Grandma's Birthday

My Grandma turns 81 tomorrow and this past weekend my Mom and I went to visit her.  I brought her a little fall basket and we all had lunch, watched the Giants clinch the National League West (Woooooo!), and spent some very much needed time together.  I love my Grandma very much.  Happy birthday, Grandma.

Floral Design Class: Basket Arrangements

Our last Fundamentals of Floral Design class was this week and we topped it off with basket arrangements. I found some gorgeous fall-colored flowers at Trader Joe's and then realized at school that most of them were on their way out--but oh well! This class was frustrating for me.  I learned that my design style tends to be focused on very small, bunched designs, whereas basket designs are apparently supposed to be a little more free and flowing.  My first basket is exactly how I like it, albeit I could have worked on my color placement a little more.

I love tight, petite little designs.  That's why I enjoyed the biedermeier arrangement so much.  I also felt like I needed to keep my design small due to the shape of my basket.  It's very fat at the bottom and I felt like if I made it too tall it would look silly.  Plus, heck, if this arrangement has a way to pick it up, I want to keep from covering up that handle!  I ended up cutting my stems way too short in the middle of the design, so I lost my shape and the basket just ended up looking a little "pregnant," as Carol calls it.  Had I cut the stems in the middle longer, I could have kept up my circular shape. 

I guess what bothered me the most was that I genuinely liked what I had created, but not too many others did. and some were irritated by it.  So I went home and tried to will myself into creating a fuller design.  Though my flowers were near death, I do think my second attempt turned out well.  I like both styles and I've just got to work more at not keeping to my small, petite little design box.

I had a few flowers left over and a coworker asked if I could bring a little tussy-mussy for her daughter, whose birthday was the day prior.

I wish I had more of the reddish-brown mums left!  But it was still sweet and small, the way I like it!