kattitudes

Not each of us have the time (or inclination) to make it to the local garden shop to get something planted to nurture and care for it. But we all love to see the bloom and tenderly water and love it once it is in our home.

I love the gentle care given to this planter to echo the pansies planted. Dried pansies blooms were decoupaged around the base of a terracotta pot, painted and then lightly brushed with a gold topcoat to give it just a little hint of glitter.

With the pansy blooms standing tall over the gold, their little faces stretching towards the sun, this makes a wonderful hostess gift or simple thank you. The wonderful thing about giving a gift like this is that (unless your recipient is gardening challenged) the plants are not going to soon die, as opposed to beautiful albeit short lived and expensive cut bouquets sent on ahead from flower shops.

Yes, this particular blooming gift is simple, but it is from the heart. If you have not yet had a chance to read or review an 1884 book written by Kate Greenaway called “the Language of Flowers”, it is a brief listing of the meanings that the Victorians gave to individual flowers, thus allowing their social class to carry on entire conversations with a simple bloom or raging arguments with an armful of flowers. It is a wild read and a rare treat to try to put together a bouquet today based on original flower meanings. Definitely something fun for you to do!

For example, pansies mean “pleasant thoughts” and “think of me”. Additionally (or more specifically) purple pansies mean that “you occupy my thoughts”. If we were to have included yellow pansies with the purple pansies, it would have meant that we wanted to tell our recipient to “forget me not”.

The Victorians were famous for having each subtle difference in petal shade take on a subtle shade of meaning or inference in emotion or argument. The entire concept was just wild and actually very interesting to look into. The conversations that could take place within a simple bouquet was just unbelievable. Couple that conversation with the way a woman could play with her fan and handkerchief to converse with a dinner partner or someone across the room and I recognize that spy trends in 2007 have nothing on turn of the century Victorian communication methods.

Isn’t this a fantastic looking present? With a box from your local craft store and a fancy label printed off your computer, you have the packaging set to go.

The rose petals are just silk petals (washed well first), then dipped into melted (microwavable) glycerin soap.

You could even add a few drops of your favorite fragrance if you wished. What a great way to remind people of your signature scent.