A clover, a bee, and revery

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,

One clover, and a bee,

And revery.

The revery alone will do,

If bees are few.


~Emily Dickinson

I was daydreaming, staring at the lawn, watching the honeybees flit about on my glorious crop of clover (please hear the sarcasm in that). I'm pretty sure the lawn is more clover and moss than it is grass.

I was tearing out enormous clumps of it when I realized I couldn't win.

Fine. I told the clover.

I'm going to make something desirable out of you. I threatened.

And away I stalked to the computer (but of course!).


I discovered something wonderful! Clover is grand! And most importantly? Useful!

I found some uses for it here, and now that I have a huge supply of free material to fertilize my garden...well let's just say I'll be all smug when my garden grows to huge, healthy proportions. Plus my honeybees love it, and I love having them around, so I guess I can put up with it.

As I sat, studying and pondering the clover I realized it actually has a fantastic shape to the blossom - pretty really. Which of course got the hamster wheels turning in my mind.




What do you think? Not bad for something I once despised, hmmm?



Gather and dry a quantity of clover blossoms. The less open they are the better because they are more likely to retain their shape while drying.


I used scissors to cut large sections of blossoms and then raked them up with my hands into a shallow cardboard box and let them set for about a week. Don't want to do this alone? Let the kids help! They can pinch the blossoms off the stem with their little fingers. Just be sure to watch out for those honeybees.


I used a medium-sized styrofoam ball and attached a ribbon thus:

With a little hot glue for good measure.

Now that you have something to hang it with (and the ribbon step could be omitted completely if you just want your lovelies sitting in a bowl.)

I started near the center of the ribbon and hot glued the blossoms.

That's pretty much it! Just keep going until you've covered the entire ball. It's a little tedious, but no more so than any other similar project. I found that if I placed a one half to one inch line of glue and quickly stuck the blossoms in it went rather quickly.

A Summer tea party anyone? Wedding maybe?

If you didn't like stark white ribbon against the "antiqued" look of the dried blossoms, try soaking it in a cup of tea until the ribbon looks right to you.

Nature-inspired with a slight vintage look this project certainly doesn't look like most of the supplies came free from the yard.