Geraniums......

I just now finished the geraniums and the planter. The planter looks well worn. That's the way i wanted it. The geraniums look kind of unkempt and leggy. That's the way I wanted them. The basket maker doesn't have time to mess with a new plant stand or with grooming the geraniums.
They are lucky to get water.

I finished everything but the braid trim around the edges of the planter last night. It did take me most of the day to do.

I always have a lot of flowers and leaves pre-cut. I sit down every once in a while and do the cutting part. The flowers are the smallest 5 petal punch that I have and the leaves are 4 different sized punches. I like my geraniums to have a lot of variety in the leaves. I used some red envelopes to punch the flowers and some Strathmore drawing paper for the leaves. Strathmore puts out drawing paper in colors. I like it for the leaves because it is slightly lighter on one side. That way I get some variation in leaf color.

I spent the morning cupping all of them with a stylus. Then one by one, I glued them to this.

The armature for the plants are nandina(heavenly bamboo) seed branches,dried. The flowers are made on various shapes of beads painted flat black.

The whole mess is stuck into a piece of floral foam(the dry kind) cut to fit and stuck in the body of the planter. I covered the top with miniature railroad ballast.

Incidentally, the flowers and leaves that you saw in the previous photo were not enough to cover the plants. I had to do about half again as much before I was through. These plants take a LOT of leaves.

Last but not least, here is the finished planter. This is probably where it will end up in the basket shop.

Now I don't have anything to do at Wednesday Witches mini meeting. I kind of shot myself in the foot by finishing the planter. So I have to go searching for something to do this afternoon. Please don't suggest some more geraniums! I am over that idea now. I will just have to dig into the magic workroom and find something else.

See you tomorrow.