garden favours

The first show of annuals is fading away in the garden, leaving behind their seed pods and making space for the next wave.

This is a good time to make some very personal favours, gifts to special friends, thank-you's to a dinner hostess.  I've found an idea that seems to please, costs nothing and takes less time than required to write this post !!

 To make these little packets of home grown seeds, you'll need some greaseproof or waxed paper, a sewing machine, paints and ......  some seeds.  Here I chose seeds from a pink lupin.

To create a tiny and very simple watercolour, don't get ambitious, keep it simple, naive even.  You're not looking for a botanical print - unless you're clever enough to do that, then just go for it !! - For the lupins, I first painted in some rough lines showing the position of the lupin heads and some foliage beneath.

Next I dotted in some of the lupin colour, blotting with kitchen paper as I went to keep everything soft.

I painted in the name of the flower, again as simply as possible

To make the seed sachet, I simply folded a piece of waxed paper in half and machine sewed each of the long upright sides, making a sachet open at the top.

I popped the seeds into the sachet, you don't need very many, and sewed the little painted paper onto the top of the sachet to seal the seeds inside.  Voila !  I told you, it was quicker than this post to finish !

Oh yes, and just for fun I added the words 'de mon jardin'  -  from my garden.

Any flowers will do for this,  providing they are easy to draw - Nigella is good because they are so vague and fluffy!  Have fun!