Since I was a kid, I loved to make dough flowers. Mom taught me how to shape roses and mix the dough from scratch. One of my fondest memories was of my Mom making blue roses on toothpicks and painting them with shellac. She would do each of them and line them up on some styrofoam blocks until they dried. Then she would make pins or decorate combs. I was obsessed, and would make roses whenever I had free time. I would try and make them more and more realistic and decorate pins and hair combs. In class, I would take the kneaded rubber erasers and make roses--anything that was in the least bit doughy turned into either a flower or a horse.
Years later, Fimo came around and that was really a neat medium for flowers. It was harder to form than dough, but pretty. I think I still prefer the dough my Mom taught me how to make. It makes for rock hard flowers and kinda looks similar to cold porcelain. In Japan, there were clubs formed around bread dough decorations and I found several publications at the local J-bookstore. I pored over their techniques but felt that forming by hand was better than all the molds or presses....Then this interest naturally transitioned to sugar, and now to glass!
Making glass flowers has taken me back down memory lane....It's fun and relaxing. Mom is still making kanzashi(the Japanese hair ornaments) out of fabric and beads. I gave her some of my beads and can't wait to see what she will come up with. In the meantime, during the holidays, I decided to make a couple myself, using Glass beads and Swarowski crystals. What fun! I feel like I am 5 years old again and making dough flowers :-D
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