Have you seen those fantasy faux-glass flowers made from recycled pop bottles?

I mean the delicate fragile-looking twisty looking ones, like those the US-based artist Laura Astor) used to make.

Like this.

(Note: these aren’t the Anthropologie-style of flowers that use the ends of the bottles. But there’s a great tutorial from Sonia at Kosmic Chai, if you’re looking for a how-to on making that type.)

These more delicate PET flowers would make gorgeous Christmas-tree decorations, I think, if you coloured the flowers red like a poinsettia — or put together a whole bunch of the clear plastic flowers would make a fun sun-catcher mobile for your garden or a little girl’s bedroom — or tie them into a good thick evergreen wreath to add a little frosty glitter. The possibilities are endless!

Here, Leanne of Luvlee Scrappin gives a little video tutorial to walk you through how she makes her pop bottle flowers. You’ll find a number of YouTube videos that show a similar how-to techniques, but Leanne’s tutorial has the clearest instructions and best quality sound and pictures of any I’ve looked at.

Instructions for Pop Bottle Flowers

Here’s a quick outline of how Leanne shows how to make pop bottle flowers, just to give you an idea of what’s involved, but do watch the video (it runs about 10 minutes) for full instructions:

From the side of a plastic pop bottle, cut:

• 2 squares, 2.25″ x 2.25″ each
• 1 square, 1.75″ x 1.75″

Cut each square into four petals that are joined together at the middle. Leanne likes to cut curves from corner into the center like a windmill, then turn the plastic piece the other up and cut the other direction to complete the petals.

You can draw out the petals with a Sharpie first, if you like, but just be sure to cut all the pen marks off so they don’t show up on the finished flower. (My suggestion, if you’re not confident of your freehand scissor work: draw out a pattern on paper, lay the plastic down on top of the paper, and follow along the lines with a stylus or pencil point, then cut the plastic along the scored lines.)

If you want a coloured flower, use a coloured plastic pop bottle or colour the petals with Sharpie pens or alcohol (not water-based) inks.

Next, you’re going to want to melt the edges of the petals to get a bit of a natural curve or twist look. For this, Leanne suggests a tea light candle. You could use a heat gun can be used, but Leanne says it doesn’t give the nice ripple effect on the edges that you’re looking for here. I suspect that the heat from a heat gun is spread out evenly over too large an area, not as concentrated as a candle flame and not as unpredictable.

So, light you little candle (keep water or a fire extinguisher nearby, as always when working with an open flame) and grab a pair of metal tweezers you don’t mind using for craft projects.

Gently heat the edges of petal (holding it about inch and a half away from the candle flame, Leanne suggests) until the edge of plastic starts to melt and curl. This will happen quite fast, so be careful not to melt it too much! Then give the petal a twist with your tweezers. Try to keep the centre as flat as possible as this is where you’ll glue the layers together to form your flower.

Repeat with other petals.

Cut a couple of leaves from a green pop bottle (or cut from a clear bottle, if that’s all you have, and colour it with a Sharpie or alcohol inks). Use the same heat-and-shape technique to give a little ripple to the leaves.

Assemble — very carefully! — using a hot glue gun, positioning the petals and leaves in whatever way looks good to you. Add a bead, pearl, or other embellishment of your choice to make the centre of the flower.

And there you have it, a faux glass flower made from an old pop bottle!

Visit www.zibbet.com/LuvLeeScrappin and luvleescrappin.blogspot.com to enjoy more of Leanne’s crafty creations.

My sister-in-law, the mad daylily collector, was among 2000 who rocked our local Run for the Cure this past weekend, to help to raise funds for breast cancer research. She’s one good reason why DomestikGoddess.com goes Pink for October — well, even more pink than usual. She also comes from a long line of photographers, and that’s where this next bit comes in:

Yesterday, my friend Gui mentioned that Flickr’s gone over to the pink this month, too. Yahoo! will donate 1 euro for each pink photo added to the Pink 2008 Flickr group, up to 30,000 EUR for five charities in Europe that support breast cancer research and treatment. You can add up to 5 photographs each day until the end of October.

How cool is that? An easy way to support a good cause — easy as pinning on the pink ribbon, but way more creative — with the added benefit of getting much-needed funds to fight breast cancer. If you can’t manage the cash to donate to the cause right now, yourself, why not upload a couple of pics and let Yahoo! make a donation for you?

