Dried Bougainvillaea and pink Pepper berry Disk

I grow bougainvillaea plants in a pot at our balcony door. I grow them mostly to use as dried flowers. And by flowers I mean bracts. The small, tubular cream-yellow flower shrivels but it is the showy, vibrantly colourful petaloid bracts that I allow to drop so that they dry. I have two... one white and one this peachy-pink. The white is my favourite fresh... but unfortunately turns brown when dry but this pink one is hard to condition fresh but spectacular dry.

Anyway... dry a whole lot of the flowers over summer so that you have a generous bowl full for this design.

Cut the cardboard shape out with sturdy scissors.

So that you can trace and cut a candle sized hole into the cardboard disk.

Trace out three (or as many as you want in your design) water tube shapes onto the cardboard disk.

Cut along the lines with a sharp knife.

Press the tube slowly through the cardboard but make sure not to rip it any further than the circle...

Glue the flaps down with hot glue to make sure it stays in place even after you add a whole tube full of heavy water.

Cut away the dry flower stem...

Angle the flowers slightly so that the bottom of the cardboard is not visible when viewed from the side.

And glue it down without crowding the flower next to it.

Secure the flowers so that the bracts fall open to form cups for the rest of the floral details.

Slip bracts between into all the empty spots but keep the water tubes open.

Remove the foliage from a green Amaranth stem.

Drape the amaranth over and around the design.

And place all the stems into the water tubes so that they can continue to hydrate.

Vines can be tricky at times. The tendrils on the part that you want to cut is usually straight... and the pretty curly part is usually so tightly coiled that it is difficult to remove it without breaking. This week in our email lesson I share with you my trick for always having supply of perfectly coiled tendrils in my design room. I send out an email every Wednesday morning (Vancouver time) to let you know the new design is ready. You will also find a bit of "insider" information so that you can learn even before you go look. The sign up is below this post for you to join in.

For my design I filled the gaps with large and full clusters deep between the bracts...

And a final layer to hover above that with light and airy stems and twigs without any berries.

And relace the disk without disturbing the design.