Hannah's baby shower

A few years ago we did a spectacular wedding for Hannah and Brian.  Today I delivered flowers for her baby shower.  The baby is a boy so I used lots of delphinium and hydrangeas and a few brown gerbers for a pop of color.   The first piece is the type of thing we do all the time, interesting colors and flowers with lots of texture.  The second piece involved large hanks of grass connecting three rectangular small vases with delphinium stems.  The third piece was made from 5 hydrangeas and delphinium stems in a tall narrow glass vase.  Lots of blue!

Buckeye butterfly

Today I was at my favorite plant nursery, American Plant, looking for a few things.  I was really taken by these beautiful asters and then noticed the incredible butterfly on them.  It took me a while to get a good photo and when I did, I got a good look at the amazing eye pattern on the backs of the wings.  I don't think this guy is going to be anyone's dinner.

Shower at Peggy's

This morning I delivered some pieces to Peggy.  She is hosting a bridal shower this afternoon.  The colors she proposed were apricot and brown and purple.  I made several different arrangements for the spaces in her open plan home.  For the kitchen counter, I used 3 cylinders filled at different levels with clear Deco water retaining beads.  I put apricot cymbidium orchids stems in them and philodendron leaves.  I also used Leonides brown and Cosima apricot along with Super Green roses and tried to add a shade of purple or lavender into the rest of the arrangements.  I love the saturated color of the purple carnations.  I also used purple Mexican sage from my garden.

This was a small posy I made as a thank you gift.  I like to mix a little pink into the standard fall color palette - it makes the rest of the colors pop.

I made this ikebana piece for a show at Meadowlark Gardens in Virginia last weekend.  I worked closely with my ikebana teacher, Kyoko Petersen and was happy with the results.  I used whaleback leaves cut on an angle, orange pincushion protea and some walnut branches with some nuts emerging from their pods. 

Yanna and Rich's wedding

Yanna and Rich got  married this weekend.  Their ceremony was at the incredibly elaborate St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Church near the National Cathedral.  The altar has the most incredible gold leaf work.  We made two arrangements of lavender and blue hydrangeas with blue delphinium and a phalenopsis orchid draped over the hydrangea base for the church.  The bridal party and reception pieces were all in a variation of green and white.  We used green cymbidium orchids, both mini and full size, white and burgandy callas, white phalenopsis orchids, cream Patience garden roses, green celosia, baby green and white  and full size green hydrangeas , and horsetail, variagated pittosporum, and gardenia leaves.   The reception was at the St. Regis Hotel in their beautiful reception room. 

Early fall

Today I delivered a wreath and a cornucopia tipped on its point filled with pumpkins and flowers to a new client.  I matched the colors in the wreath to the rug in the flower and the colors in the cornucopia to the colors in the room.  I used a combination of silk and dried flowers.  I find that the silks add a pop of color to the otherwise dull colors of drieds.  Dried flowers have wonderful textures and the combination works very well. 

Cocktails at Holton

A couple of arrangements for a cocktail party at Holton the other night.  Fall colors with roses that are red and cream, a pretty orangey/red celosia,  peach hypericum and brown weigela leaves. 

Carnival arrangement

Last week I worked on some samples for a carnival themed party.  I found a lot of cute stuff at World Market like the little weight lifter in the center and made the pinwheels from foam sheets and hard plastic polka dotted straws.  AC Moore also had great stuff - wonderful wooden beads that I strung on wire and twisted into curves.    It is always fun to do something completely different.

Dinner at Landon

I just brought this piece over to Landon.  The dining room is a cherry color and I used beautiful jewel colored dahlias and celosia with some brown leaves and curled burgandy ti leaves...it looked very pretty in the room.

New bunting

I made another bunting for a baby shower for a boy this weekend - such fun to work on these....

Woven stems

Woven stems of lisianthus put in a bed of ruffed eucalyptus leaves.....

Samples

A couple of samples for gift deliveries - blue and white were the colors specified.  I made one traditional arrangement and one more contemporary.  For the first I used blue delphinium, white Polar Star roses, Bells of Ireland, thistle and white lisianthus.  For the second, I used a fan of green berzillia greens and white dendrobium orchids, with thistles nestled in and a small aralia leaf tucked in front.

A small group of us have begun to get together to work on design.  Each time, one of us has idea to pursue or a technique to teach. 

This week, we worked with driftwood.  Gloria has a large collection of pieces that we put together in
different ways and then used in a composition with flowers. 

