Flowers and Foliage

For personal reasons I have backed right off portfolio building, but I have still been taking LOADS of photos and playing as much as I can. I have always drrled over some of the amazing flower and foliage images in flickr and cursed the price of lenses. There is no way I can afford a macro lens to be able to play with flowers and foliage.....WRONG! Well I was right, I can't afford one but I was wrong to think that not having one should hold me back from trying. So I have been getting the most out of my 50mm and then processing the crap out of the images to get some different and what I think are lovely results. I consider this practice for the experimentals in next years camera club comps. I find it really hard to REALLY cut loose on my photos in photoshop, I feel kind of "naughty" doing it so I often hold back. Some of these I have gone to town on and others I held back. Some I wish I binned and others I love and am considering walling. All of them I had a ball producing and learned from each and every one of them.