dried flower candle holder: remake

Chick and I have been spending time during Miss Mouse’s nap collecting flower petals, rocks, and other backyard treasures. The spring weather seems to be eliciting a new interest in building little homes, roads, baths, and rivers for tiny imaginary creatures (fairies, gnomes, etc.). I find her new play really exciting because it is exactly where my brain was when I was little, and, yet, parts of it make me laugh. Like, how today, in the midst of searching for a new mossy patch to build a home, her fairy happened to break her leg and needed to go to the doctor to get an x-ray. It kills me when the mythical meets the utterly mundane, and, truthfully, you can tell that Chick likes the mundane a little bit more.

Anyway, we picked flowers and pressed them a week ago, and then today I decided we should glue them to empty jars to make candle holders. I was thinking about flowers and mothers and pretty. In the process, I learned that Mod Podge makes pink flowers get kind of brown, but oddly enough, certain teeny tiny bright purple and white flowers hold their colors. The whole project felt kind of like a bust, and I was really close to tossing them in the recycle bin when I decided that I should just light them to see what they look like all aglow. And, I’m so glad I did because it is kind of magical how candle light made them totally beautiful. Beautiful in their own dried up, old flower sort of way.

We used an old baby food jar, a jelly jar, dried flowers, and Mod Podge.

Above is a picture of the jars with dried flowers and a fresh coat of Mod Podge. After the glue dries, it is best to give it one more coat. Below is Chick glopping it on. Boy, does she love to glop Mod Podge onto things.

Here it is, all aglow and floral.

xo e