When you no longer need lavender to throw at people...

...what exactly are you supposed to do with it?

Wait? What? You throw lavender at people?!?

Uh. Yeah. Don't you?

(crickets)

Instead of bird seed or rice, our friends and family chucked dried lavender at us as we left our wedding reception. I stole the marvelous idea of using lavender after attending my sister-in-law's wedding the previous year. I liked the way it smelled and it coordinated with my color scheme, so I stole it. I steal a lot of her ideas. I can't help it. She's crafty and has terrific ideas.

After the wedding, I had a lot of lavender left over. It's been sitting in giant ziploc bags in my kitchen cabinets ever since then.

A while back, I pressed and framed some thistles from my back yard and some of the flowers from my wedding bouquet. So, I decided to frame the lavender as well.

At first, I framed the lavender with a mat. I used some saran wrap to keep the lavender from getting between the mat and the glass. I like the look of it over all, but the saran wrap made the lavender shiny and I didn't much like that.

So I removed the mat and packed as much lavender into the frame as possible in order to keep it from shifting. I paired the framed lavender with the framed thistles and hung them on the wall.

I really like the way it all turned out. I'm a big fan of free and meaningful art. It reminds me of our wedding and it's pretty. I hung the frames up in the little alcove outside of the downstairs bathroom. It's officially the only finished space in the entire house.