Junky Funky Flowers by Kevin and Christen Brown

I have been collecting pieces of this and that on “our walks” for years, and my husband dutifully will put these treasures in the pockets of his shorts until we get home, no matter how dirty or messy they may be. What a good guy!

He even carried the wood and metal umbrella that we now use in the garden, adorned with ribbons, to ward off the birds. He did draw the line with the crumpled rumpled bumper that I found, we had to come back with the truck for that.

It will take a trip around the neighborhood to collect enough bottle caps for one flower. My husband crimped the edges of each bottle cap, then poked a hole in the center with a nail and a hammer. I attached them with artistic wire and size 6 seed beads. Each one is backed with cardboard.

bottle cap flowers

I stuck three vines of vintage glass leaves into the pot, that had belonged to Kevin’s grandmother. A few fuzzy bees also were included to fly around the flowers because they were kinda cute.

The tall vine is made from vintage stamen painted yellow and red. These are attached to a florist wire with millinery leaves along with vintage mercury beads left over from a Christmas garland. The shorter curved vines also have gold mercury glass beads, vintage nubby flowers and millinery leaves.

paper covered pot

The flower pot was an old tin can that held stewed tomato’s. I bent it at the edges to form the sides, and for the first few days I left it this way. I had originally glued the hanger, which is a top from a soda pop can (also found on a walk), to the back of the tin can.

Kevin the Holder of Precious Junk

But alas, disaster struck when the glue didn’t stick and the whole thing fell off the nail on the wall!

So…. I decided to finish the pot with an old paper wrapper leftover from a raw sugar package. This I folded, trimmed and glued to form the correct shape. The hanger is now securely glued to the back of the pot with additional bits of paper and cardboard for stability.

Whew, all is right with the world, it is now much more secure and it looks better with the brown paper!

Happy treasure hunting, enjoy what you do and the time that you have to do it! Enjoy! ~Christen