THE JOY OF FLOWERS

Good Morning to you,

Some of us, love to see our flowers growing in the garden.

Some of us, like to pick flowers, take them indoors and place them in a vase.

.... and some of us, as I discovered when I visited Natasha in India, 

enjoy flowers, with their stems removed, floating in a beautiful bowl, filled with water.

Each day, Natasha is visited by a flower man who brings little bags filled with flower heads.  Sometimes he delivers marigolds, sometimes he delivers jasmine flowers, sometimes he delivers roses and other times when they are in season, he will deliver small chrysanthemum flowers.

Natasha, then fills a bowl with water and gently places the flowers of the day, into the water, to float where they may. They look spectacular, oh and not only do they look spectacular, but the perfume from the jasmine flowers is wonderful.  Their sweet perfume fills the room.

The jasmine flowers, in Natasha's bowl, are mixed with small roses, which remind me of  our native dog rose.... they are tiny, but perfectly formed. I have to say, I think they are  as lovely as our hybrid roses, now that is quite a statement coming from me, as roses are my favourite flowers.... but without wild roses, we would never have our beautiful modern day roses.  

I just had to show you the decoration around the outside of Natasha's bowl, because as you know, I am a great lover of the colours, blue and white, oh and I have to tell you, this bowl is huge, it is fourteen inches in width. So imagine it placed at the centre, of a very large, round, marble table.... yes.... it looks absolutely fabulous.

Of course, the bowl does not have to be so big, as in this case. To be honest, I'm not sure if these are chrysanthemum petals, I think they are, but I'm not absolutely certain, although I feel sure you will agree there is a similarity.  Not that it matters, because the colour of these petals, are stunning. The petals are so bright and sunny that they would bring a smile to my face any day of the week.

With the flowers placed on the table, I wanted to show you this carpet, which you can see underneath the glass table.... sorry about the toes. I really would love this carpet to grace the floor of my living room.... I just love the muted colours.

I then discovered these beautiful lilies.  They were placed in this lovely marble dish and I loved the idea of the dish replicating the shape of the petals.

Now you would imagine, the stems of these lilies, had been placed into a block of oasis, but no such thing, the stems were placed into shallow water. When I was taking this photo, the perfume from the lilies was quite heady.

I think one of my favourites, has to be these bougainvillea bracts, which were placed individually onto this dish to create the image of a flower. Here you can see the marble petal dish much more clearly.... isn't it stunning. I am sorry this photograph isn't as sharp as it should be, but for some reason I only took one photograph and I really wanted you to see the beauty of this design. It must have taken someone such a long time, to lay each bract on to the dish to create this design.... as I said, it really is stunning.

The bowl you use does not have to be large and it does not have to be filled with flower heads. Using just a few flower heads and an unusual brass dish you can create a lovely effect.   

So, on returning home, I had to recreate my own lovely dish of flowers.

  

I decided to used this lovely Turkish, hand decorated glass bowl. I filled it two thirds with water and added some Alstroemeria flower heads.

..... another reminder of our fabulous trip to India.

Take care and I will catch up with you next Thursday.

This week I will be visiting,

Natasha in Oz for Sundays Down Under