Archive for November, 2011
Cecil Green at UBC is one of the popular wedding sites in Vancouver. We had lots of fun designing Alex and Minh’s wedding this month! This wedding is decorated with a wishing tree, cute tulip party favours, fluffy ceremony arrangements, rose centerpieces, and a pretty bridal bouquet! Congratulations Alex and Minh!
I love accessories. I really do. It’s rare to catch me without at least 1 piece of jewelry on. I think they have the power to make an otherwise boring outfit absolutely fabulous, and they can be an inexpensive way to keep up with trends. Breakfast at Tiffany’s is one of my all time favorite movies. A story about a woman who, when all else fails, always heads to Tiffany’s to gaze at lovely things in order to feel like all will be right in the world. Ok well it’s about a lot more than that, but you see what I mean. I am pretty much a magpie…inexplicably drawn to sparkly things.
How does all this relate to flowers you ask? When you think about it bridal bouquets, corsages, and boutonnières essentially are accessories. They are there to compliment outfits, distinguish important guests, and add to the over look of the wedding party. It’s no different than pinning on a brooch, or carrying a great handbag. They all add a little something special to one’s look.
We make beautiful bridal bouquets, corsages, and boutonnieres all the time for weddings, but one day I thought why should we get to adorn ourselves with flowers only at a wedding? So I started to think outside the box on the idea of floral accessories…
I made a headband out of ribbon, the leaves of silver leaf protea, and then added a white phalaenopsis bloom to make it extra special. And using the same leaves, some wire and a pearl bead I created a ring.
I suppose I should note that I like to make jewelry in my spare time, mostly just to add to my growing collection of accessories, or as gifts for family and friends. So I have at my disposal hooks for earrings, jump rings, chain, ect. However, all of it can be found at most major craft stores.
I used soft silvery dusty miller leaves to create earrings and a matching pendant.
Silver Mist Leucadendron made a perfect pair of dangly earrings.
All of these items, except for the phalaenopsis bloom, will actually last for quite a while. And in fact if you’re careful with them can be worn once they’ve dried as well. This just scratches the surface of all the lovely accessories that could be made from leaves, blooms and buds!
Happy accessorizing!
We had the wonderful opportunity to join, participate and get inspired with over a thousand bright minds for TEDxVancouver yesterday. The day was full of amazing, thought provoking and inspirational speakers. My favourite speakers were from Aaron Coret and Stephen Slen, Nolan Watson and Jer Thorp. Rick Chung of vancouverisawesome.com has a great blog post of the entire event, you can check it out here.
Not only did we have the privilege of attending the event, we also had the privilege of designing the floral decor. The theme for this year’s event was “THE FRONTIER” focusing on pushing boundaries through knowledge and innovation. With this in mind, we came up with the frontier inspired floral designs below.
We designed the arrangement in a sleek mirror container, inspired by a prototype aircraft. The structure of the arrangement gave it movement, as if the arrangement is moving fast, while the red ribbon ties the arrangement to the TEDx logo.
Here is a low quality picture during the lunch break of one of the arrangements at the registration table. Beautiful photo’s of the event can be seen on Jeremy Lim’s website.
We’ve been loving air plants around these parts of late, and have been finding all kinds of unique and wonderful ways to use them. Their muted grey-green leaves, miniscule size and interesting texture make them the perfect specimen to enliven any arrangement.
What makes these plants so special? The Tillandsia species is able to survive without soil, absorbing moisture and nutrients through its leaves. Just give them a good soaking every week and they’re good to go. Rootless wonders indeed.
We’ve had a quite a few requests for terrariums lately, and we really do like designing these miniature ecosystems. They are a fantastic and long-lasting way to say ‘thank you’, ‘happy birthday’ or simply, ‘thinking of you.’ We hope you like them too.
Being a florsit is an interesting job, because the product you work with literally changes twice a week. The flowers we work with change seasonally and there are always new and interesting things we have never heard of! Getting new flowers twice a week is very exciting, because every auction day is like Christmas Day! On auction days we patiently await the fresh, new flowers and scream like little school girls when they finally arrive.
Our delivery driver, Yue, usually picks up the flowers with our speedy delivery van, but on really busy days the delivery is arranged by the people working at the auction.
This is why we get so excited! Buckets of beautiful fresh flowers to work with! Whenever we get flowers, ideas for arrangements rush through our heads. What fresh things can we combine together to make something original? What colours look good together this week? What is that?
Auction days always keep us busy. We have to separate all flowers, clean off the excess foliage and give each one a fresh cut, finally putting them in glass or ceramic containers with clean water. We then organize them in the cooler so they can be easily accessed when make our arrangements. It is very satisfying to process all of the new flowers and fill up the cooler with fresh product. And we do this twice a week (or more if there are weddings or large events)!
As they say, this is how the magic happens…at least one part of the magic. Auction days are great because everyone works together, chatting and drinking tea while we cut and trim our new flowers. Later these flowers will become part of an arrangement that brightens someone’s day!
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