Sample for Sara

We are working on samples for Sara's wedding in late June.  This is the first idea we came up with - white and blue hydrangeas, Finesse and vendela roses, orange jaguar mokara orchids and dusty miller leaves and berries.  The second picture shows how the piece looked on the specular linens they chose.

AIFD Southern conference

This past weekend I was honored to be asked to be part of a stage presentation at the AIFD Southern chapter conference in Charlottesville.  I talked about woven elements as part of floral design and refined my woven dome piece as one of the works I talked about.   I put the dome in a large low cylinder vase and surrounded the dome with small rocks to enhance the idea of a river bed - a river of ranuculus surrounded by a dry river bed.   

I am in love with these pieces - for me they are a great leap into a new form of flower arranging and so true to everything creative that I love - these pieces echo my woven work and my love of color changes across arrangements.   

Here are two more takes on this woven armature - the one from the previous post with the white phals - one with fabulous poppies in various sherbert colors and the other with the most subtle colors of french ranuculus.

I hope to keep this armature fresh for some time and try types of new flowers with it....stay posted.

Potomac Floral Competition

Yesterday was the annual open house at my wholesaler - Potomac Floral.  I entered the competition and was determined to display a simple piece with no styling.  I love to style tables but thought that this piece could stand on its own without a lot of frou frou and votives and other stuff.  I love this piece - worked on weaving the varigated lirope for a few hours and draped the white phals over the dome.  I think it was a strong piece and was very happy with it.  As usual, there were people who loved it and people who did not - that is always the risk of these shows.  But this competition helped me push this type of design a little further down the road. 

Flowers for Claire

Claire's husband called with an order for flowers for her - something cheerful and spring like.  I found the most wonderful coral pink peony tulips and built the arrangement from there.  Dekora roses, Girly spray roses and dark purple callas and cones to create some interest. 

Peony tulips

I make a weekly arrangement for Holton and have a lot of fun trying new things.  Occasionally I like simple single flower arrangements - this type of arrangement really showcases the particular flower.  This week I found some beautiful yellow peony tulips - they open up to a multi petal display and are quite nice.  I cut the tulips fairly short since they will grow a bit in water and used the unbruised leaves as a backdrop for this asymmetrical arrangement.

Delivery sights

Today I drove all over the metro area making deliveries.  When I passed this bottle tree in Takoma Park I did a double take and had to take a picture on the way back.  So cute - I would like to do this at my house.  Colorful and fun all year long and in front of the cutest house.

Maybe the last orchid arrangements for a while

Today we made and delivered 16 of these little orchid arrangements as thank yous to all the ladies who helped with the Holton auction.  91 miles and 5 1/2 hours later we still have 7 to deliver tomorrow....

We made the larger arrangement for the head of the auction committee. 

Orchid arrangement with some variations

This little arrangement is a variation of the orchid piece I made last week - it is a slightly smaller scale with fuschia dendrobiums,  one baby green hydrangea and some varigated flax leaves placed asymmetrically.  I also used a twist of flat fuschia wire to decorate the vase.

Landon reception

Last night here was a reception over at Landon.  It was a cold night and they were expecting a huge crowd so they opened up the house as well as a heated tent.  The linens had a tropical vibe and maybe that helped everyone think about the warm spring that is coming.....soon we hope.

Anyway, the other night I was at Homegoods - the absolutely best source for interesting containers (other than estate and yard sales).  They had some pieces that really worked with the linens and I tried some new things.  Orchids with grevillia greens and burgandy galax for the cab tables, and bound callas in two different types containers.

Orchid arrangement

I made this arrangement today for a friend.  I love the idea of the large group of upright horsetail as a background to the more fragile pink dendrobium orchids and the one sprig of speckled phalenopsis. 

Valentine's Day is today

Pictures of some of the pieces we delivered today - we were all over the metro area but luckily it is a beautiful day today - 65 degrees - such a gift in the middle of February.

The first piece is for our client Claire.  We did the flowers for Claire's wedding to Bob about 3 years ago.  Claire was a little leery of American florists and Bob made the initial contact.  We won her over with her wedding flowers and have been delivering arrangements to them ever since.  For her Valentine's arrangement we used Charlotte and Black Beauty sweetheart roses (I love Black Beauties - they look like velvet and are a great dark wine color).  We added red ranuculus, red tulips, dark purple callas, lirope grass and some varigated ti leaves.

The second piece was a lower budget arrangement with some of the same flowers and some alstromeria added.   I added a twist of red wire around the vase and shaped a little heart - I like how it looks like a child's sketch.  It adds a touch of the holiday without resorting to some of the more typical holiday add-ons.

The last arrangement is a pave arrangement made from Charlotte roses and galax leaves.

Sweet Peas! From Japan!

Today I went over to the wholesaler to get flowers for several Valentine jobs.  Boxes of sweet peas from Japan had just come in - one color was more beautiful than the next.  I love this lavender/mulberry combination and had to have a bunch.  They are very fragrant as well as beautiful and surprisingly affordable.  You can see more colors at the Potomac Floral website.  Now I have to think about what I will put with them.  They would be great with lavender Amnesia roses but also with something cream...

