Becoming a "Botanizing Woman"

It started out so innocently, just a quick bit of research for a living history program. But just as botany in the mid-19th century influenced nearly every aspect of a woman's day to day life, botany has also come to have a deep influence on my life and activities.

One very common activity in the Victorian period ,was that of assembling an herbarium - a collection of plant materials. As well as being a method of showing one's "gentility", herbariums could serve several other purposes:

Scientific -

Decorative -

Sentiment -

I've decided I'd like to combine the creation of an herbarium with another of my major interests - beading. Here is the beginning of an ongoing project: I'll be creating beaded pages based on photos of plants I've taken in all the seasons here on Mackinac. I'm starting with winter and my first subject is a winter worn remnant of Queen Ann's Lace covered with frost, my version of

"Frost Flowers":

And here's the inspiration photo:

I'll keep updating with new herbarium pages as I manage to create them between other projects.