Suddenly some...Flowers

Well, as it's still Valentine's Day I suppose that is where I'll start. Flowers, I don't know anyone who doesn't like them. Let's see.

Flowers of War by Geling Yan, just so happens to be the title of the book I'm reading, only on capter 2 but so far it's about a missionary school in Nanjing in 1937 that takes in a group of prostitutes during the heavy fighting and the relationships between the school girls, priest and women and how 3 totally groups of people manage to survive the traumatic events in the town. - Even though I'm only on the second chapter I'd highly recommend it. It also happens to be a film staring Christian Bale, I'll watch it when I've finished the book and not before.

Make Flowers:
There really only two types of flowers I ever want to make 1. origami flowers which I stick on presents and 2. flowers made of icing to put on cakes.
Here's a complicated rose, only for the advanced:

and a simpler version for starters:

Making a flower out of fondant icing is something I haven't tried yet but, my Mum was an absolute master at it, if you wan to try it try here.


Pictures of flowers come in all shapes and sizes on the web one of the best places to look at good photos is Flickr.com - just put in flowers or roses or whatever you wan to see even add a colour and off you go.

The most famous picture of flowers has to be Van Gough's 'Sunflowers' . In fact he painted lots of pictures of flowers and not just sunflowers.

Pictures of flowers are something I always find peaceful this is a picture I took in Switzerland and at the moment it's my desktop:

Flower Symbolism

Flowers for some people have meanings and express feelings, for example I've always loved tulips, they symbolism passion and are a declaration of love!! does that mean I'm a passionate person? Roses everyone knows symbolises love but did you know that if you put two together or have a single stem with two heads it means engagement? or that the leaves on the stem signify hope (so don't tear them off when you put roses in water!!).

People have been pressing flowers since the dawn of time, I'm sure most of you, well the females anyway, tried to press flowers at some point of your childhood. If you're really lucky tucked away somewhere you might have a special flower pressed in a book forgotten for the time being, to be found in the future to remind you of the day you got married or the first time you were given a single red rose. Unfortunately I've never really seen the attraction, the flowers lose their colour and they usually end up getting thrown away. If you want to find out more try here. Not many pictures but interesting.

More interesting is Flowers as medicine got anger issues? Try pussy-willow or white geranium, feeling a little depressed? how about a poppy (surprise) and snow drop mixture. Problems with your 'love life'? Day lily or sticky monkey flower should put you back on track!!

Last but certainly not least...Flowers in history.... Lets start with the 'war of the roses'. It toke place between two great houses in England in the 1400s the Lancasters and the York family one had a red rose the other a white rose, battling for the the throne of England. both families were from different branches of the royal Plantagenet dynasty which ended when Richard III married Edward IV's daughter, their son was the first Tudor to reign in England... Henry VIII and we all know who he is.

Tulips were introduced to Europe in 1550s from the Ottaman empire, they become very poular but were so rare that it cause the Tulip Mania in Holland a century latter. People were bankrupt and Bankrupted themselves just for a bulb!