Hanging Gardens

It’s time to share the seventh wonder of the world, the Cut Flowers world, that is. This is one of my favorite projects to create with the Cut Flowers collection on Lettering Delight. I like to think of it as the Hanging Gardens of Sheri-lawn. It’s simple, it’s as colorful as you like, and these flowers will not die under this hot summer sun.

To create these floral swags I chose and used all of the petal sets from Cut Flowers on LD. I used 24lb. copy paper and text weight stock from Paper Source in order to get a wide range of lovely color blends.

In order to shape the flower petals into cups and cones, I used a wooden skewer as a tool to curl the petals into shape. This is just as you would curl ribbon with scissors and your thumb. That system would also work as long as the scissors blade is not too sharp.

The swags were made by simply sliding the petals over a thin satin ribbon. I used ribbon that is .25 inch to keep the petals loose and easy to position within the swags.

You should be able to find thin ribbon at most of your local craft stores, however, in order to get the green coloring that I prefer for ribbon, I dyed all of this ribbon with Rit Dye, mixing yellow with a bit of green (kelly, I think) in a boiling pan of water.

If you would like to dye ribbons, keep in mind that polyester will not take dye coloring as well as cotton fabrics, so the satin ribbons will be somewhat faint in color.

Think of this project as a revival of your summer flowers. If you live in an area, as I do, where your outside world has become dry and drab, you can brighten it up with these swags of garland.

You can also gang the strands in a grouping to flow in the breeze and glow in the sunshine. Each strand is approximately a yard in length with additional ribbon of one to two feet on each end for tying.

To create you own hanging gardens and be the wonder of your neighborhood, go to my Sheri’s Creations sign at the top right and click, or go here to get on Lettering Delights site and right to the Cut Flowers collection to download your petals today!