My third year's entry into the Anderson House Art in Bloom event in March.  This year the library was my inspiration.  I thought about the what a library means and came up with a mandala which denotes wisdom and surrounded it with cuniform tablet pieces, paper flowers and computer parts all meant to symbolize how knowledge from libraries has been disseminated.  

I love doing this event.  It makes me think about flowers in an entirely different way than I usually do and despite the agony of the creative act at times it is a wonderful thing.

Art in Bloom

 For the past two years I have been delighted to participate in the Art in Bloom event at Anderson House in Washington, DC.  Floral artists choose a painting, sculpture or decorative object from the collection to interpret in flowers.  It is a great exercise in thinking outside one's normal floral approach and the results from all the artists are often incredible.  

Here are photos of my pieces from 2022 and 2023.  

Spring 2021

 Spring is especially welcome this year - after a very disman 2020, things feel brighter and lighter and seeing the garden come back to life is particularly thrilling in 2021.

Small events are on the horizon - this past weekend we did some flowers for a house party and were so happy to be thinking in a cheerful way.

 

Some new work

 I have a degree in weaving and textile design.  When I am designing with flowers, my hands and mind are always considering ways to include some sort of weaving into my work.  

This piece is an elevated flat lay - I wrapped a metal ring in bind wire, crossed it with linen thread and thin reeds, added a felt wrapped element, ringed that with packing material and added pressed flannel flowers and maple leaves.  

This piece really expresses the combination of my interests.   

Unique container challenge

 My floral education group has been full speed ahead since we pivoted to an online platform in March when the pandemic closed everything down.  

We met monthly for years (32 to be exact) and really thought on our feet and got busy on Zoom like everyone else to keep everyone together.

In order to keep ourselves and our members motivated we began to issue design challenges and have the members post their creations on our private member page.  We have a weekly meeting to either talk about how to do the challenge or to review the photos.

It is fun, people are thinking outside the box/vase and I hope getting some respite from all the horrific news in the world.

This week the challenge was to work with unusual containers.   For the first one I manipulated a piece of craft foam around a glass vase to create a soft suede like container, and filled with it wth incredible dahlias from our friends at Grateful Gardeners.  

The second one is a generic vase wrapped with reed braid to give a boring vase some life.  I kept the color palette very soft so the spiky branch and protea could be dominant. 

Edible bouquet

A little nosegay made entirely with greens and flowers from the vegetable garden.  Such a wonderful range of greens and small flowers. 

Memorial arrangement

I made this piece a few weeks ago for an almost 100 year old who passed away.  She loved pink and purple,

apparently, purple more than pink and I made this piece for the synagogue.   One of my aunts did florals for this same synagogue in the 60s and it is just too crazy that now I am delivering arrangements there.  And that's what happens when you live as an adult in the same area where you grew up.

Boutonierre workshop

Last week my floral design group had a boutonierre workshop led by my talented friend Dana O'Sullivan.    I rarely participate - I am always busy taking pictures and helping the presenters but this time I could not resist.  

We worked with both dried and fresh florals.  Dried flowers are a thing these days - used in ways that are very different than the way they were used in the the 60s and before.

We had lots of fun and I made this little piece just to give it a try.

Some new work

Mantle decor

I have been dying to do a dramatic mantle design and got my chance helping my friend Dana of Della Blooms and Events with her June wedding.  We used smilax vine, garden roses and other flowers to create this wild arrangement.  I love this piece and can't wait to do another.

UMD/Shady Grove

We have a wonderful relationship with the folks out at UMD/Shady Grove.  We have worked on their graduation celebrations for many years now and each year they want something new and different. 

This year the brief was to make a piece that represented fire.  It was such fun to work on these large fiery tropicals.

HIgh tops

Today we made some little pieces for an event at UMD Shady Grove.  We had to use school colors and it was a fun problem to solve in two very different ways.

A little hope for spring

It is so cold here, not as bad as many other places but still.  I have had enough of this.  Anyway, I made this for a friend from some leftovers that were hanging around the studio.  Love the colors and the way they work on the patchwork quilt.

