No Florist Christmas Flowers

Blooms of Nostalgia: Crafting a Vintage Winter Garden Wonderland

Immerse yourself in the enchanting tale of a winter garden, where vintage flowers and DIY ornaments take center stage. Join the creative journey, learn the secrets of crafting charming vintage-inspired ornaments, and witness the birth of a whimsical winter garden in this delightful blog post. Explore the magic of creativity and get inspired to adorn your Christmas table with these unique and heartwarming decorations.

Have you ever dreamt of a winter garden?  Since we all are aware my gardening skills are less than desirable, I decided to take a different approach to gardening this lovely day in December. I have to say, I am pretty excited to share my vintage flowers with you!  FIY, no florist Christmas flowers needed for this project! 

Now, I've had days when I sit down at my crafting station with no clear plan, just reveling in the joy of being creative. Those are the moments when the camera usually stays tucked away because I'm lost in the present. But when it's time to share with you, my dear readers, I bring out the well-thought-out projects, and today, I'm thrilled to unveil my latest creation – vintage ornaments with a touch of wit and a dash of charm, and perhaps even a few flowers to boot.

The other day, I created these cute as a button ornaments, and since it is so close to Christmas, and you may be searching for last minute ideas, I will share both of these projects today, so we have a two-for, aren't you so excited?  With these projects coinciding with one another, they had to be shared together.

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I found these wood circles and decided they would make the perfect DIY Christmas ornaments this year.  I thought a vintage flair would be perfect for the Christmas season, we all know how much I love a vintage Christmas.

I began by brushing the wood rounds with MinWax Gel Stain in the color Walnut.

I liked the deep rich hue of the stain, thinking it would give my wood Christmas rounds the perfect vintage look.

 

Six ornaments come in a package, being 3 inches in diameter.  After I had all of the wood ornaments stained, I sat them aside and let them dry.

Once the wood ornaments had dried, I applied Mod Podge to each wood circle, also allowing time for each one to dry.

I just get in there and use my fingers to apply the glue.  One ornament in the package does have writing on the back, but I decided to use that as the front of the ornament.  No worries, the print does not show through once we apply our vintage pictures.

I used the same Mod Podge iron method, you can click the link for a more in depth explanation of how to do this.  

I learn something new with each craft I create.  I found that I really liked the look of the paper having Antique Gold Rub-n-Buff applied to it prior to be adhered to the wood Christmas ornament, I thought it offered a more professional look to it.  

I grabbed our Dewalt Cordless Drill and drilled a hole into each ornament.  I found each hole needed to be cleaned, so pipe cleaner to the rescue, using it to clear away any debris left behind.

Don't you think velvet ribbon is perfect for vintage inspired ornaments?  I thought so, and since it was already in my stash, I went with it.

I thought they turned out adorable!  The cat has an angelic face, the pup looking so stoic, and the little girl with her dog reminded me of myself as a little girl.  I was never far from my pups growing up.  

All of ornaments can be found at Peddler's Junction for last minute gifts. 

Having relished every moment of these DIY Christmas ornaments, I found myself compelled to infuse a fresh perspective into the next endeavor. Enter the enchanting world of vintage flowers, a creative twist born from the humble wood circles. I may use the term loosely, but when wandering down the winding paths of creativity, the journey can lead my imaginative mind to unexpected destinations.

 

In the past, I have been known for purchasing lots of books, just a bunch in a box at auction, yard sales, you name it, and I have picked them up over the years.  So, you can imagine I have quite an assortment of books from these lots.  In all of my book projects, I have never destroyed a book, even if I never had plans of reading it so I will say, I felt bad about what you are about to see.

I wet the pages the night before with another project in mind.  I let the pages dry overnight, and then began removing the pages one by one. 

I folded the pages back and forth to create an accordion style.  I experimented with this a little bit.  The first flower I created, I folded 8 pages.  The second flower I made, I folded 7 pages.

Each page received rounded ends with my trusty scissors.  

I then began hot gluing each folded page to the previous folded page of the next stack and continued to stack them in my hand all together.  

You can see our book page flower is beginning to take shape.  I glued the last page to the first page to create a full circle to complete our handmade flower.  

Now, I love vintage pictures of children, and since I had already created the DIY Christmas ornaments with wood, I simply hot glued it to the book page flower.

I had considered stopping here and just creating another vintage ornament, but then I decided to take it a step further.  

Grabbing a small terra cotta pot, some spanish moss, green floral foam, and a popsicle stick I began crafting my vintage flowers.  

I placed the foam inside the pot, hot glued the spanish moss to cover the foam, and then hot glued the popsicle stick to the back of the book page flower and pushed it down into the foam.  I stained the popsicle stick, but this is not a necessary step since it does not show once it is placed inside the pot.  And my go to for vintage flair, I added antique gold rub-n-buff to the book page flower.

I was so happy with it, I decided to go back and make another one.

So here it is, my vintage winter garden – a whimsical creation that stole my heart. The only flowers I'll be growing, and I can already envision them adorning the Christmas table for the perfect Christmas tabletop decorations, wouldn't you say these would be the perfect festive touch? Ready to embark on your own creative adventure? Trust me; it's worth it!

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Happy Holidays!

Cara