making wooden flowers

paddy graham · Post by **paddy graham** » 21 Feb 2012, 13:44

Read an article last night about how Gypsys used to make wooden flowers using Elder wood as its a soft wood.Just keep shaving a length and stopping short of the end each time untill you get a ball like a Chrysanthemum.Then they used Crepe paper to get the dye for them.Several films on youtube about it but just wondered if anyone had had a go trying this?

Lillia · Post by **Lillia** » 21 Feb 2012, 13:58

Never heard of this, Paddy but it sounds like a nice (and old fashioned) craft~
Are you going to give it a try?

paddy graham · Post by **paddy graham** » 21 Feb 2012, 14:20

Yes,its worth a try,but will have make a bench like they were useing in the youtube vidios first,shouldnt be to difficult.It will give me something to do on a wet hay in my shed.Even though there is power in the one shed,its to expensive to run an electric fire in the draughty place,so I have just took the top of a 5gallon oil drum,put holes up the sid and made myself a heater for the "hovel" as they used to call the work sheds.

LittleBrownFrog · Post by **LittleBrownFrog** » 21 Feb 2012, 15:13

I can remember watching these being made as a child, not sure where we were though. I also still have some wooden dolly pegs made by a gypsy who used to live just off the roundabout near here.

paddy graham · Post by **paddy graham** » 21 Feb 2012, 16:55

LittleBrownFrog wrote:I can remember watching these being made as a child, not sure where we were though. I also still have some wooden dolly pegs made by a gypsy who used to live just off the roundabout near here.

I can remember the pegs being made,a bit of Willow stick split so far along and an old tin can cut into bands an just tacked round to stop it spliting all the way.

Spreckly · Post by **Spreckly** » 22 Feb 2012, 16:09

Not had any of the wooden flowers, but have some of the crepe paper ones. We display them in our classic caravan at rallies.