HOW THE WOODEN ROSES WERE BORN
While making a wooden bed frame for a friend, a massive wooden post was placed on the lathe. Looking down on the floor into the big pile of shavings, one of them stood out like a shiny bright jewel.
"It was the most beautiful thing I have ever laid eyes on. It was a wooden rose. I picked up this wooden rose and looked at it for some time, and thought to myself, this is a blessing in the sky.
After months of trying numerous ways to make my idea work and ready to give up, it dawned on me to do the wooden roses in layers, instead of shavings. The rose consists of 6 small petals, 4 large petals, teardrop Styrofoam and metal wire.
The petals are pressed out of thin sheets of birch veneer because birch is the only wood that you can get really thin without cracking or breaking. After the pressing process is complete, the petals go through a 2 month color dye process which includes 56 different color varieties. We then glue the 6 small petals onto the teardrop Styrofoam, then glue the 4 large petals last and then stem the roses. Teardrop Styrofoam was chosen because when we steam the wood it actually molds to the teardrop Styrofoam and resembles the shape of a rose."
This is how the wooden rose grew from a pile of wood shavings, into a gift of love that will never die.
