Do you like flowers? When I was younger, say in my 20's, I really did not much care about flowers and was certain I would never have a garden. Most flowers are in dirt and I HATED the feel of dirt/sand on my hand and especially under my finger nails! Flowers that were not in dirt were either 1) cut, in a vase looking rather unnatural and going to die anyway 2) plastic, ugly, in a vase looking very unnatural and had no scent 3) floating in mucky water. Yup, back then I saw not much in the way of flowers.
Though I still detest the feel of dirt, I have discovered that with good gardening gloves, it is not much of a problem. Now I have a few small gardens I play in. AND...... I most defiantly love flowers. I also love them in their natural setting, outside in the dirt. I am not even fond of flowering house plants. I will take a variegated ivy for my house any day! But like a bird in a cage looks out of place to me, so does a flower out of it's natural habitat.
So...do you like images of flowers? OH, I most certainly do. My favorite are of the individual flower up close, but any images will do for me. The flowers, the plant, the garden, the field or mountain, it's all beautiful if there are flowers in it. Even a table with a vase of flowers I can enjoy if the flower is the main focus.
Soo...do you like rubber stamps of flowers? If so, do you like the real looking ones or the cartoon like ones? For me, I drool over the realistic flower images in rubber stamps. The acrylic stamps just do not get the details like the rubber does. When it comes to flowers, the more detail the better. Cartoon ones can be fun to color and are a must if combining with other cartoon like image. A cutesie image of a chipmunk would look rather silly on the same card as a detailed artistic image of a flower! So I do own both types and even some acrylic.
What I have begun to do is collect the beautiful images of flowers that are wood mounted rubber. Most are retired Stampin' Up, but a few are from other companies. I browse eBay and the buy/sell galleries for any reasonably priced retired beauty I have yet to acquire. If...by chance, there are new images in the new catalog, I will snatch them up. For instance...did you see the incredible "Dear Friend" level 1 hostess set in the current catalog. OH MY....and it matches a retired set I purchased a while back, Flowers of Gratitude, like they were made for one another.
"Dear Friend" flower stamp images
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Flowers of Gratitude" retired Stampin' Up set
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I also have procured a set called "Flower of the Month" another retired SU set.
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"Flower of the Month" retired SU stamp set
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Do you see the difference between the first 2 sets and the 3rd set? You can click on the photos if you would like to see them a bit larger.
Here is another set that I was just blessed to get of Craig's List:
Well, actually, this is a set of 2. The flower shown here and a sentiment.
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"Just For You Series--Kindness Is..." flower from the retired SU set
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Do you see it? Well, the Flower of the Month set has the name of the flower on the image! The rest do not! I could Google Sweet Pea or Aster, print out a few photos of each and off I would go to color my images. I suppose they are all common flowers that everyone knows, but not me. I figured out the rose and one other that I think is the flower that sings in Alice and Wonderland cartoon movie. The large one just above I was almost certain was an orchid. HA! (It is actually an Iris, which I found out after checking the many website I have bookmarked for this very purpose.)
Soooo...how could I color them? And even worse, how do I look them up to find out the colors that particular flower is known for? I have a few gardening books that I went to, but they can't have every flower in them, right?
What I did was I turned to Google, ahhhhh Google---what did I do with out you?---
Search wildflowers by color
Identify wildflowers
Search by scientific name...great photos
Search flower gallery
Search by type then scientific name, fantastic photos
Searchby scientific name--hundreds if not over a thousand types that when clicked have subtypes, most with photos
Search by scientific or common name as well as type, zone, color, flowering time and others. You do need to register to have access to the complete database, but registration is FREE. It is well worth the 3 minutes it take to register.
So, I hope this helps some of you as you attempt to recreate a realistic flower though paper and coloring mediums.
The final flower image says it is from a series, but I could not find any informtion about the others. If you know, please leave me a comment or send an email. I would soooo much appreciate it!
Have a wonderful Sunday!
See you Monday...Hugs, Sandy O
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