Baby Shower

Yesterday I attended a baby shower for the daughter of a friend since elementary school!  Karen and I have been friends for many years and it has been a pleasure to be friends with her and her family for so long.  I did the flowers for Sarah's wedding (my paper flower wedding for Sarah and David posted in August 2017, also pictured on this blog) and wanted to use at least some of the flowers from her bouquet in this new piece.  I love this large Accent Decor vase - it is the right style for this group, and went to town with Juliette garden roses, long stemmed hellebore (my absolute favorite flower), peach Cloni ranuculus, astrantia, babies breath, eucalyptus and dusty miller.  Such fun to be part of their wonderful day.

New Faculty Brunch

I took two centerpieces over to St. Albans on Sunday for new faculty brunch.  They wanted something bright for a grey cloudy day and this is what I brought over.

Back to School 2018

The major part of my business is fundraising events for private schools.  I always look forward to the cooler temperatures of the fall, the colors of the season and getting back to working with my friends.
I delivered this piece last week to Holton- Arms School for a back to school event.

EMC Part 2, first assignment

I am enrolled in the EMC (European Master Certificate) program this year and doing 7 pieces as part of the home study, one a month.

This is the first one - sent in today just in time.  The assignment was for a hand tied bouquet. 

Some new work

This has been a really busy fall season - non stop since Sept and still rolling...here are pictures of some new work.

Maddie and JD

Maddie and JD got married in late June at the Ceresville Mansion north of Frederick.   They had a lovely wedding, the weather was perfect and we were so pleased to work with this wonderful family again.

Back to School

A sweet little centerpiece for the first of the many back to school events starting this week. 
I used green centered sunflowers  yellow Versilia roses,  Sweet Annie, scabiosa pods and a wonderful burgandy coleus.  

Sarah and David's wedding

I have known Sarah since she was born and her mom is one of my oldest and best friends.  When she contacted me about her marriage to David and how they pictured the event I was so excited.   They were going to hold the ceremony and reception at El Rey, a Mexican bar at 9th and U Sts in DC.

 When Sarah's mom Karen and I were kids, we went to Georgetown most Saturdays to the shops.  At that time there was a great number of wonderful unique stores.  Powder and Smoke, Coffee Tea and Spice, The Phoenix (still in business!), Three Penny Bit and many more.   They were full of treasures to our eyes.  At the top of Georgetown there was the Pappagallo shoe store in an old townhouse.  In the attic hanging from the ceiling were hundreds of paper flowers from Mexico.  My mother and I began to make flowers and I sold them to Ursells - a furniture store on Q St.  All of these memories came back and I asked Sarah if in honor of the Mexican connection (David is of Mexican descent) I could decorate the chuppah in paper flowers.  She agreed and I spend many enjoyable hours constructing them.

The wedding was such fun.  Sarah and David collected black and clear mezcal bottles for vases.  I put bright groupings of gerber daisies into each one.  We made an industrial looking chuppah that worked with the look in the bar.

Sarah wanted a floral crown and a gardeny bouquet and all of the colors and ideas came together to produce a wonderful looking event that I was so happy to be part of.

Photography by Ann Marie Van-Tassell

Graduation week

We did the flowers for 3 graduations this week.  Graduation is always such a fun hopeful event to be involved in. 

These pictures are from Sidwell Friends School in DC.  They had the most perfect weather - a beautiful summer day with hardly a cloud in the sky and none of the typical DC humidity!

I was happy to use Red Charm peonies and dusty miller in these pieces - the Red Charms are the perfect color to match the burgandy of the school color.

Jeannie and Chris

Last November we worked on a wedding for Jeannie and Chris.  It was so pretty - the colors were a little different than our usual and we liked that very much.  You can see the great professional photos on the Capitol Romance Facebook page.

Weddiing Reception

I am finally getting back to posting some new work.   These pieces were taken at the end of January at a wedding reception at the O"Byrne Gallery in Constitution Hall, a great historic building just west of the White House in the heart of federal DC.  We made small compote pieces in two sizes

for the tables and went to town on the mantle arrangement!  Photos by Alex Polyakov. 

Buffet arrangement

I made this piece in a client's vase last week.  Was so happy to get yellow peonies and combine them with beautiful bittersweet, pumpkins, ranuculus and other flowers to get this effect.