Crochet flowers can look delicate and lacy or striking and bold. Use your crocheted flowers to decorate other projects like sweaters, teapot cozies or purses. Crochet flowers are added to so many crafty creations. Sometimes I see them even in the Dollar Store, added to hair accessories. Of course, those are machine made crochet flowers.

You can make your own flowers in crochet. Most of the patterns are simple, especially if you have already mastered the art of the basic granny square.

I like various forms of flowers, other than living flowers, because I have allergies and asthma. I'm not allergic to many plants (luckily). Strong smells like perfume do bother me. Also, once cut flowers are in your home they begin to rot, water goes stagnant and mould grows. That is one of my big allergy and asthma problems. So, I like a variety of other options when it comes to having flowers.

Another plus with making your own flowers is choosing your favourite colours for them. I love red. Blue is not a favourite colour for me but I do love shades of blue with white. There are other colour combinations I really like but would not be able to find exactly as I like them in nature. You can create flowers in every shade of pink, orange or even green if that's what you like. Or, combine pink, purple and green in the exact shades you want. Or, create the flowers to match the room you plan to display them in.

Crochet Flowers as Brooch Bouquets?

I really like the brooch bouquets, created with sparkling jewels and formed into a floral bouquet. So I was really liking the idea of doing the same thing with crocheted flowers. Maybe this will catch on and become more popular than the jewelled bouquets. Or, maybe not. But, they are still very beautiful, if not so glittery.

There is something about buttons. People create all kinds of interesting things with buttons. I knew there would be a lot of button flower ideas. What a great way to make yourself a colourful, simple and cheap bouquet!

Look for buttons at thrift stores. Otherwise your button buying can get expensive. At craft stores and craft aisle in department stores, you can sometimes buy a bag full of buttons. (You can't pick through them for the ones you want, but you get a lot of buttons that way).

I found a lot of colourful flowers and flower bouquets made with buttons.

Most of them seem to glue the buttons together in daisy sort of pattern. Or, they use them as the centre for a fabric flower.

From my Experience

I've been there, as the person writing and the person getting the condolences. From my experience it was best to be kind, keep it short and be honest rather than trying to be nice, polite or neutral.

From my experience, after my Dad died I found many people did not know how to express sympathy or condolences. It's actually not as complicated as they were making it. The best condolences were honest and simple words. One person, in particular, said just the right thing and gave me a new perspective on my own feelings. But, that's not going to happen in most cases.

The friend who had the right words was a good, longtime friend who knew a lot about myself, my life and we had been long time confidants through my divorce too. That kind of friend has a far better chance of knowing the right words.

Here are some ideas, help, and tips to get you through picking the right words to offer your support, sympathy, and encouragement.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart,
and you shall see that in truth you are weeping
for that which has been your delight.
-Kahil Gibran

Tips for Writing a Sympathy/ Condolence Card

• Mention the loss in some way. Don't send a note that could sound generic. Mention a name if you know it.
• Avoid clichés. They make you seem a little uncaring and less than sincere.
• Keep it short. Unless you are a very close personal friend, stick to just a few words or a couple of sentences.
• Keep it light, think easy reading. Big, dictionary words will just make you sound smug and superior.
• Avoid negativity. Don't complain, claim anything owed or air grievances of your own.
• Be sincere. Don't write anything you don't mean.
• Offer sympathy or condolences but don't say you're sorry. Unless you are somehow responsible for the death.
• Keep religion out of it, unless you know they are religious and which traditions they follow.
• Don't say nothing at all. Even just a simple "thinking of you" is good if you really feel too intimidated, upset or angry.Button Lovers and Collectors

• British Button Society
• The Victorian Button Collectors Club
• National Button Society
• Button Floozies

Ideas and Photos of Button Flowers

• Button Flowers - Pinterest Boards

• Flickr: Button: Wreaths, Trees, Balls and Flowers

My Grandmother's Buttons

My Grandmother kept a canister full of buttons. When clothes became worn out and ready to cut down for rags, she removed the buttons and added them to her button canister. There were all sorts of colours, sizes, shapes and patterns of buttons. Some were very old. My Mother kept the buttons and the canister when my Grandmother died. Now and then we use some of my Grandmother's buttons. But, not for just anything.

Grandmother's buttons are used when we make something special. I used a few for making Christmas decorations and ornaments for the tree. I used one set of her buttons when a favourite sweater lost a button and I wanted all the buttons to match again. There were just enough, all the same type, among the buttons in the canister.

We still have a lot of buttons in the canister. There aren't a lot of things in the regular mending sort of sewing which are special enough for Grandma's buttons. These button flowers would be very nice. I think I would use a lot of the white shirt buttons as the outer petals and then pick a colourful or patterned button for the centre.

There are many obsolete technologies since mobile phones began taking over the world. I miss the elegance of watches in particular. However, some vintage technology is just misplaced and not obsolete. Frogs are one of those.

Not frogs of the living kind, but these frogs which were used in floral arrangements. The frogs usually came with a vase (or flower holder of some kind) which they fit inside. So the frogs were made to fit the vase.

Sadly the frogs were easily lost or misplaced. So not every vase still has the frog it came with originally.

We recently lost the frog to one of our own vintage vases. It was a silver frog, one of those which had to be polished. I hope we find it again, before it gets heavily tarnished. I can clean it but I can't do much if the silver gets pits in it from being tarnished. I'm sure this is why silver has lost it's popularity. As lovely as it still looks, stainless steel is much easier to look after.

Have you seen any frogs lately?

Vintage flower frogs...what are they? How many 'frogs' do you have?  How many did your Mom or Grandma have?   Frogs were used in the bottom of vases to hold the flower stems just right. They are usually metal basket weave grid, or fine textured metal spikes or made of clear or colored glass disk with holes....

Source: Flea Market flower frogs

I often see yards and yards of ribbon at the thrift store. Someone needs to find a use for all of that ribbon. Flowers would be a great way to repurpose ribbon. There are so many varieties of ribbon flowers too. I've seen a lot of carnations, daisies and of course, roses. But, once you get the basic method you should be able to come up with unique patterns for your own style of ribbon flower making.

Once you have made a few ribbon flower heads you can attach them to hair bands, use them when wrapping gifts/ presents and make them longer but attaching flower stems so they can sit in a vase. I've got an old one from days long ago which is still on my door knob, on the inside door where I seldom disturb it but get to see it often.

I've already written about ribbon embroidery. Making flowers out of ribbons is different because it's not embroidery. Instead of sewing with ribbon onto cloth, you are forming the ribbons into flowers, 3-D flowers rather than the (bumpy but mainly flat) 2-D flowers created with ribbon embroidery.

If you want to cheer up a friend, ribbon flowers are a good option. They can be taken into hospitals too because they have none of the qualities of real flowers, other than being cheerful, colourful and pretty.