beads that might work but only one yelled, “Me!  Take me!”  Fortunately I had more of the polymer cane that was used for that bead because I wanted smaller one to go with the big chosen art bead.  The green chips were to be filler beads highlighting my art beads.  Large 'Take Me!' bead! I made two pair of earrings.  One pair could be part of
Read more

The Draw of the Mojave Desert or Why I Started Designing Jewelry

Image
When you look at my etsy stores you see Mojave Stone jewelry .  In the 1970's, my father and two brothers mined a stone in the Mojave Desert in the middle of nowhere California!  Actually, the mine was somewhat but not very close to Desert Center.  It had been a gold/silver mine before they staked their claim and began mining stone.  My family lived in Missouri and the stone had to be trucked from the desert after strip mining it.  I was married and away from home so I got to hear the stories of making a road, fighting off bees, surviving the heat, being careful of the critters and all the other 'Wild West' excitement.  And I did not have to rough it! Dad was going to retire (some day) and make and sell the polished cabochons (a stone cut and polished usually with a flat back and a convex top) for jewelry.  In the meantime, he had some distributors sell it, some metal smiths create pieces, and he trademarked it as 'Mojave Royal Blue' and 'Mojave Stone'.  He
Read more