Ruffled eucalyptus

Today I had coffee with my friend Loi who owns Tone on Tone, my favorite antique store in Bethesda.  Beautiful Swedish painted furniture mixed with pieces from Europe and fabulous accessories.   It is the most wonderful store to visit and very inspiring. 

I made this arrangement to take over - a tower of overlapping eucalyptus leaves inserted horizontally into a block of foam all the way to the top.    I put some poppy pods, nigella pods in between some of the layers on the sides and a nosegay of Vivienne white spray roses on the top.

I am happy to report that both Loi and his partner Tom, liked this piece and felt like it suited their aesthetic.  Since I a huge fan of theirs, I was thrilled.  

Hair accessory

I made this decorated hair comb for Jessica.  She is getting married next week and has in interest in vintage accessories.  I have a big collection of vintage hats and millinery flowers and rhinestone pins bought over the years at estate and yard sales.  I take them apart and reuse them for projects and this is the latest one.

Passementerie

Just French for fancy trim.  I am designing for a wedding in late Sept and looking for ways to glam things up a bit in an elegant way so I went out to Langley Park to Sarah Fabrics.  Sarah buys odd lots of fabric in NY and has wonderful taste and a truly international clientele.  I found these wonderful trims stashed away behind a counter and had to buy a bit of each one so I could try things out.  There are so many applications for these - decorations on bouquets, around vases, sashes for the bridal party, headbands, etc.

More experimentation

I am continuing to work with the tower of horsetail and came up with this woven grass piece projecting out from the front of the piece.  I like the detail of this idea and will work on some more ways to enhance it.

Ned's birthday

It was Ned's 60th birthday party last week at the National Women's Democratic Club.  I made the table arrangements and 2 large pieces that helped divide the large room into a more manageable space.  I used sunflowers and my own garden Peegee hydrangeas for the large pieces and a combination of white flowers for the centerpieces - white summer tulips, white lisianthus, varigated ivy and white peegees.  It was a pretty and cool look on a very hot summer night.

Experiments

Every summer I try to spend some time experimenting with new techniques and styles.  These pieces are my takes on the technique I learned from Jounni Seppanan in San Francisco.  I used horsetail pinned to a foam base with the pins forming part of the design.  I added in ferns and orchids and put the piece in a ceramic square with a mirror finish that works with the silver pin heads.  I love the background of the tower of horsetail - this is a versatile piece and many different types of flowers could be used - and I will be trying some more in the days to come.

Paper bunting

I really love working with paper, making crowns and bunting and stuff.  It is lots of fun and instant gratification.   I bought the central rosette at Michael's and added the music score cones and the lime green paper accents. 

I made this piece for my friend Becca who just had a baby boy and will send it off later today - hope she likes it.

Covered vase

One of the things I like most about going to the AIFD symposiums is seeing all the small details in the work.  I loved this vase covered with leaves.  The texture is beautiful and it would enhance any arrangement.  It would be fun to do this and see how the leaves would hold up over time.

AIFD workshop

After the AIFD conference in San Francisco was over, I stayed for a one day workshop with Finnish floral designer Jounni Seppanan.  His work is beautiful and very interesting.  We copied one piece of his in the morning - the piece with the arc of orchids overlaying a fan of roses on top of a tower of horsetail.  The mechanics of this piece were pretty interesting.  In the afternoon he had us bundle the ends of curly willow branches (about 30 pieces 10 inches long) with rubber bands and told us to make an arrangement.  His arrangement stood in a plastic plate and had a naturalistic arrangement of grasses and flowers coming from the top, I opted to wrap the bundle with an asplenium leaf and then to tuck a very few fabulous David Austin roses into the bundle of sticks.  Jounni liked this approach and I was pleased.

San Francisco Flower Market

One of the best parts of the AIFD Symposium was a trip to the flower market.  It was huge!  Over 80 vendors in a block long space.  The choice of products of all types was overwhelming.  I loved these lemons and oranges on stems. 

Floral jewelry

Last week I was at the AIFD 2011 symposium in San Francisco.  4 days of nothing but flowers, it was so great with lots of wonderful arrangements and floral objects to consider.  There were dinner parties on two nights, and for one of them we made floral jewelry to wear.  I made this necklace from layered smoke bush leaves under a shaped flat wire flower decorated with some chartreuse lichen and a flower bud.  The chain from is layered copper boullion wire.  It was light and easy to wear.