Samples and more samples...

Playing with lots of things the past few days helped along by MY NEW COOLER!!!  I am pretty excited to say the least especially because it is going to be 97 degrees tomorrow and I have a wedding and then more work during this week.

Anyway, I have been doing logs of samples for my brides and these are a few of the ideas.

Back to School

It really felt like fall yesterday and fittingly I did the arrangements for the first school event of the season - a dinner party at Landon.  I use a nice green and yellow combination with touches of cream.
I once again used a lot of garden elements - Peegee hydrangeas and scented geranium leaves are my current favorites.  I also used Creme de la Creme roses, yellow spray roses, eucalyptus seeds and millet.

Final wedding sample

This is the final sample for a wedding coming up - silvers and whites....lots of textures of both foliages and flowers.

Flowers for Frances

Tonight is Frances' birthday party,  Her favorite color is peach so I used wonderful huge Faro peach roses, peach sprays, peach ranuculus,   two types of garden scented geranium leaves,  peegee hydranges, sedum flowers, arborvitae foliage, varigated pittosporum and wonderful eucomis flowers.    The party was in her house by the bay so on one long table I used elevated candle holders, votives and single roses in cylinders with a tidal line of sea shells.

Silvers and whites

I feel as though I have made a big leap toward using more types of foliages in arrangements.  I usually try to use at least 3, now I am upping that to 5 or more at times.  This one has nandina, arborvitae, lambs ears and 2 types of scented geranium leaves, all from my garden.   It is not a look for everyone but for some clients this is just the thing. 

And a few more ideas...

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A few tweaks to the piece to the piece in the previous post, ranuculus instead of anemones in the first bouquet photo and in the second, Amnesia roses, silver succulents, purple lisianthus and white veronica added in for a centerpiece sample

Such fun to play with different ideas and be able to go into the garden and pick a few things to add to the mix. 

and more samples

I am doing more samples than ever before - it makes everyone more comfortable and not worried that the idea they have for their flowers will not be what shows up for the big day.

It also helps me work in ways that are a bit different than my usual.

Today I am working on bouquet ideas.  This bride wanted an open gardeny bouquet and after a couple of false starts I think I am getting close.

Such fun to work in a bouquet holder.  It allows one to work in a very open loose way as opposed to gathering stems in one's hand and tying them together.

We will see what the verdict is later today.  This bouquet has lots of elements, succulents, heather, arborvitae and nandina and geranium leaves from my garden, anemones, viburnum berries and seeded eucalyptus berries.  The lavender flowers are also from my garden - it is a wild verbena I think.

more samples

I have been playing around with colors today - I love Amnesia roses and Cafe au Lait dahlias (even if they are not real Cafe au Laits according to some parties who will remain nameless).  I like this murky color scheme...purple Astrancia, purple artichokes, callas fill out the piece.

Bouquet ideas

I am working on samples this week and love this silver and white idea.  I used tree fern,  white callas, roses, lisianthus, veronica and astrancia and silvery lambs ears, dusty miller, brunia berries, lavender, a pretty succulent and a collar of eucalyptus leaves.

Lime green and purples

This weekend I did two weddings with lots of purples....the first wedding had a lime green and purple color story and it was lots of fun....lovely purple lisianthus, Super Green roses - great but thorny as hell, green succulents, green hypericum, a few cream roses and varigated pitt (of course)....

Kristin's wedding

Kristin and Cedric got married today.  She wanted a vibrantly colored wedding and we used bright hot pinks and purples with some cooling lavender.  It was beautiful and she was a happy girl.

Early fall wedding ideas

I have been working on some ideas for early fall weddings - a little bit of fall coloration but the brightness of summer. Dahlias, teddy bear Gerbers, Sahara roses, burgandy foliage, some small pale yellow filler and sage foliage.

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