The Charm of Hand-Painted Roses

I love painting roses. For years, I painted them on anything that would sit still — furniture, flower pots, even stray scraps of wood. My husband used to tease me, saying he feared I’d paint him if he napped too long. He joked that he might wake up covered in roses!

At Christmastime, I paint ornaments with hand-painted roses and give them to friends and family. One year, I gave my best friend a rose-covered ornament. She looked at it and asked, “Where’d you get the sticker?” That’s when I realized I’d gotten too good at it — so perfect, it looked machine-made!

Since then, I’ve focused on making my roses look more hand-painted and less like something printed off a factory line. I lean into the charm of imperfection, hoping folks notice the brushstrokes instead of mistaking them for stickers. That’s the heart of it — soulful roses, painted by hand.