Flower resin tea cups — those lovely roots

I’m always searching for the perfect coffee cup. Something pretty, obviously. But also something practical, something that withstands heat and also something bigger than a tiny teacup (not that I discount tiny teacups as I have a small collection of those too!).

Lately I’ve been pretty enamored with resin as I’ve used it in different molds and have continued to branch out and try it in more and more different ways. I’ve used Mod Podge in the past to preserve my flowers on different things but of course, since it’s basically just glorified Elmer’s glue, it won’t hold up to soap and water.

Last week I was at the Dollar Tree. Sometimes I like to peruse the dishes section, not because I need more dishes, but honestly their dish selection for a buck, always impresses and never fails. So when I saw these over-sized glass mugs on the shelf my brain literally went off like a ping-pong game of ideas. This cup is literally like a blank canvas, waiting for some art…. Flower art, that is.

I bought three of them because I couldn’t just try one idea. I had to try them all.

I brought them home and leafed through my pressed flower collection. My pressed larkspur immediately jumped out at me. The rich and flamboyant color of the violet shade would pop out in just the right way. I got to work.

I gingerly clipped off a few of the heads. I had also pressed the leaves but knew that they would be too big and possibly aesthetically-awkward.

After I positioned them I then mixed up a tiny amount of resin, according to its instructions. Then using a super cheap paintbrush, I delicately applied the resin over the flower, saturating it just enough but not too much that it overflowed the concavity of the bottom of the base.

Acting upon a wild hair, I wanted to also attach flower heads to the side of the cup but realized that the resin drips would be too hard to attend to while waiting for the resin to dry (drying time is usually 12-24 hours). It would have been sooo pretty had it worked, but alas, I had to keep it simple.