Thursday 18 February 2010

How Provence came to my windowsill...

From the feedback I've been getting it seems as though my beaded lavender plant is a hot favourite.  I suppose that makes sense just by virtue of the qualities lavender - it is a delight to our senses.

It is such a luxurious and versitile plant with a variety of uses from cooking in the kitchen to relaxing and sleeping in the bedroom .. and everywhere inbetween!  But best of all, lavender is just a pure feast to the eyes. Whether it be in the garden, in a pot or in a vase, the lavender flower is bursting with opulent purple coloured blooms and looks gorgeous.

Because of its popularity I thought I would share how I mimic the lavender plant with beads.  



The first thing is to choose which colours of beads and wire I want to use.  For lavendar the beads are strung onto the wire one-by-one and follow a counted and repeated pattern of colour.



Once the beads are strung into a specific pattern I bend and twist and loop the wire according to which part of the plant I am making.  Each whorl of lavender has a different colour combination and size to give each stem it's own character.

Once all the beads are shaped onto the wire they are ready to be assembled onto a much thicker "stem" wire which will support the bloom and the leaves.  From there I gather all the finishing bits and bobs that I'll need to complete the lavender plant.





I place, glue, bend, and sculpt each part into its place - put the pot on my windowsill .. 
  Et Voilà! 


Now every time I pass by I can look at it and think of the glorious, vibrant lavender cloaked hills of Provence. :)




8 comments:

  1. wow! you are so clever. It must take you ages?? Thank you for commenting on my blog recently.. I'm going to be around a lot more in blog land now so I'm looking forward to reading your posts. x

    ReplyDelete
  2. P.S. Just saw your twitter feed on the right----I like your photo experiment today- I tend to go for just plopping the photo in the middle and then text beneath/above but I like this way. It breaks up the text.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Now i have to agree that lavender is a fine plant... i successfully managed a plant for 2 years in my garden but then the frost killed it (very, very sad) ... i really like the idea of having beautiful flowers that i can't kill.

    Fascinating to see pictures of work in progress and i had no idea that you used different coloured wires as well...looking forward to seeing more WIP.

    oh and the finished article looks very realistic in your last photo - brilliant!!x

    ReplyDelete
  4. These are beautiful and so realistic.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Cheers! I love hearing they look realistic :)

    Wellydog - I hope it was blog worthy, I'm so new to all this still!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi Megan - WOW - that is BEAUTIFUL!!!

    I wanted to stop by and tell you THANK YOU for entering my giveaway!! I wish you the best in your first!

    ♥GOOD LUCK♥
    Lori

    ReplyDelete