“Bloom: A Story of Fashion Designer Elsa Shiaparelli” by Kyo Maclear and Julie Morstad
This is a gorgeously written and illustrated, nonfiction book about the life of fashion designer Elsa Shiparelli. It follows her from her childhood where she felt like she wasn’t beautiful to when she was a celebrated designer setting trends that would live on in history. Each page is exquisitely illustrated with bold colors and lovely details that are eye catching and stunning.
I love how the story focused on how Esla found the confidence and courage to break the mold of current trends and questioned what was seen as “beautiful”. It is a book that I am sure will inspire many young minds to try the bizarre and to embrace their uniqueness. Any book that does that is a winner in my mind. What a wonderful tribute to Elsa’s life!
Click here to purchase “Bloom: A Story of Fashion Designer Elsa Shiparelli” *affiliate link
Flower Girl Craft
In the book, Esla feels like she isn’t beautiful. However, she feels that flowers are. In a stroke of inspiration she gets the idea to stick flower seeds in her ears and nose in hopes that they will grow and cover her face in flowers so that she can be “beautiful”. Of course it doesn’t work, but I have to agree with her that there is some appeal to a face in “full bloom”. Don’t you? That is when I thought it would be fun to create art using fresh flowers to create “bloom faces” of our own.
Following the inspiration from the illustration for the above mentioned story, I created a face printable that can easily be printed out at home on card stock. (I am sharing it below where it is free for personal and educational use only.) Then, all you need to do is place some fresh flowers and leaves around them in an arrangement of your choice and glue them in place. Ta-da, “bloom lady”!
To make things flexible for little, creative minds I also created a printable with a blank face so children can draw their own if they would like. I do recommend that, regardless of the printable you choose, that you print it out on card stock. The flowers can get heavy and you will want something strong. You could also use pressed flowers, artificial flowers, sequin flowers, paper flowers, or you could even have children draw their own flowers for this project. Also, if you are using 3 dimensional flowers you may want to consider a hot glue gun for the best adhesion. Above all, be creative and have fun!
Download Free Printable Here: blossom lady printable
Download “Blank Face” Free Printable Here: blank blossom lady printable
If you give this Beyond the Book activity a try I’d love to hear how it goes! Share it on Instagram and tag me! (I’m on Instagram as @book.nerd.mommy) or even just comment here with your thoughts. It would make my day! Or to simply save for later pin the image below.
Leave a Reply