14 May 2015

Wedding bouquet memory

Happy daughter with floral arrangement.

My daughter wed last year, carrying the colorful bouquet in the image above.  When the newlyweds jaunted off on their honeymoon the floral arrangements came home with us.  It seemed very sad to just discard the flowers after the ceremony, but how to preserve them?  Dried flowers make me expect Miss Havisham to descend the stairs, ruined wedding dress trailing behind. Not a mental picture to conjure up for a happy memory.  

Before....
 
I happened to have a book on digital printing on fabric, borrowed from the library, lying around, and one of the images was a floral wreath. Eureka! I dug out pieces of white fabric and black fabric, carefully dis-assembled the bouquet and laid everything out on a table in the porch. 

Flowers on white.

 First, I tried the blossoms and stems on white fabric. Not so much impact.

...after!

Voila! On black fabric, dynamite!  Since I hadn't planned ahead for this - and the flowers were fading fast - my only option was a piece of black linen from my stash. I would recommend using black velvet for a nicer background.

I photographed the wreath on the black fabric, played a little bit with it in Picasa to even out the tones and got the image printed and framed in a chunky black frame, with no mat (spacers keep the glass off the photo surface.) This is my gift to the couple for their first anniversary next week. Do you think they will like it?

Bridal wreath picture, sitting in my garden.