These are my favourite dwarf daylilies, by the way. Don’t ask the name, it’s Strawberry something-or-other, but I never can remember: to me, they’re just “those pretty bright pink ones”! I’m a lousy photographer, as we know, but couldn’t resist grabbing a shot of these daylilies just as their blooming season came to an end.

p.s. If you post a pink pic to Flickr’s Pink 2008, feel free to drop a link in the comments so we can all come over to your place and go ooh and ahh!

Much as I absolutely despise the kabillion pop-ups that plague the Better Homes and Gardens site, I do enjoy some of BHG’s quick-and-easy holiday decorating ideas.

Here, for example, asparagus spears and long green beans make Thanksgiving-theme wrappers for simple pillar candles. It’s all done with a couple of strong elastic bands, and a length of satin ribbon to hide them.

And see that hollowed-out artichoke candle holder?
Very cool.

Grouped together with a few white chrysanthemums (easy to come by this time of year, and good tough flowers that stand up well to handling while you fiddle with your centrepiece), and you’ve got yourself the kind of table decor to make your Thanksgiving dinner guests feel special indeed.

As I write this, the weather outside has turned from autumn-mild to chilly, with something wet, something between snow and rain, coming down from the dark sky — and underfoot, the ground is getting soft and muddy.

Ah, what can you do with November in Canada?

Splash out in a pair of stunning wellies, that’s what!

Grey days and mud puddles could be no match for the Autumn Wellington boots, featured at the Victorian Trading Company this month. The beautiful boots are free to e-newsletter subscribers with any $69 minimum purchase, or you can order them up all by themselves for $49.95.

Waterproof rubber and nostalgic flowers in the rich romantic colours of chocolate, raspberry and sage… way to brighten up a wet-weather season!

Have you seen Anna Whitford’s collection of decorative flowers? These are six-inch sculptural faux flowers — Dahlia and Gerbera, something reminiscent of a Zinnia, big fat luscious flowers to lift the spirits.

The decorative floral ties are designed to be versatile and can be used again and again… Each design is hand crafted from high quality suede, faux suede or metallic leather with complimenting three satin ribbon ties. There are a variety of delicious and dazzling colours to choose from to match your gift, interior or fashion accessory.

Those attached satin ribbons let you easily decorate a gift package or tie back a curtain, or embellish a throw pillow, or a lamp base, or a vase… Create a unique table setting or centerpiece, or accent a fireplace mantel arrangement…

One other thing I should have added to the long list of Thanksgiving weekend fun — arts and crafts with autumn leaves!

Kelly (aged 11, my next-door neighbour’s granddaughter, visiting from out of town) came over on Thanksgiving Sunday afternoon — as she often does, when spending the weekend at her Grammie’s house.

(And by the way, that’s a pleasure for which I am indeed very thankful.)

We walked with dogs down to the bottom of the hill, collecting great armloads of colourful maple leaves on the way, then came home and folded them into a bouquet of faux roses.

Kelly took this bouquet home to her grandmother.

We went out the next day to get some even better leaves — bright red maple leaves, from down by the brook where this summer’s drought hadn’t robbed the trees of the stronger hues — so she could make more flowers to take to her art teacher when school went back in.

I also printed out the pictures from the maple leaf roses tutorial I’d found, and put the pages into an old binder that was lying around. Kelly is going to decorate the cover of the binder and put her name on it. We’ll use this binder to compile a How-To Book of all the activities we do together on her visits, and I like to think that she’ll share it with friends… and maybe, some day in the far future, with children of her own.

I found this great craft idea last autumn, but just a few days too late to collect a bunch of autumn leaves while they were at their brilliant best colours. This year, it’s high on my to-do list! The big sugar maple out front is turning an incredible vibrant red just now…

In a superior step-by-step photographic tutorial, Natale shows how to make roses out of colorful autumn leaves — maple leaves, to be exact, perfect for us Canadians!

She gives a commentary, too, but the online translators can’t quite handle the task… Never mind, the photographs are enough to transcend any language barriers, speaking with the language of faux flowers!

Make a point to pick yourself some colourful maple leaves before they fall, so they’ll still be soft and pliable enough to fold up tightly. Or possibly it might help to treat them with just the tiniest bit of glycerine? Could try it both ways…

Just feel free to rake me up in a big sack and throw me on the compost pile, if I don’t get around to trying this fabulous autumn craft before the trees are bare!