The Long Hard Journey to a Rosebush....

 

It certainly doesn't look like much as yet, but those little pieces of wire sticking out of the foam will become  Dog Rose (Rosa canis) buds and rose hips; they're made of glue on wire, and the thick, tacky glue takes time to dry, especially as we are experiencing a recurrence of April weather here; endless rain or dripping mist, grey skies, no sun, and despite it being near the end of June, the down duvet is back on our bed, I wore my winter coat again this weekend, and we actually had the heat pump give us heat instead of air cooling!

We enjoyed our company, and with various festivals happening around here, even if the weather is pretty bad, we are out quite a bit. The rose bush is going to take lots of time, especially if I have to order a small heart punch for the petals; I have mislaid my heart punches, or perhaps I wore them out....

The rose bush is from an old issue of 1 zu 12, sent to me many years ago by the late Dutch miniaturist, Elly de Kraker. We had corresponded via email on a miniaturist website which I can no longer access, and met up at a Dutch miniature fair one year. I have a lot of very good tutorials that she sent to me. Unfortunately I don't have the date of that tutorial, otherwise I would share it with you.

By my estimate, to create a good-sized climbing rose bush for my garden corner vignette, I'll need hundreds of buds, blooms, rose hips in various stages of ripeness, and many more sets of leaves. The paper for the leaves is being painted, layers of leaf green with a sprinkle of rusty brown to represent the inevitable spots I get on rose leaves....

Hopefully you'll come back to check on my progress!