VietNamNet Bridge – For the improvement of life standard, a variety of pastime activities has lured women in our modern time. While some women enjoy shopping, dancing or cooking, for the others flower making is a favorite pastime.

Nguyen Thi Phuong makes flowers at her hand-made flowers store in HCMC’s District 10.

Roll a thin steel line around any round utensils such as medicine box, a pipe or a bowl to make a round shape and then bend the steel into shapes like the petals of a flower. Cover the steel petals with soft, thin colorful fabric and use thread to join the steel petals and fabric.

After making enough petals for a flower, join them together with stamens, which can be purchased, in the centre. Glue them together with a layer of green wax, which is available in shops where they sell flower-making materials, to cover the flower calyx and stem. That is how to make a perfect, hand-made flower. Leafs can be made the same way.

This is how Nguyen Thi Phuong, a 50-year flower craftswoman, has been making flowers for about ten years. She told the Daily that she is a flower lover and even when she was very young she had a passion for flowers and grew many varieties of them.

“I looked at them every day, and I went many places to discover new types of flowers. And one day I decided to make a flower by myself” Phuong said.

She found books to learn how to make hand-made flowers and finally chose the above method. She explained that the smooth fabric makes the flowers look real, and the fabric does not fade easily.

Now she wants to share her passion with other flower enthusiasts. She hosts a training class at her home at a cost of VND200,000 per month, during which time students learn how to make 12 types of flowers. During class she allows the students to listen to music to inspire them.

The class attracts many girls and ladies, both local and visitors from abroad who take part when they come back to visit their homeland. The class is especially popular with students from the US, Australia, France and some from Thailand and China.

“I am really excited to instruct the foreigners, they are creative and patient. In the class, besides asking me about how to make flowers, they also ask me about Vietnamese culture and stories. I’m really happy to teach them as making flowers is my passion and dream,” said Phuong.

To come to the class seems to come to joy. “When l finished the first flower by myself, I felt really wonderful, it was a new experience and I have now decorated my house with vases full of flowers that l made,” said Chau Thi My Nga, a trainee of the class.

’’Initially, I just wanted to know how to make a hand-made flower, but gradually l have become absorbed in it,” confided Nguyen Thi Tham, another girl student of the class. She added that making a bouquet of flowers as a present for someone we love is a deeply meaningful gift.

In the Phuong Lan hand-made flower shop at 112/22 Ngo Gia Tu Street in HCMC’s District 10, there are colorful vases filled with many kinds of flowers from roses, daisy, and a variety of orchids, priced from VND100,000 to VND1.2 million a vase. Phuong makes and sells them for customers to decorate their home and to give as presents. She added she also makes flowers to order.

In the small store flower lovers can enjoy the hand-made flowers and appreciate the meticulous craftsmanship, as well as buy needed materials to make a hand-made flower, such as colorful steel, fabric, string of wax, flower stamen, vases and other ornaments as well as samples and pictures. For anyone who wants to become a professional flower craftsman, the class is a good choice.

For more information, call (08) 9272845 or 0918 069 308 and meet Miss Lanh.

(Source: SGT)