Valentine Weekend

Things are getting busy here.....today I delivered a thank you gift, 8 centerpieces, an orchid plant, and a bouquet.  I love the combination of peach and burgandy - there is something about the depth of a dark color and a light pastel that works so well....for these I used Finesse peach roses, Leonides rust colored roses, burgandy Safari Sunset, gardenia leaves, chocolate mini artichokes and some burgandy mums.

Valentine Nora

Valentine's Day at Restaurant Nora.  Every year we try to tweak the display a little and do something different within the budget etc.  We also try to reuse as many of her props as possible.  This year I wrapped her 3D puffy hearts with vintage ribbons and trims and put them in the garden room window box along with the Christmas amaryllis and some new red spray roses.  In addition I covered her large styrofoam hearts with pieces of a very graphic cutter quilt, this works with the decor of the restaurant which includes antique quilts and folk toys.

Photos from a wedding

While poking around on the internet today I found the web site of the photographer of the wedding of Rheagan and Jordy last April.  The pictures are just great and really show the look of their beautiful wedding (and our beautiful flowers!).  You can see the photos at her site:  www.kthompsonphotography.blogspot.com. 

Little red wagon part 2

So last week I made a cute arrangement in little red wagon that was a wintry collection of pine cones and twigs - apparently the client did not want a winter look but was more interested in a spring arrangement based on something that had been done before with wheat grass and gerbers.  It was too late to order wheat grass so we covered foam with moss and used lycopodeum for a feathery grass, put large gerbers into stem tubes and then water tubes and voila. 

Pretty cute.  I also loved the tiny wagons used as napkin holders. 

more weaving

I have been doing alot of weaving with different materials lately - and I made these leaves last week.

They are woven from varigated lily grass in a simple manner - tied off with wire - for a more polished presentation I would wind lily grass over the binding.   I like these - they would add another texture to a bouquet or arrangement that is unusual.

Boutonierre ideas

I am a fan of simple boutonierres.  I find that for the most part, our grooms and other members of the wedding parties want a clean looking piece.  I made this series of grass boutonierres the other day and think they can stand alone or they can be enhanced with a small flower and would be an interesting alternative to our usual single rose or calla.

Christmas mantle

Another mantle I decorated for Christmas.  I used silk and dried flowers and loved the combination of textures and colors.  Mantles are one of my favorite things to decorate - the parameters are clear and it is fun to layer  the elements.

Little red wagon

Today I have been working on a sample for a dinner next week.  The host is providing little red wagons - about 10 inches long - and they want a piece made of up cones and stuff kids might pick up outside. 

I decided that I would make a little wreath of cones, twigs, moss and some eucalyptus berries and see if this works for them.  I like the way it sits to one side and the vibrant red of the wagon works with the natural materials.

Volume

I am playing around with grasses in a linear manner to add volume to an arrangement and this piece (without flowers) is something I came up with today.  I love the regularity of the grasses and how they keep a nice organized woven shape on the top and in between the glass and the oasis wrapper.  I like the fact that is relates to basketry - a craft that I taught myself at my first college as a way of avoiding writing a paper (sorry anthropology dept. at Drew).  A  nice dome of a single flower would be fun in this piece or a multi color and form arrangement may work - that is the next step.  It actually should be the first step but I had to get the grass arrangement working first!

Topiaries for Nora

Today we delivered 4 little boxwood topiaries to Restaurant Nora for her upstairs Gallery dining room.  We used red twig dogwood stems and real boxwood in silver julep cups - they will slowly dry out and should look good for several months or more.  This year we have done more with boxwood than in previous years and learned a few tips. 

More experiments

I have a BFA in textile design from the School for American Craftsmen in Rochester, NY.  We had too much fun during that time (my husband was there for furniture design).  I loved weaving and still hold on to my wonderful Macomber loom and yarn in hopes of getting back to things at some point.  For a long time I have been thinking about how to incorporate weaving into floral design and again, as a result of the work with Ruth (see the previous post), I have been trying some things out.  For this piece I wove a scaffolding of raffia all around a square glass vase tieing pieces together and making the random pattern of the knots part of the overall design.  I wanted to use a dramatic flower in this piece, one that was tropical since the raffia refers to that type of look,  so I got some white anthirium flowers and kept them low so there was a nice contrast between the smooth surface of the flowers and the rougher surface of the raffia.  I then wove some wire grass in leaving large loops in order to create some linear volume.  Again, just an experiment, but certainly fun.   Just like craft school. 

Experiments

My friend Ruth is a professor of design at UMD.  Next week she is going to speak to my floral design group, IFDA,  about a personal approach to design.  I have been playing around with some of he techniques she will be speaking about and will begin to post some of the arrangements I am coming up with.  Most of them are not fully realized works and may need some refinement - think of them as 3 dimensional sketches for the time being.

This first piece began with the purchase of this beautiful chunk of amethyst last week.  I wanted to use it as an integral part of an arrangement and was happy to get this large echevaria blossom in a great purple color.  I put the amethyst in the vase and propped the blossom on the top, added some smaller chunks of stone in the lower part of the vase and finally put some brunia in for more texture.  An interesting note - when Ruth saw this piece, she liked it but noted the water level and we raised it until it became a better part of the design as a whole.