Flowers in Gardens and Homeschooling + Blog Hop

Summer is a time of flowers and this month, the Unique Women in Business team is hosting a Flower Garden theme blog hop.

In June, my daughters, a friend from college visiting from Arizona, and I visited a conservatory that had a beautiful display of summer flowers. The flowers' fragrance could be smelled even before entering the room where they were located.

One of the flowers at the conservatory.

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This week I made a new bunting that uses floral prints in every color of the rainbow.

Each flag on the bunting uses floral fabric.

The bunting is 8 1/2 feet long and uses a variety of fabic that I had on hand. Making buntings has been a wonderful way to use fabric and create something useful.

Buntings are available in my shop -

Harvest Moon by Hand

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I've begun planning for the upcoming homeschool year. One of the things I'm going to have Sophia begin this year is a "Book of Mottoes." This idea came from Simply Charlotte Mason, a great resource for homeschooling following the Charlotte Mason method.

According to the Simply Charlotte Mason website, "Charlotte Mason encouraged that very activity for our children. 'In the reading of the Bible, of poetry, of the best prose, the culling of mottoes is a delightful and most stimulating occupation, especially if a motto book be kept, perhaps under headings, perhaps not' (Vol. 3, p. 135)."

Sophia could practice her best handwriting as she carefully copies sayings that are meaningful to her from the books she is reading and from a collection of quotes and poems I've found.

One quote I'm adding to the collection comes from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (a poet she learned about in fourth grade) who mentions flowers in his poem:

Kind hearts are the gardens

Kind thoughts are the roots

Kind words are the flowers

Kind deeds are the fruits

Take care of your garden

And keep out the weeds

Fill it with sunshine

Kind words and kind deeds

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Also with planning the homeschool year, I'm always looking for recipes that the girls and I can try that tie into something we're learning. During the summer, we planted nasturiums so they could try edible flowers. The first flower bloomed the other day and more flowers should be following soon.

One of the things we'll be trying this year is a nasturium salad with lettuce, green onions, and nasturiums from the garden. This is what inspired us to plant nasturiums:

Nasturium Salad

Photo Source

If you have pictures of flowers, art work that you've created with a floral theme, or a recipe that uses edible flowers...or any other item you've made that includes flowers, please add your link below.