Christmas at Alice's

My friend Alice has the most amazing house and it becomes even more incredible at Christmas. She has at least 3 or 4 Christmas trees and many other wonderful decorations. This year I made some low arrangments for her dinner tables and remade the dried hydrangea arrangement in the living room. I am hoping to get more photos of the rest of her decor this week.

Blair House tour

Hal and I were thrilled yesterday to have a tour of Blair House. Yael Belkind, the lovely assistant manager, was nice enough to take some time and lead us through all of the rooms that had been decorated by the various magazines. The creative work was great and my mind was spinning as I tried to look carefully at all of the details that were so clever and beautifully done. We took a replacement arrangement for the one we made last week and it will be used tonight for a reception. And today, Martha Stewart's show features the rooms that she decorated at Blair House. Try to watch and maybe she will show this room with our arrangement!

Brooke's baby shower

Last Saturday I did the flowers for a baby shower for our friend Brooke. She and her sister Whitney are both due within weeks of each of each other, Whitney with baby #3. I have known this family for a long time. Hal and I did the flowers for Whitney's wedding and for the christening of her eldest child and I attended Brooke's wedding in Marthas Vineyard last year. It is always fun to work with them. For this event I filled a wire baby carriage and glass squares with pale blue delphinium, Esperance and Sweet Akito roses, pink tulips and Yoko Ono green button mums.

Christmas at Nora's

Hal and I decorated Restaurant Nora's garden room for Christmas. We used her own amaryllis flowers and added our wire plant forms filled with pinecones, moss balls and other material. We created a swag for the window box with dried cedar, boxwood, christmas balls and pinecones. It is always a great experience to create an arrangement for this beautiful restaurant. Now we are thinking about springtime and hydrangeas.

Blair House arrangment

Today we had the very great pleasure of making an arrangement for a reception at the Blair House. Blair House is actually a group of 4 houses purchased by the government for use first by the Trumans when the White House was being renovated in the late 1940s and then as a guest house for visiting dignitaries. This holiday season, 7 magazines were invited to decorate Blair House. Our good friend Ann was helping with the decorations and mentioned our names when one of the designers was looking for a large flower arrangement for the Jackson Map Room sponsored by Mother Earth News. He wanted a fairly tight arrangement with a southern vibe using only green and white. We used Green Tea and Akito roses, white lilies, white anemones, green hypericum berries, green hanging amaranthus and small green hydrangeas with magnolia and gardenia leaves, cedar branches and boxwood. I wove a grid of whale rib leaves to hide the foam we used in the glass vase. The designer for the room was David Derbyshire from New York. There is article in today's Washington Post about the decorations at Blair House and you can see a photo of our piece in Blair House at the website: www.magazines.com - search for the Mother Earth News decorations at Blair House. And more news on this project: on Monday Hal and I will have a tour of Blair House to see the decor and will bring down a replacement arrangement. Apparently they loved the original piece and have hauled it from room to room for the many events they had this past week....

Landon Greens Sale

Today I gave a holiday floral design talk at the Landon Greens Sale. This sale has been going on for years and the parents at the school give their all to put on a lovely day. They are wonderful floral designers themselves and it was very nice to be invited to speak. I made 6 arrangements. 3 of them were my usual style and 3 were a bit more playful and trendy. The arrangements in the first photo were made with a dome of dark red carnations with hypericum berries stuck with a pearl headed pins. They were the big hit of the day. The ladies who attended all seemed to be very knowledgable about flowers and well versed in the basics of design. They asked good questions and we had a lot of fun. After the talk, the arrangements were put on sale and apparently they sold quickly.

Thanksgiving

On the worktable this week are some arrangements I made for a friend for her Thanksgiving table. She had two large glass cornucopias and I filled them with baby artichokes, lady apples, baby pineapples, hypericum berries, dried wheat, mums, grevillia, roses in several colors and purple carnations. They were bright and appealing and just right for her table.

