Tone on Tone Christmas

My great friend Loi, owner of Tone on Tone, a fabulous antique store in Bethesda, MD called me the other day to see if I had any leftover greens.  He told me he had a zinc horse head and wanted a garland for it.  I made a heavy garland and gathered a box of other decor and zipped over.  We played around with the vignette and here is the result made from fresh cedar and silver painted eucalyptus.  For more details see Loi's blog:   www.toneontone.blogspot.com

LIttle arrangement

I made this piece a couple of weeks ago and love the orange, burgandy and peach color combination, it seems like a fresh color palette to me.

Christmas 2015

The Christmas decorating season is in full swing.  This morning I worked on my favorite house on Capitol Hill just a few blocks from the Capitol.

Emily's wedding

These pictures are from Emily's wedding.  I loved working with her - she is so peppy and full of life and we just clicked and worked together so well.  What a lovely girl and a wonderful day.

Busy weekend

This weekend I provided flowers for a wine tasting at Landon School and prepped an early weekly delivery for St. Albans among other things.  I love the colors of the fall season and I really like to play around with a mix of dried and fresh product.

Baby Shower

Today I did the flowers for an elegant baby shower - for a girl obviously...I loved doing these pieces - (especially the asymmetrical dining room piece).  The Neo Romantic Flemish Masters Constance Spry look is a favorite!

On the worktable

I made this bouquet for Stephanie today.  She got married at the Carnegie Institute, one of my favorite venues. 

I love this color palette, peach, pink and grey.  Juliette garden roses, Blushing Parasol garden sprays, cream callas, dusty miller and a few other lovely things went into this bouquet.

wedding thoughts

I am working on lots of different ideas for my fall weddings.  I always like consulting with the bride and then running with the ideas, at times in a totally different direction than the original plan! 

Naval Academy Garden Club talk

The other day I gave a talk on using cut flowers from one's own garden to the Naval Academy Garden Club.  I made 12 pieces using flowers from my garden, local growers flowers and some commercial grown flowers and I had a lot of fun presenting them to the ladies of the club.

Dinner Party

I made these pieces for a small dinner party.  Blush and cream with maroon nine bark foliage, wax flower and mauve queen anne's lace. 

Vow renewal bouquet

Frances and her husband Tony renewed their vows with a lovely dinner party at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel a few weeks ago.  Peach is her favorite color and I used it as part of color palette that also included some yellow and pinks and a beautiful varigated foliage that had subtle shades of peach and cream. 

Birthday delivery

Beautiful birthday flowers in a wonderful color palette with homegrown peonies - such a thrill to use flowers from my garden.

On the worktable today

Arrangements for a dinner party last night - yellow on yellow, with a touch of grey.

Busy week

May sneaks up on me every year - I cruise through the early spring with a nice consistent amount of work, I can handle everything and still have time for fun, and then all of a sudden it is May and I am busy!  I made these pieces for an event at the Canadian Embassy this week.  One of the perks of living near Washington, DC is that one gets to work in the most amazing venues from time to time.  This is just a shot of the piece on the worktable - I made three identical arrangements for the very large marble table at the embassy  - they worked very well as a group.  It is so hot here already that the tropical vibe it very strong.

Event on the Hill

I made these little arrangements for a party on Capitol Hill this week.  It is fun to see the work on the Capitol dome progressing as I pass by on my way to to deliver  - it is now wrapped in some huge blanket.  I should photograph the work - maybe I can think about that next time I am there.

Anyway, two bright sunny pieces - I love a grey, white and yellow palette!

Mother's Day flowers

I made this arrangement for a friend for Mother's Day....Lavender spray roses, Quicksand roses and cream and lavender dahlias, jack viburnum from a friend's garden and wonderful mini carnations.

UMD Graduation Flowers

Last week we made arrangements for the UMD graduation at the Shady Grove campus. Combo roses, white hydrangea, coral sprays, pierus from my garden and wonderful parrot tulips in a great bronze container.

Dinner at St. Albans

We did the flowers for a lovely dinner party last night in the Refectory at St. Albans.  We worked with a long massive 50 foot table and made 3 different arrangements that went down the middle alternating with trios of footed candle holders.  We also made a large mantle piece.  Everything in cream and white on a fun patterned tablecloth.  It was a wonderful spring night in Washington.

Beautiful bouquet

I made this little bouquet for John Hosek's presentation at the Potomac Floral Show in March.  He designed this wonderfully delicate piece of individual hyacinth florets suspended on wires with pearls at the ends.  The wires were all gathered together into a flat fan and another wire wrapped around the gather to hold them in place. 

I love this piece - it is so light and airy but still had a lot of volume. 

Spring!

So happy to report that spring has finally come to DC.  What a relief.  Things are blooming, there are beautiful tulips at the markets and I am out in the yard cutting branches to force and foliage to use.
This is a closeup of a piece I made a few weeks ago.  The color palette was peach, yellow and green.  I used parrot tulips, peach spray roses, green hydrangeas, yellow ranuculus and brunia berries. 

Brown and white tureen spring arrangement

I have a great collection of brown and white transferware (as mentioned on the Tone on Tone blog last fall) but I don't use it much.  But the other day I got inspired by the impeding visit of a bride and her family to make a nice spring arrangement.  I used pink garden roses, wonderful daffodils and parrot tulips, apricot spray roses, pink leptos,  and coppery azalea leaves.  Such fun and relief that it is finally spring in MD. 

Potomac Floral Wholesale 2015 show

This weekend, Potomac Floral Wholesale put on their annual open house.  John Hosek was the guest designer and I was lucky enough to work with him on his designs for the stage.  We made about 30 beautiful bouquets, 5 or so headpieces, and a host of other things.  John is a very talented designer with an interesting background in horticulture and engineering and had a precise way of working.  It was a honor to learn from him.  You can see photos of some of the pieces on the Potomac Floral Wholesale web site.

I have had a great time the past few weeks learning from some very talented people!

Philadelphia Flower Show

I was very lucky last week to be part of the Schaffer Design team creating a large installation at the Philadelphia Flower Show.  The overall theme was the movies and the movie they interpreted was The Nightmare Before Christmas.  They produced 6 large vignettes with scenes from the movie and they were just fantastical and fun.  The team consisted of 45 people and I made a lot of new floral friends.  What a great experience.  The funniest part was seeing myself on the front page of USA Today's website.  There I was painting florescent paint onto dyed mums and looking like I was really concentrating - which I was!

Today's arrangements

I have a bunch of work going out the door today - luckily we didn't get much of the freezing rain forecast.  I really feel for florist in New England - deliveries are hard enough as it is, and to deal with many feet of snow and ice is not fun.

Anyway, the little piece in the silver  bowl is going to a luncheon this afternoon, I like the pastel color palette - very early spring and cheerful.  Lavender japanese sweet peas, apricot spray roses, pink ranuculus, cream tulips and mini green hydrangeas are used is this piece.

The second piece is an interesting color story of Early Grey roses - a sort of pale grey lavender rose, mixed with cream lisianthus.  I have to play with these colors a bit more - I like the idea of cool and warm juxtaposed like this.