Emily and Jeff's Wedding

I had a the great honor of helping my very good friend, Emily, out on her wedding day with her flowers.  Emily opted for faux flowers for her bridal party and we scoured all of the craft stores for soft purples and pinks. Let me tell you that it was difficult to cut the stems off of these suckers--next time I will have some industrial wire cutters.

Emily chose to have real flowers for her own bouquet, and she definitely deserved the real things! She chose white hydrangeas and purple tulips.

Though the tulips were a bit persnickety, but I think that the end result was quite nice. The tulips popped out against the hydrangeas and really highlighted her colors.

A HUGE shoutout to Carolyn Welch Photography for the beautiful pictures. She is a very talented and very sweet person! And she captured my favorite part of the wedding, Emily and Jeff's adorable wedding cake.

Oscar Day Bouquet

I was not planning on playing with flowers today, but I couldn't pass up the gorgeous ginger that popped out at me at Trader Joe's.  In honor of the large amount of sitting on my butt watching TV that I will be doing today, here is an Oscar Day bouquet.  I used two types of eucalyptus, white waxflower, and red ginger.

I mean look at this ginger.  It's the best.

 Happy Oscar's Day!  Now I'm off to be girly and watch the red carpet.

A Belated Valentine's Day

I woke up on the day before Valentine's Day very excited to see what flowers my local Trader Joe's would have for one of the biggest flower-giving days of the year.  And I was not disappointed!  I made two arrangements and a whole bunch of boutonnieres for my co-workers to feel special on the day of love.

I made my Mom a small bright mason jar filled with white alstroemeria (with some gorgeous blush pink and yellow touches), reddish yellow roses, purple misty, with some hot pink snapdragons. 

When I first put all of the colors together, I thought that it would look way too busy.  I don't know, call me crazy, but I really liked the result.

It just screamed spring and was not a traditional Valentine's Day palette, which is definitely perfect for my Mom who really hates pink.  I hope she didn't mind the hot-pink that I snuck in there!

 

Next I reused my favorite papier-mache pot and some really beautiful green and purple flower bouquets to practice my circular style.  I'd say I'm getting better, but I'm still having trouble keeping the middle full.  I get so focused on the shape that I end up using most of my materials for the outside.  Size really scares me and I know that the only way to become comfortable with big arrangements is to go outside of my box and just keeping doing them.  It's a work in progress!  I chose these bouquets at Trader Joe's because they had lots of materials that were all about height.  There were purple snapdragons, pink lilies, belles of ireland for height and pinkish purple waxflower, purple statice, queen anne's lace, and purple strawflower to fill in and add nice accents.  While I love strawflower, if I could go back I would've taken them out and just put them in their own small vase because they were too darn droopy and just didn't cooperate. 

I really loved the green/purple/touch of pink mix.  It looked so much more bright than the photos here.

And I'm usually not a fan of lillies--especially stargazers, their fragrance just overpowers me--but the pink lillies were actually quite pretty.  The waxflowers helped to mask them!

And last, I kept busy most of the day making little boutonnieres for the ladies that I work with.  I only had a small amount of ribbon on hand, but an abundance of yarn, so I used the yarn to create a crafty kind of look.  I really liked how it turned out and so did the ladies.  While my hands and eyes were pretty tired by the end, this was very good practice. 

Primary Colors: Continued

Woke up this morning with a goal in mind to use one of my papier-mache pots that I got from the Oakland Flower Market around Thanksgiving time.  I haven't practiced any arrangements with floral foam for awhile and, to be honest, I don't really like using foam.  But I know it's something I've got to practice at...so away I went.  The local farmer's market has had no flowers for the last few months and I'm definitely ready for it to be spring so that I can get my flowers from the market.  For now, it's Trader Joe's for me.

I found a few bouquets of seeded, spiral and silver dollar eucalyptus.  Also picked us some white statice, yellow mums, some lovely green that felt like lamb's ear, blue thistles, and an unidentified reddish-pink flower.  I realized afterwards that I unknowingly followed the same color palatte as on New Year's!

I was able to get two large arrangements out of the $20 I spent.  Week by week I'm finding a little more confidence in my "flower skillz."  I only wish I could practice every day, but darn flowers for being so expensive!

 I absolutely loved the blue thistles.  The pictures don't do them justice, but they pop against the yellow mums.

The red flowers were beautiful as well.  Why is red, yellow, and blue so gorgeous together?  Primary colors are the best.

The second arrangement I put in a large mason jar.  Poor jar was packed full by the time I was done with it.

The blue of the thistle combined with the blueish-greenish-gray of the eucalyptus is really gorgeous.  My apartment smelled lovely!

And, as always, Domo gets to enjoy the flowers.  And Patrick's Bayonetta got to enjoy them for the first time.

Now I'm off to take care of a sick boyfriend.  It was a wonderful Sunday and I truly enjoyed kicking back with some music, episodes of "Four Weddings," and playing with flowers.

New Years Pop

2011 is going to be a big year for me.  There will be a lot of stepping outside of my comfort zone, of willing myself to dig up what confidence I know I have, and of trusting that it really will turn out fantastic.  Here's to a wonderful new year to you, wherever you are.