Red Spider Lily at Kinchakuda Park, Japan

A landscape painted in bright red with approximately one 1,000,000 spider lilies unfolds in front of you. Enjoy the rich autumnal color in Kinchakuda, the most famous Lycoris radiata or Red spider lily spot in Japan

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How to Make Whimsical Fabric Flower Hair Clips

How to Make Whimsical Fabric Flower Hair Clips? You just need a little fabric, some hair clips, and a flame.

Materials for Fabric Flowers:

• synthetic fabric in whatever colors and styles catch your eye.  I used 1/8th of a yard each of five different types of complimentary fabrics, some sheer, some opaque.
• a candle
• scissors
• something for the center of the flower.  I used Swarovski crystals, but rhinestones, buttons, sequins, anything would work.
• needle and thread (or glue, if you prefer)

Instructions for Making Fabric Flowers

First, cut your fabric into circles of varying diameters.  Don't worry about being precise, or getting the circle perfect.  Really, you can just freehand it and be awfully sloppy about your cutting technique.  Put your kindergartner on the task and it will be just fine.  It's that easy.  I want to make a quick comment about the type of fabric here.  You really need to be sure that you get completely synthetic material.  No cotton or silk can sneak in there, or the technique won't work.  I found a great selection of shiny synthetics in the formal dress section of Joann Fabrics.

Next, light your candle.  Hold the cut edge of your circle close to the flame, and you will see it start to melt and curl.  This is what we want!  (I had total flashbacks to my 4th grade science fair experiment on flammability of synthetic versus natural fabrics when doing this step.)  Melt and curl all the edges, and you'll have not only sealed the edges from fraying, but you'll have a perfectly shaped layer for your flower.

Stack the circles so that you have a nicely layered flower. Again, this is incredibly easy. I put my first-grader in charge of this job. There are no real rules, just stack from biggest to smallest, and you'll have a beautiful flowers.

Use a needle and thread to secure the stack of petals and to sew any center in the flower if you want to. You could also easily use glue to stack the layers together and glue a center in the flower if you want a completely no-sew project.

Glue the completed flower to a headband, a pin, or a hairclip for an easy and gorgeous accessory.

Source: http://tradewindtiaras.blogspot.com/2010/12/how-to-make-whimsical-fabric-flower.html

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Tulip: Legend of Perfect Love

In ancient Europe, there was a very beautiful girl who was pursued by three young and handsome princes at the same time. One prince gave her a crown, one gave her gold and one gave her a precious sword. This beautiful girl did not know which one to choose because three of them were all very excellent. She became anxious and appealed for help to the flower goddess. The goddess then transferred her to a tulip. The crown was changed to the bud, the sword was changed to the leaf and the gold was changed to the bulb. Thus this beautiful girl accepted the love from all the three princes and the tulip became the embodiment of love.

As the crown stands for royal status, the sword stands for power and gold stands for wealth, only the noble and distinguished persons are qualified to plant tulips in ancient Europe.

Now there are over 3,000 different registered varieties of cultivated tulips. They are easy to grow. They come in an incredible variety of colors, heights, and flower shapes. Every year billions of tulips are cultivated. The majority are grown and exported from Holland. However, millions of tulips are also grown all over the world.

Most tulips are adaptable to many different kinds of climates. The only thing to be careful of is to plant them in fairy well-grained soil. If not, the bulbs may rot before they have a chance to establish a root system. Most tulips bloom well for only one or two years. Therefore, you will probably want to dig up the bulbs and put in new ones after two years.

The language of tulips is not only perfect love. Different colors have different meanings. The ordinary violet tulip represents for the forever love. The yellow tulip stands for nobleness, wealth and treasure. The pink tulip means happiness, passion and beauty. The languages of the red tulip are love vows, gladness and ardently love.

As the beautiful legend of tulips, now in Europe, lovers give each other tulips as well as roses as presents on the Valentine’s Day.

Tulip can remove bad odor and act as a tranquilizer and a mild analgesic. For example, you can cut some tulips into pieces and put them in the bathtub, add some warm water and have a bath twice a day. This can clear away heat and toxic materials for you and is helpful for removing stink of sweat and armpit odor.

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Beautiful English Country Gardens

In the days of old England, peasants owned small homes with small gardens and acted as workers in the small villages. These gardens, despite their small size, had to be able to supply the entire family with all of their gardening needs. The kitchen garden would consist of fruits, herbs and vegetables, and sometimes even flowers would be grown. The most popular flowers that you will find in this style of country garden landscaping includes hollyhocks, herbs, daisies and delphiniums. One of the most popular herbs that you will find in an English country garden landscaping project is mint. English cottage gardens and country gardens exhibit a style that has evolved through time based on necessity, and now these garden styles are rich with mystical charm, rich color and beautiful scents.

© Corel Photo: English Country Gardens

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