Dish Garden

 If you've been following my blog for a while, you might recall that last year my friend Barb and I exchanged birthday gifts, only to discover that we chose very similar things for each other.
I had purchased this garden "flower" from a vendor in Hendersonville at the Memorial Weekend Garden Festival.  I chose it for it's color, since I know that blue is Barb's favorite color and I thought that she would like it for her garden.

Ironically, she had gotten a very similar "stacked china" flower for me and my garden through a dealer on easy.com!  You can look back on my blog and find a picture of that.

I just spent the last week at Barb's and discovered that the china flowers are spreading!

She studied the construction of these and has been searching for flower parts on her travels to antique shops during the winter and spring.  She now has some of her own creations in her garden and I have to say they make the original look pretty blah.

These two combine blue with yellow, a lovely combination that compliment the daisies nearby.

I took a photo looking down on this one so that you can see that it is really five layers.  The individual layers are held together with a weatherproof/waterproof epoxy or caulk.  A hockey puck that has a hole drilled halfway into it is sealed onto the back and then the hole in the puck can be placed over the end of a piece of rebar that she has painted green.  

 This one catches the sunlight nicely.
Do you recognize the star shaped candlestick holder in the center?  I think I have some of those somewhere!

 The flower above and the one below both have plates that have a lace like design.

 She says it has been fun searching for inexpensive glass and china items that can be combined to make these flowers.  I'll end with two shots of another of my favorites.  The pale pink glass tray that forms the base of this flower is lovely, but it almost disappears into the surrounding foliage.

 That pink and blue "trumpet" is perfect for this flower!

  I hope you enjoyed seeing Barb's clever creations! 

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