If you’ve already read our last blog post, you know that Amy and I flew to Europe to elevate ourselves and find inspiration.  One of the main events we attended was a trade show called Christmas World, which is the foremost meeting place for the international decorations industry.

Although we booked our ticket a few months prior to our late January departure, we didn’t have anything else planned until a few days before we stepped on the Lufthansa jet.

Between deliveries, I would hop on expedia.ca, priceline.com and easyjet.com to find deals on hotels and flights.  However, every search result made me think of the crazy amount of bouquets we would have to sell to pay for these super high prices.

Our departure date was now countable by the hours and my sister who was taking Yoga Training Courses, said she met a cool girl in Yoga class that was from Frankfurt.  The German Yoga girl tipped us to check out a website called Design Hotels.  The hotels found on this website were amazing and half the price of the hotels Expedia was giving me!

We decided on staying at the 25 Hours boutique hotel designed by the Jean company Levi’s.  They had free wireless internet and they were super close to the train station and subway.  We got to the 1960’s themed room.

We were inspired by this hotel’s attention to detail.

From the jean pocket room number….

….the belt buckle handle on the mini fridge….

…the Evisu branded clothing hanger…….

….to the jean fabric wrapped Hotel Information Binder….they thought about every single item in the entire hotel.

After settling into our hotel room and being pleased our late booking worked out for us, we hit the town exploring.

Lunch consisted of beer and a few sausages, then as we walked around town we checked out some cool flower shops.

Our main observation from seeing various flower shops in Frankfurt was that buying flowers was a big part of their daily culture.  The abundant flower shops in Frankfurt reflected this, along with their cute designs.

After a long day of walking around town, we worked up a serious appetite.

Amy’s pork shank was awesome, but my sausages and sauerkraut was no better then the one’s from Costco.

The best meal of Frankfurt was from this hut in the middle of a pedestrian square.

A few days prior to departing for Frankfurt, I was dumping out our compost in the back and the owners of  the yummy La Quercia restaurant was also outside.  I told them how expensive flying throughout Europe was and they told me to check out Ryan Air.  After jumping on their website, I couldn’t believe my eyes.  Flights from Frankfurt to Rome on Air France was around the $500 range, while flights from Frankfurt to Rome on Ryanair was only £39!!!  I clicked on checkout as fast as my computer could handle it.

When I booked the ticket, I only had one choice in terms of flight time on the day I wanted to travel, so I just booked it and went back to delivering.

The night before our departure from Frankfurt to Rome, I went to the business centre to print out our tickets and realized our flight time was 6AM! Meaning we had to get up before 4AM to checkout.  This was fine and we were used to it from getting up early to buy flowers from the auction back home.

When we checked out the next day and I asked the receptionist if there was only one Frankfurt airport, he said “Yes”.  Then he gazed up to the ceiling and hesitatingly asked “You’re not travelling with Ryan Air are you???”

I then replied “Uh…Yeah…” to which he basicly looked defeated and said that Ryan Air fly’s out from a Cargo airport 1.5 hours away from Frankfurt.  It was just passing 4:30 AM now….

That’s like calling the Abbotsford Airport the “Downtown Vancouver International Airport”!!!

The buses that depart the Train Station to the cargo airport leave every hour, so we had no choice but to pay for a £200 taxi fare to get there hopefully in time.

It seemed like we were making good time and we were finally approaching the airport around 5:40AM.  It was snowing and the taxi driver was sliding but he pressed on…..until he took a wrong turn and took us to the parking lot rather then the terminal…..

We missed our flight by minutes and the next flight to Rome was the next day

I found a flight that was leaving at 11 AM to Pisa and figured we could take a train from Pisa to Rome.  Check out our next blog post to see if we made it!

What happens when passion isn’t enough to run a small business? Gotta learn more! That’s why we booked the ticket to Frankfurt, Rome, and Paris, starting our new adventure to explore the trends, to look for inspiration, and to improve.

Our first stop, Christmas world.

Christmas world is the foremost meeting place for the international decorations industry.  Attending the trade show are many suppliers all around the world to showcase their newly launched products and cutting edge designs.

Too bad they don’t allow photographs at the show without proper media credentials, so the only picture we have is of me buying ice cream for breakfast!

We looked at a million different styles of ribbon, a thousand ways to package a bouquet, various materials, textures and objects to compliment an arrangement and a mountain full of vases.   Of all the products we touched and felt, a small company from Belgium had the most beautiful products.

My favourite product with an accompanying creative design.

Good thing my fiance Caley knew how to speak French with the supplier so we could find out more about their product.  He was also very very nice and allowed us share these pictures and his designs with all of you.

Second stop, TREND SHOW.

According to the TREND SHOW we attended, the four trend styles are: Authentic, Optimistic, Eccentric and Graphic.

Authentic: The fusion of old and new creates original recycling chic – simple and natural.
Colours: warm grey, peridot green, petrol blue, sand grey, alabaster and linen white

Optimistic: Lively theme use of artificial materials like plastic, foils and rubber coatings combined with artisan techniques.
Colours: mocha, salmon pink, dark red, emerald green, canary yellow and aquamarine

Eccentric: Ornamental decoration, animal skin optics as well as materials like velvet, embossed leather, feathers and wooden beads create exciting effects.
Colours: gold bronze, olive, wine red, dark ruby red, deep blue-green

Graphic: this trend plays with geometric patterns in different shades of white and a velvety black.
Colours: gold and silver

We do not follow trends for the sake of following them, instead we combine our personality and what we already have to draw inspiration for our designs.  After listening to the ideas and concepts discussed at the trend show, we found ourselves to fall in the trend style of ‘Authentic‘.  We are in essence, simple and natural in our designs.

One of the first designs I created after returning from Frankfurt was this one:

By combining the concepts of the Authentic trend, I have created a design that reuses drift wood as a plant pot to give a natural look.

We try to reduce garbage, reuse resources, and recycle. By decorating ordinary cardboard boxes, we recreate a new natural looking pot for Hyacinth. We have sold many of these items already. I am surprised that they are really popular.

They sold out so quickly we never got a chance to take a picture, I will post some up soon once I design more!

UPDATE: Here is a picture!

To see all our most recent designs, check out our flickr page!

After reading this blog, what kind of trend style are you?