There were several new vendors this year in the categories of jewelry and a large number of new items in the art category. I've added some higher end products at the request of some of your fellow readers and hope you will enjoy and buy some of them.

Art Gifts with an Orchid Theme
One of last year's vendors, The Golden Orchid, has come up with a great new item -- gold and silver sculptures of orchids on wooden bases. They are absolutely spectacular (from the home page, choose "Our Products" then "Sculptures"). The line of individually crafted jewelry pieces from real flowers is top of the line.

Nature's Playground in conjunction with Café Press has a nice selection of art tile products available with an orchid theme. Sheila added a special section for Orchids to make it easy for you to find the products you're interested in. I received a sample of the coaster and it's plenty heavy duty and the photography is beautiful.

Janice Stevens has a whole selection of original art paintings of orchids in various media. They are without doubt some of the nicest I've found on the web in a long time.

Eleanora Roberta Freeman is a botanical artist specializing in orchids Orchid Arts. Her watercolors are lovely and would be a wonderful gift for any serious orchid lover.

Two new vendors this year produce life size orchid sculptures in various metals. Metal Orchids in Covington, Louisiana, produces fine art sculptures of orchids. And David Caccia's Art Studio in Hawaii where he will build orchid sculptures on commission.

Dancing Flowers, a website by floral preservationist Judith Seeger, has lovely framed pictures created with dried flowers, many of which are orchid themed. I was very impressed with the quality and detail shown in the pictures on the website. These would make lovely gifts for the holiday season. RISIS a Singapore based company has dried and framed orchids of many varieties as well as jewelry and other items with orchid themes in its collection online.

Orchid Jewelry
Jewelry is always a good choice for the holidays and what better way to celebrate than with Orchid Jewelry? Several of the art vendors above (as noted) also have jewelry available on their sites. Two Hawaiian companies that I found for the first time this year are carrying jewelry made from orchids. Real Flower Jewelry has some lovely items and what I really liked about their products is that the process they use creates soft flowers that look natural. They have a special section of orchid jewelry, but also have rose and miniature pressed flower pieces. I received a sample of their magnetic pins and really love them because you won't ruin blouses by putting a pin through it. The magnets are strong enough to hold well. If you want to wear flowers in your hair they have a clip pin that is really lovely. Royal Hawaiian Orchid has the more normally seen Dendrobium orchids lined with gold. I particularly liked the orchid pendant with chain which can be worn either as a necklace or as a pin.