Saint Patrick's Day

Yes, I know that I am rather early with this post, but I had a mini day on Friday and put together this shamrock plant in time for Saint Patrick's Day. The Carpenter-in-Chief is about to finish a course on Celtic (Irish) Literature, and this was kind of inspired by that. The plant and its pot are under 3 cm (1" and a bit)  high. It is a design you can find in Joann Swanson's DIY blog. There are 25 little shamrock leaves and stems in a pot that is about 1.7 cm or 3/4" in diameter. It was remarkably quick to put together, using a tiny heart punch (do the math; that's 75 little hearts!), punched from painted paper. I am very satisfied with the shamrock, which will go into my flower shop's Spring window display. I still have to find a chocolate with green foil wrapping, to use the foil around the pot (and, of course, to satisfy my occasional chocolate cravings, too!).

While I was at it, I began cutting the pieces for two other plants, also destined for the flower shop's changeable window displays. The first one is below:





It's a white hellebore, or Christmas rose, which will be part of the Winter display. This one took time, as there are 7 open blossoms, two of which are a bit darker as they have just about finished blooming, and, I must admit, ended up having tea upset on them.... Then there are 10 buds in various stages of opening, and 10 leaf stems. Again, the same size pot as the shamrock, amazing that one can cram 26 pieces of flower wire into such a tiny area. This plant was designed by Mette S. Laurendz, from Denmark; the tutorial, which is very clear and well illustrated, is in the March 2015 issue of Dolls House and Miniature Scene magazine.

The third plant will be a either a Cape Daisy or an osteospermum; it has been begun but it will be a few days before it is finished. as I am struggling with beading on a Real Life embroidery; I keep losing count of the threads in the linen. I am again following a design by Ms. Laurendz, but I am going to change things up a bit, with a more colourful flower; both of these plants come in such a wide variety of colours, with an even wider variety of multi-colour, concentric centres. I am going to start with a white one, with faint purple at the base of the petals, and an orange and teal blue centre. For the Summer window display, this will be plant number one.

I use glue dots to adhere the flowers and plants to a clear, plastic base cut to fit the window, which just allows me to slide the displays in and out as desired!