When I was photographing flowers up close and personal over the weekend, I was pretty intrigued with the flower stamens...especially the ones on the Japanese kerria.
I had never noticed just how cute, crazy and wiggly they were.
And I had completely forgotten until then that I had a collection of artificial stamens in the house...two drawers of them!
About ten years ago I took a decorative ribbon class with Candace Kling in San Francisco (she also teaches a class on how to make flowers out of ribbon). After the class, I bought a lot of these stamens and then went to Lacis and bought even more. I had every intention of covering just about everything with ribbon flowers because "more is more, less is a bore" you know.

When I got back to Kansas City, I never got around to making the ribbon flowers because sadly, aiming for 100% was only getting me to 50%, if that. I am not a good ribbon flower maker....and so when I wanted to duplicate what was so inspiring in her class, I ended up using artificial silk flowers instead. Ha ha ha.
This is a lampshade I made that is covered with three different colors of dupioni silk. Around the bottom edge is a ring of artificial flowers that are sewn directly to the shade.



5 comments:
In your Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it?
And I have no doubt at all that you will, indeed, come up with something interesting to do....
Maureen-Ha ha. It's more like an inverted Easter bustier!
Mental-Oh.......I'm sure I'll come up with something interesting but I'm also sure they're probably going to sit around for another 10 years before I come up with that interesting idea. :-/
Hahahaha - Easter bustier! I like that.
hi--- i took several classes from Candace years ago !!! the last few years i have been very ill and had to stop designing jewelry--- my fingers can't stay in control--my best friend has a rubber stamp company--eragraphics---so she got my fingers into paint, glue, gushiness of all kind!!! i just started looking for stamens--it has been so long since i searched for flower goodies---everybody has closed their businesses--have any idea where i can buy stamens--would appreciate hearing back from you...sam
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