Helen's party

Last night our friend Helen had a party for her college friends. She has a wonderful house full of the most interesting stuff including a wonderful table made from reclaimed silvery grey barn wood. She was with me at the floral wholesaler last week and we found these pretty stencilled vases. She bought two of the rectangular ones and I filled them with beautiful white tulips.

Landon VIP party

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to do a couple of arrangements for a VIP dinner at Landon. The dining room at the farmhouse is a beautiful mocha color. To compliment that color I used silvery dusty miller, two colors of pink roses, pale yellow roses, brown Charlie Brown cymbidium orchids, blue grape hyacinth and some orange/bronze mums. I loved this combination.

Roses and old tins

I love old tins. I collect them and use them occasionally for arrangements, but unfortunately I have few clients who share my enthusiasm. Luckily my sister-in-law likes them as well so when I wanted to make an arrangement for her last week I used one of my favorites. Now this one is a reproduction, but with enough wear and tear, it will soon look like the real old thing. I filled it at first with pale pink parrot tulips, pink ranuculus and white roses. Later that day I found some wonderful fuschia peonies at Trader Joe's at a fab price and put them in. She was happy.

Fall meeting

Yesterday I made some arrangements for the Landon board meeting in their new meeting room in the renovated gym building. The building is fantastic and the room was beautiful. The arrangements included a vibrant orange and yellow bicolored rose, tan spider mums and grey dusty miller with a little seeded eucalyptus. In the larger coffee table pieces I added some orange berried ilex branches.
I love the grey and orange combination.

Stone Ridge tea

Today there was a tea at Stone Ridge during which the girls and their moms came together to choose graduation gowns. They asked for a pink and white palette and I made two arrangements in vintage silver containers, part of my larger collection. I used Eos pink roses, Eskimo white roses, Rebecca alstromeria, white dendrobium orchids and variaged pittosporum.

Landon Homecoming

Landon homecoming took place last weekend. We made a large amount of arrangements for lunches, dinners and barbeques. We used a palette of brown roses, rover mums, red and gold mums and other fall flowers to make a wide variety of pieces.

Halloween

Last week I made a Halloween tablescape in the farmhouse at Landon. The elements included a white resin pumpkin with black ribbons with a black crow perched on top, a tarnished silver coffeepot filled with a feather bouquet, some black and white gourds and white mini pumpkins and some lovely dried purple hydrangeas and a purple kale plant. Black tulle sprinkled with glitters circles was used for the runner. I found some wonderful mercury glass luminaries printed with black designs that added more sparkle. It was great fun to do this - a bit goth, but I always tell them that I will try something unusual every time! If you want to see the detail of this arrangement, click on the photo so it will enlarge on your screen.

I was going through my photo library this morning and found some photos of older work that I wanted to share. I made these pieces for a Landon event and loved the look of the group of them in the back of the car ready to be delivered. I used acuba leaves, Black Bacarra roses, horsetail, leucodendrum, rust mums and hosta leaves for these.

Bridal shower

Yesterday I made an arrangement for a bridal shower. The color scheme was pink and green and I used a range of pink flowers to create the piece. I included pink hydrangeas, Faith pink roses, dark pink mini callas, pink wax flowers, bells of ireland and variagated pittosporum. I lined the space between the exterior and interior vases with pink, green and white potpourri to hide the stems.

Evaluation piece

I belong to an independent floral designers group that meets every month. Last night some of us brought arrangements in to be evaluated by a group of three judges using American Institute of Floral Design standards. There was a wide variety of arrangements from pave to my very minimalistic modern piece. The judging for AIFD is pass/fail and quite stringent. I was happy to pass. They had some comments and suggestions but basically really liked this piece! And I learned a trememdous amount from the comments they made about all of the work. My arrangement was made from a large grass that grows in my front yard for the woven part in the vase, wire grass for the loops, orange pin cushions, Blush roses and burgandy Safari Sunset with some green wheat on the sides.

