Interview with Jennie Beecroft - Part 1

Today I'm happy to present you with the first part of my online interview with Jennie Beecroft of Beeline Productions - the manufacturer of my favorite tool, the Microfleur Microwave Flower Press.

Elizabeth: Jennie, thank you so much for agreeing to share a bit about yourself with us. Please tell us a little bit about you and your family, and where you're from.

Jennie: I was born and grew up in Melbourne (Victoria). As a child I was horse mad and when we moved to the acreage I was lucky enough to get a horse for Christmas when I was 12. Mistie and I were inseparable for many years and it was with great regret I sold her when I married. I now live north of Brisbane (Queensland), 20 minutes drive from the beach. I am still married
and have 2 sons, who live in Melbourne with their wives and 1 daughter who lives near us in Queensland. I also have 2 grandchildren (boy and girl) who live in Melbourne, which means I drive to Melbourne several times a year (2000klms home to Melbourne). Because of my husbands work we traveled and lived overseas a lot in the late 1980's and early 1990's, including China, Indonesia, Japan and England. We have been settled here since late 1993.

Elizabeth: When and how did your interest in pressing flowers begin?

Jennie: I always had a flower press with me on our travels and picked many a flower, leaf etc to put in the press. Usually though the result wasn't as great as I would like!
I used to make paper whilst we were overseas and included some of the pressed flowers. We now live on acreage and as I have always been interested in gardening it seemed logical to try and combine gardening and papermaking. I experimented a lot more and complained a lot more, especially about the time taken as I wanted to include the flower now.
Eventually my engineer husband came up with a flower press I could use in the microwave.

Elizabeth: What kind of pressed flower creations have you done? What are you working on now?

Jennie: Most of my pressed flowers are used in cards or in pictures - my mother is more 'creative' than I am and uses lots of barks and feathers in her work. I have also done put the flowers on cups (special occasion one use only), made lampshades, combined with water colour in paintings of gardens, and my latest fun thing is to combine the flowers in resin for use in beading.

Many thanks to Jennie, for sharing with us. On Friday we'll hear more about how the Microfleur actually came to be.