No Paint? Grab a Flower!

I have been so happy with my azalea bush.  My husband transplanted an azalea bush from a friend's yard, about 7 or 8 years ago.  It usually has a couple little blooms in February each year.  But this year it's in full bloom.  I should say that it WAS in full bloom.

A couple nights ago, the temperature went down to 28 degrees.  The next morning all of the blooms were shrunken and limp.  It was really disappointing.  I decided to pull off all of the dead blossoms when I noticed that my fingers were turning pink from the flowers and I couldn't rub it off.

The light bulb went off in my head and I went running for some water color paper.  I placed a few limp blossoms on the paper and sort of pushed them around with a sponge brush.  The flowers leaked a beautiful pinkish/purple liquid onto the paper.  It looked just like ink.  I kept squishing it around and I think the paper will make a pretty background for a collage, water color, or some other type of mixed media.

I'll post the finished project when I decide how I'm going to use this homemade, flower-ink, background.

Poor, limp azaleas!

Squish the flowers around.

Not bad, no paint, just flower "ink"!