Chris and Martha

This weekend I had the great pleasure of attending the wedding of Chris and Martha in Cambridge, and of making the bride's bouquet. Chris and his mom Lucy picked me up from the airport and we immediately headed to the local Trader Joes to get flowers. They had a wonderful selection of flowers and we found the blue and white flowers we were after. I used blue iris, white roses, eucalyptus, daisies and blue hydrangea. This sweet wedding took place in the back yard of their house in Cambridge with just 14 attendees. I have known Chris since he was a baby and it was wonderful to see him so happy with his bride Martha. The weather cooperated, rain on Friday and Sunday, but a nice day on Saturday. Martha's aunt made her dress, her mother made the wedding cake, Chris' dad Joe brought lobsters from Maine for a dinner on Friday night and his mom Lucy baked pies and apple crisp and brought tiny jars of maple syrup and made beautiful pressed flower bookmarks as mementos. Chris' cousin Ben was the officiant. All of these touches made this one of the most personal and sweetest weddings I have attended.

Dinner party

Today I made some arrangements for a dinner party. The tablecloths were a lime/burgandy stripe and I made some green monocromatic arrangements. I used lime green cymbidium orchids, Green Tea roses, green spider mums, rose geranium leaves, Chinese berries and green trachelium.

Dinner Party

Last night there was a dinner party up at Granger House. The tablecloths were a wonderful rust pintuck and I made arrangements with Coffee Break roses, Mambo spray roses, garden hydrangeas, red poms, apricot alstromeria and orange ilex berries. They looked great in both the celadon dining room and the tomato red living room. In addition, most seasons I renew the silk arrangements for the dining room niches. I try to do something different each time and these orange and blue pieces are the latest.

Reception

Tonight we did some pieces for a outdoor reception. Hal made a wonderful buffet piece using Tardiva pink hydrangeas, Big Fun and Chili roses, dark red spray roses, safflower, black millet, Heavy Metal grass, dogwood leaves, seeded eucalyptus and rose yarrow. For such a large piece, it was very nice and airy. The smaller pieces were made from the same palette of flowers.

Just back from setting up the annual Landon Golden Bear dinner in the Perkins Garden. This is always a beautiful event in a great setting. Tonight we made 3 large white calla lily arrangements in trumpet vases - the lovely way long calla stems arc out of the vase is what is wonderful about this type of piece. We also made small arrangement with white hydrangeas, roses, mini callas and phalenopsis orchids and put a single phalenopsis in a tiny square vase with a single galax leaf for the cabaret tables.

Early fall arrangement

Today I made an arrangement for an alumni social. I used a beautiful bi color orange and yellow rose called High & Magic, orange safflower, mini sunflowers, croton leaves and broomcorn. It was just the thing for an early fall event.

Landon event

Last night we did some pieces for the Landon fundraising dinner. They wanted casual arrangements in yellow and cream colors, so we used sunflowers and cream roses with some yellow oncidium orchids, curly willow and millet grasses. I like the airy feel of the tall grass. It's called "Heavy Metal".

Party at Landon

Last week there was a party at Landon in the Perkins Garden, one of our favorite places on campus. The evening light is particularly beautiful in this spot. We only did a few pieces - single sunflowers on the cabaret tables and a little more complicated piece with sunflowers, yellow roses, grasses, yellow hypericum berries and magnolia leaves (my new favorite green) for the seating tables. Loved the contrast of the yellows with the bright blue and white striped tablecloths.

Holton opening party

Last night was the opening of school party for the faculty and staff at Holton. This is always a fun casual event and we made some bright arrangements for it. We used bamboo with livinsonia, ti and aralia leaves, fuschia dendrobium orchids, orange Voodoo roses and liatris in the large pieces and those same flowers with some dark pink coxcomb in the registration pieces. On the cabaret tables we used a single yellow cushion with acuba leaves and a twist of lily grass.

More photos from Ellie and Eric's wedding

Here are a couple of photos from Freed Photography who photographed the wedding of Ellie and Eric a few weeks ago. They did a lovely job. I was so happy to find the green leaf ribbon that I used on Ellie's bouquet and did not get a photo of it myself - so I am thrilled that they took one.
The girls looked beautiful in this photo outside the hotel.