Mother's Day Roses

When you belong to a group of creative ladies, you just never know what new skills are around the corner for you to experience! Whilst 'Paper Angels' are primarily paper crafters, most crafters have more than 'one string to their bow'. Ursula has more than enough strings for one instrument - in fact to carry the metaphor further, she is an orchestra of craft! Amongst her many talents, Ursula has worked as a florist and is responsible for teaching the Paper Angels the fabulous florists bows that we decorate our raffle prizes with for the Christmas Card Workshops. So, when some friends of ours from a local women's friendship group called Beta Sigma Phi (Alpha Beta Chapter) decided to deliver 90 roses to a local retirement village for Mother's Day, it was Ursula who taught us how to prepare and present the roses.

Here is Lyn McKenna from Alpha Beta and Ursula getting to work in Ursula's Studio in Rochedale, Brisbane, Australia. This is an amazing air conditioned retreat, which Ursula teaches and creates in. Some of the local Paper Angels, hire her studio to run classes also.

Ursula, Lyn and I were also assisted by Ursula's friend Michaela who is pictured here filling the plastic vials with water which the individual roses will sit in, so that they have their own water supply! How cool is that - the lids on the vials have a lid with a hole which prevents water coming out of but allows us to pop the stem of the rose in - who would ever know? In fact, I will never look at single roses in the same way again. The process of thorn stripping, water vial filling, cello wrapping, and tying with a decorative bow (we also tied a potpourri sachet to the cello for the ladies to pop on a hanger).was way more involved than I would have imagined! Of course I have to mention (sorry Ursula) that as I started using the snazzy tool that strips thorns off the stems, Ursula asked me if my tetanus injections were up to date! Well actually they are not so I had to be extra careful as apparently thorns carry the tetanus virus - lovely - not! How could something so beautiful have anything to do with tetanus - i thought that was just rusty nails?

Ursula deep in concentration, or possibly trying to avoid eye contact with the camera, tying the potpourri sachet to the wrapped rose.

The final result - 90 fresh individually wrapped roses with their own water supplies, beautifully presented. Not bad for 4 people and 1 1/2 hours of work. I'm pretty sure repetitive work is not my thing (basically because I am slow - I'd get fired on a production line I'm sure) but I certainly don't mind doing it for a morning and learning some new skills! Luckily I cannot be fired as a volunteer. Thanks Ursula for sharing your knowledge and congratulations to Alpha Beta on a wonderful contribution to their local community.

Last but not least, we finished off our morning enjoying some Chinese Egg Custard Pastries from Sunni Bakery at Sunnybank. A very big thank you to one of my lovely customers/hostesses Trish, who introduced these to me at a Stampin' Up! workshop last week. Trish as the hostess served these after the workshop, and they were 'to die for'. The pastry is simply the best I have ever had - it literally melts in your mouth! Since I was heading this way to get to Ursula's, I just had to share this taste sensation with her.