It’s been a month since I posted anything, I’ve had a lot of ideas about posts and projects, I’ve even written a few drafts, but nothing made it to that ‘publish’ button. There’s been a lot of reasons behind this, and most come down to a crisis of confidence, so I’ve challenged myself to push through it and just post! Thanks if you’re still here reading!

When we moved into our home 8 years ago this week, the main plants in the garden were roses. One of my favourite childhood books is The Key of Rose Cottage by Margaret Baker and I always wanted a rose cottage of my own. Now I’ll be honest, calling our house a cottage is a bit of a stretch, but it does have roses so Rose Cottage it was. Col and I then noted that because our first names begin with R and C, it was even more appropriate. From the first year we were there I would always be out photographing the flowers in the garden. Even though our garden still needs a lot of work, there was always a flower somewhere and I have thousands of photos just sitting on my computer.

Enter my new project. A few months ago, my mother bought a flower press to press flowers from her garden. A few weeks ago she showed me her notebook full of pressed flowers complete with notes about the plants they are from. A lot of her plants are grown from cuttings of friends and family’s plants that are no longer with us and their gardens bulldozed, so the history of the plants appealed to me. I decided I would start my own pressed flower project, but would also include photos of the flowers from over the years. I haven’t started pressing anything yet, but will start printing photos and writing about plants in preparation for pressing as they bloom.

I bought a 4 inch mint WRMK instagram album especially for this project and created the front cover using these beautiful watercolour ranunculus freebies from Angie Makes. I will share updates as the project progresses.