Pressed Flower Votive Candle Holder Gift Idea

Flower pressing friends, here's a cool Christmas idea gift idea for you to make, that's unbelievable easy.  

1.  Glue a pressed flower of your choice onto each side of a triangle or square votive candle holder.  I tend to prefer Perfect Paper Adhesive for gluing, but in this case any white glue should be fine. I also recommend using flowers pressed in a Microfleur microwave flower press since they tend to retain more of their color.

2.  Tear a piece of white/translucent tissue paper into a square that will cover each flower by at least 1/8".  You could also cut the square, but the torn edges give a much nicer, "artsy" look.

3.  Cover one of the flowers plus an extra 1/8" of an inch around it with either matte Modge Podge, or Perfect Paper Adhesive.  Place a tissue paper square on top, press out any air bubbles, and then carefully apply another coat of either Modge Podge or PPA over the tissue paper.  Make sure to cover the edges of the tissue paper, but avoid getting excess on the glass. Repeat for each flower.  Allow to dry.

There you have it!  The tissue paper lends a certain whimsical look to the pressed flowers, and also helps protect the flowers.  Avoid using greens since they readily fade unless you add some kind of pigment - with either water color, or markers such as Prismacolors. 

For the candle holder above I used osteospermum flowers (a type of African Daisy) in several shades of purple. Which ever flowers you choose to use, be sure to have plenty on hand - everyone you know will want one of these!

Blooming Secrets

My Christmas cactus has begun to bloom - it must have almost 100 buds of various sizes. Considering that the winds are howling and the wind chills today are expected to hover around zero, these tropical colored blooms are a joy.

There are many different theories about how to get a Christmas cactus to bloom, and some of them can be tedious. My grandma gave me this plant probably over 30 years ago (how old that makes me sound! But I was really, really, young then). As she tucked the tiny pot into a cereal box to protect it on the long ride home, she instructed me to keep it shut in a dark closet for the entire month of October. I usually didn't remember to do this, or as it got bigger I had difficulty finding a closet big enough and empty enough to hold it.

Thankfully I have found a simple method that has been working perfectly. My cactus spends its summers outside under a shady burning bush, and I water it only as needed. I might give it a shot of organic fertilizer once or twice if I think of it.

The key, I have found is to keep it outside as long as possible, well into October if I can. If there is a threat of isolated frost I cover it for the night, but I try to leave it out until mid autumn. Once I bring it in, it goes up in our loft area, where it receives light from two sky lights. The cold nights outside and increasing natural darkness seem to do the trick, and I've been rewarded with loads of blossoms. One more tip, while I happen to be thinking about it, I also trim my cactus in the spring, to keep it more compact. It is almost 3 feet across, and I don't want it getting any bigger. I don't know if that impacts its blooming potential or not.

While taking a break from writing this post I noticed that Kathy from Cold Climate Gardening has just blogged about her Christmas Cactus as well, so check out what she and her readers are doing with theirs.