100% handmade
100% Handmade flowers
All of Linda’s flowers are 100% handmade. Her designs are unique, not one flower is the same. Her daffodils for example are made of five different colours of yellow truck tarp. And some of the petal leaves of her roses have brown edges, just like a real wilted rose. As Linda’s work is all hand made, her flowers look very much alive, and that is what makes people happy.
“I could see that the cherry blossom was not real, it was made of plastic and the flower had the size of a football, and yet I wanted to smell it”, said a visitor of Leiden University Medical Center.
watch the video; handmade flowers in one minute
For the Dutch Railway, NS, Linda created railroad flowers made of used safety jackets and train attendant’s clothes. Watch this video and see in one minute how Linda constructs her flowers.
Sketches and scale models
Steel, truck tarp, and wool are Linda’s favorite materials. Before she uses these materials to make her large sized flowers she makes a design by sketching or building a tiny scale model.
Steel bending and welding
Once the design work is ready, Linda puts on her welding outfit and starts making the steel frames in her flower studio. Most of her flowers are constructed from reinforced steel bars that are used in the building industry. By bending the bars by hand, she gives each flower the right shape.
Cutting and Sewing leaves
Most of the leaves of Linda’s flowers are made of PVS or truck tarp. Truck tarp is used for sunscreens, covers on boats, trampolines and as canvas for trailers. It is available in many colours and in different thicknesses. Linda uses thin material to create white snowdrops, and Linda uses a thicker variety to sow the leaves of a tulip.
“One day I was looking for the right material to make a giant red tulip. The material should be strong, flexible, deep red and shiny like the petal leaves of a real tulip. I bought a few meters of truck tarp at a canvas manufacturer, and I fell in love with the material”.
The finishing touch
Making three dimensional leaves from truck tarp or textile really takes some skills and efforts. Especially if you want your flowers to look exactly like natural ones as a leaf should not be in a straight line, but have some wavy curves instead. When Linda creates a new design, constructing the leaves is a process of trial and error. Once she is satisfied with her creation, she often adds some tiny details to the flowers using wool, paper or velvet.
