Spring has sprung!

And it's a bit earlier than usual this year.  In fact, we've had temperatures in the 70's and even up to 80 for the last week or so!  I can't ever remember wearing shorts in March before!  And the warm weather has caused all sorts of things to bloom weeks earlier than normal.  I went around the yard and got some pictures of some of the blooming flowers.
My lungwort has been blooming like crazy for over a week now, and has spread to several new spots in the flower beds.  I love these flowers- the blue and pink colors are so pretty and the spotted leaves are soft and fuzzy.  I like anything that's soft and fuzzy- LOL

 

This white hyacinth bloomed yesterday.  Hyacinths are some of my favorite fragrant Spring flowers.  I have them in shades of blue, pink, purple, white, and cream on both sides of the front door.  I can sit in the house with door open and smell them all day ;-)

 

 

This forsythia bush grew from a cutting I took of Gramma's 40 year old forsythia bush.  I only planted the sprouted cutting two years ago, but already it's a beautiful plant.  The original plant even had three flowers on it- LOL.  The fact that it has survived at all for all these years is impressive!  It's "baby" is doing quite well though ;-)

And the daffodils just started blooming yesterday.  Normally they don't bloom until Gramma's birthday (April 15th).  These daffodil bulbs are about 50 years old now, and have bloomed every single year of my life.  They're very special to me.  Every year, no matter what kind of weather we'd had  (and we had plenty of snowy Springs!), I was always able to pick enough daffodils to make a pretty bouquet for Gramma's birthday.  Some years that was all I got, just that one birthday bouquet, but that was the important one.

 

 

I'll be moving sometime in the near future, and I wonder if whoever moves into this house next will take care of my flowers and Gramma's flowers. It makes me sad to think of them being neglected or destroyed.  They may just be plants, but there's a lot of emotion and meaning tied up in these simple flowers for me.  I intend to take some bulbs and cuttings with me when I move, but I won't be able to take them all.  Things like the evergreens I planted several years back are now too big to move.  I transplanted them as tiny seedlings when I saw them sprouted in the cracks of the sidewalk, and now they've grown in lush little trees nearly as tall as I am.

Wandering the yard today was bittersweet.  I was saying goodbye to all the plants I had known throughout my life.  I've lived in this house, on and off, since I was born.  My first pets, two hamsters and a gerbil, are buried under the lilac bush next to the house.  My ferret, Ziggy, rests under the butterfly bush, and Ozzy and Cedric lay next to each other under the evergreens.  I feel Grampa's spirit every time I work in the garden, and Gramma's presence can be felt throughout the house.

This is the first year in about 15 years that I won't have a vegetable garden.  I don't want to have to leave it behind if I have to move during the summer.  There's a great sadness in not having a garden to work in.  I love starting my veggies from seed, nurturing them, watching them grow, and enjoying the fruits and vegetables of my labor.  

Wherever I end up, it will have to be someplace where I can have a nice big garden full of flowers, fruits, and vegetables.  It will be very strange starting from scratch in a new place though.  That's one reason I want to be able to bring at least a few of my plants with me.  It will be like having old familiar friends nearby ;-)

Thanks for listen to me blather on- LOL!  I hope you're all enjoying our early Spring!

~Michelle of CreativeCritters

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Progress on my flower garden sculpture

If you read my first post you know I'm sculpting a flower garden in honor of Gramma, who passed away last May.  When I last posted I had sculpted the base, fence, roses, and hydrangeas in polymer clay.  The flowers I wanted to sculpt next were the Irises and daffodils.  Because I'm working on such a small scale I simply bent the end of the stem wires and dipped them in purple paint for the Iris centers and yellow paint for the daffodil centers.  I tried sculpting polymer clay centers around the wire, but they were just to big.  So I figured  the painted wire would work better.  After the paint dried I sculpted the first set of petals for the irises and the trumpets for the daffodils.

I'll be baking these flowers twice before adding them to the sculpture.  Baking them after adding each set of petals makes them much easier to work with.  After the outer petals have been added for all the flowers and baked I painted the edges of the daffodil trumpets orange and the centers of the Iris petals yellow.  You can see how I textured the petals to make them as realistic as possible.

The next step is to give them leaves and "plant" them in the garden..  You might notice there's a tiny bunny hiding between the Hydrangeas.  Gramma has always had bunny rabbits in her yard, so I thought it was only appropriate to add one in this little garden.  The bunnies have usually been pretty good about not eating our plants (the neighbor's poor tulips seem to be their preferred snack- LOL).

I'm trying to keep the flowers looking natural and of course I want the piece to look balanced.  The next flowers I want to add are Tulips and Hyacinths.  From there, I'm not sure what flowers I'll make.  I have quite a few to choose from, but some make be too difficult to sculpt, at least on this scale.  So far I'm very happy with the way this is turning out- it feels "right" and it's flowing well.  Plus studying all sorts of flowers online and in my yard is sure to put me in a good mood ;-)

Thanks for following yet another creative journey!  Stay tuned for the next installment!

-Michelle of CreativeCritters