Flowers

September 22, 2016, posted by Gina – On this first day of Fall, we are delving back into decorating and thinking about the upcoming holiday season. I am not sure why I love Fall decorations so much. Maybe it’s the reemergence of deep, warm colors or the thought of comfort food that comes along with cooler weather.  Whatever the reason, there’s something so fun about seeing the first pumpkin at the farmers market or the smell of chili cooking in my home.

I wanted to create a fall arrangement for my kitchen island and decided on an Annie Glass bowl for the base. I had some Angel Vine which I placed in the bottom of the bowl that served to secure all my other goodies. Included in this arrangement are pumpkins, artichokes, cotton, antlers, and a bit of fall greenery.

I plan on placing a few other items around the house to make it festive and fun.  Join me… and let us know about your fall projects and decorations. To leave a comment, click on the title of this post and the comment form will appear at the bottom of the page.

August 1, 2016, posted by Michelle – Le Monsieur and I have been traveling around Europe for the past couple of weeks. We drove through Switzerland last week and stopped to have dinner in a small medieval town called Murten. After dinner we walked around the arcaded main street admiring all of the beautiful flowers and vines spilling out of window boxes and planters. I wanted to share some of the photos with you so you can see for yourself why I call it Flower Town!

July 25, 2016, posted by Gina – I am a planner, so soon as I receive an order for flowers, my mind races with all kinds of ideas for the arrangements. I take every detail into consideration from which flowers would make the most pleasing design to what containers would be best and, of course, I think through the mechanics involved in putting them together. While I give most of my attention to the largest arrangements, it is sometimes the smallest ones that I fall in love with. That was certainly the case with the trio pictured above that I created for a powder room. I found these cute iron containers on the hugely popular Magnolia Market website.  Test tubes sitting inside iron forms are the vessels for the flowers. While I was very happy with the way the other arrangements turned out, this little trio gave me such a big smile. They really gave the powder room a fresh, cheerful touch.

All these flowers were designed for an engagement party at a beautiful home where they seemed to fit right into place. The large, round arrangement pictured above was created for the main dining table. The long rectangular arrangement pictured below went on a large island and it was stunning against the white marble counters.

This succulent arrangement nestled together nicely in a very pretty shell bowl and went on an outdoor table where the beverages were served.

We’d love to hear from you!  If you have any comments or thoughts to share, click on the title of this post and the comment form will open at the bottom of the page.

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July 21, 2016, posted by Gina – Last weekend a good friend of mine served as somewhat of a wedding coordinator. Her daughter was the Maid of Honor but apart from that she has a kind and generous nature so it came as no surprise to me that she would have found herself in this unlikely position.

The wedding was on Sunday afternoon and she met with the bride on Saturday to go over all the details. They went through all the usual checklists and it soon became apparent that somehow flowers had been left out of the plans.

I received a call at 3:00 pm on Saturday from my friend. She was telling me how pretty the location was and sharing how many props the venue had stocked in a very well organized store room. She also mentioned that flowers had not been taken into account, though the bride absolutely wanted them. She told the bride she’d figure something out. As my friend continued telling me about the venue, I could not get past the flower issue. My mind was racing with all kinds of ideas to help her make the best arrangements possible given the time constraint.

Here’s where this story gets interesting. My friend has never made a bouquet, boutonnière or done much flower arranging.  So, we devised a last minute, extremely low budget plan. I told her that roses would be the best bet, and probably the only bet, at 3:00 pm on a Saturday.  She rushed off to the grocery store and found that there was not enough of any one color except red. Luckily, red was the color for the wedding. She bought everything she could find and then flew off to the craft store for wire, ribbon and supplies.

I began sending her photos of bouquets and boutonnières that would be the easiest to put together. We talked about how to put these together quickly as she had to attend the rehearsal.  So at about 8:45 pm the night before the wedding my friend who had never done flowers before with only roses at her disposal began the daunting task of preparing wedding flowers. We exchanged phone calls and photos back and forth for a while until she felt comfortable and was just plain getting tired. And that was the last I heard about the flowers.

On Sunday I was anxiously waiting to hear about the wedding. I received a text from my friend telling me the wedding was over. All I could think was ‘where are the photos’? How did the flowers look?  Did they hold up in the 100-degree outdoor wedding? She was busy wrapping things up so it was late in the day before photos started coming my way.

Take a look for yourself! She did an amazing job! Think about the challenge of having to do 6 bouquets, 1 corsage and 6 boutonnières using only roses and having 2 hours to get them done. So the end to this story is that the couple was married, the wedding was beautiful and no one had any idea that the flowers had not been planned from the beginning. My friend is a Rockstar!

May 19, 2016, posted by Gina – A friend of mine saw a wreath in an upscale catalog and fell in love with it. We both thought the price was too high so she asked if I could make something similar. Duplicating it was challenging but I must say the completed wreath looks pretty close to the over-priced beauty.

As you can see this wreath is fairly full and, believe it or not, the one in the catalog was four and a half times the cost of this one. I am so happy she asked me to work on this fun and rewarding project.

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