Holiday Wreaths

Kind of late but thought I would share some of the Holiday wreaths ended up making for some friends and family.

This is a faux wreath.
But I love the silk green rununculas I found!

Merry Christmas!!!!

Ahh Christmas Day.....I just love that there is nothing to do but chill out with friends and family and reflect on the year as New Year approaches. I love that there is no more shopping, nothing is open so you are forced to stay home and lounge and play with all your Christmas gifts. I love leftovers from Christmas Eve dinner and the movies all day long. I just love that I am lucky to have loved ones all around and that we are all healthy and happy!
*sigh*

Let's celebrate with Ikebana. Christmas Ikebana!

Those white paper things are actually bleached palms. Cost a fortune I hear and can be bought in Japan. The other little blue berries are Privit with a a maple branch spray painted red.


Whodathunk?
Lemons in your Christmas arrangement?
That Soho is clever! :)

LOVELOVELOVE the mixture of pine, anthurium and lemons!

Submerged holly!
Doesn't it look fabulous???
Submerged flowers in a pilsner or trumpet vase simply can not go wrong.


Here it is with a few sprigs of pine, some holly, poinsettia, and decorative ribbon.

Finally!

My finals are done! WOOHOO!!! =)
Relieved, can ya tell?
Here was one of my final projects!

It was a corporate display for a Christmas Bakery/Cookie Boutique.
I had my baking book sout and my cake stand that I *love*.

You want to eat my floral beidemeier tart dontcha?
Or is it just me???

I strung up huge pink ornaments and little ones for the display and used my wedding candy bar jars for some Russian Tea Cookies, Brownie Bites, and Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Check out my favorite cake book, Beautiful Cakes, it has the most gorgeous Neapolitan Cake on the front perfect for a pink, brown and Cream wedding.

Then after setting up for a few hours and giving a brief presentation and a 3 minute critique,
that was it. Murder she wrote.
I was over and I had to break apart my demo, I had to eat all the cookies*wink*, and then go home and play with the flowers!

Here is a freestyle design I made.
It has no method, no rules, no line I'm following, no making exact placements.

It was just a free thinking, the flowers go where they want type of thing.
It was actually liberating nopt having to think about what to do! After an entire semester of tests and arrangements that were judged and graded it was nice to just make something from the soul.



Here's a close up of the pink lisianthus and the gray protea that I love and can't wait to have a silver and pink wedding!

Wait till I get all the other demos posted, they were gorgeous!!!

Pink Ikebana Arrangements

I have been way bad on my Ikebana Posts so I'm going to catch up by color!

*Here is the pink installment*

Purple Dendrobium

Pink Mauve-ish Roses

Tulips and Dahlias

Little asters and spray roses

Gladioula, tulips, celosia and waxflower.

Dahlias and Veronicas

Hope you enjoy my class's Ikebana arangements!

Christmas Centerpiece

I am really in love with these yearn ornaments that I have been seeing lately.
I used some in my floral arrangement.
I made an arrangement for CCSF's Annual Christmas Boutique.
Hopefully someone will buy my arrangement. I really liked it and was this close to buying it myself for our table but stopped myself. My house is full of flowers at the moment so maybe I will make myself one for our Christmas dinner table.

Big Ceremony Floral Arrangements

Playing catchup with my floral designs.
I am taking an events course that has us making HUGE floral arrangements for weddings, Altars, buffet pieces, and overall ballroom arrangements for impact.
These puppies took about an hour each to make!
It was time consuming because they had to be seen from all sides with focal points in a 360 degree view. It took lots of branches and flowers and a ton of stepping back to see where the holes in the arrangements were and make sure it was balanced from all views.
Here was the one I worked on for a white themed event.

This fall floral arrangement was beautiful and bright.

This one stole my heart! It was soooo romantic...

I had to take two pictures! :)

The Glamelia

I learned how to make Glamelias!
So now whenever I crave a Peony out of season I can make a fake one by making a Glamelia.
Basically you take a part a flower, in my case, a striking orange Gladiola, and you take apart the petals and them wire them back in place creating a new bigger flower.
Then you just floral tape the wire and Viola!
I found this beauty online. This one is made form rose petals.
Pretty and Fluffy looking huh?

{Instyleweddings}
You can make a small one like mine, a series of glamelia's to make a bouquet, or a big momma like this one here.

{here}

Orange and Burgundy Wedding

Here's a recap of my wedding this past weekend.
I ended up finishing the bouquets at like 1 am and then took a quick nap and then it was back to work at 5am to finish the details and start loading up for the drive out to Vallejo.

It's that deep dark light in the am. I used Leonidas roses, burgundy carnations, lemon leaf, and hypericum berries in red, green and peach.


What a difference morning light makes huh? These are packed up and ready to go in the car.

I got there at about 8:30 am, it was a quick 45 minute drive across the Bay Area, and I met her family members who helped me unload and set up an assembly line of bouquets, corsages and boutonnières.


6 ushers, 8 groomsmen, 2 best men, 2 grandfathers,2 fathers, and an officiant.
Whew! That's a lot of floral tape and twirling :)

Then it was time to deliver the bridal bouquet to the bride.
I was really nervous because we went over a bunch of time the colors for the flowers and I even posted about the different color roses we were considering and I knew that the leonidas weren't really yellow and orange but in the end she made the decision to use them anyway.
*sigh*
I walked up the stairs hoping she was ok with our decision.
The verdict?

She loved them!

I told her I threw in some white and bright orange to balance the rust colors of the Leonidas, and she seemed really pleased and her future mother came over and gave me a great big hug so I was able to breathe again.
So it was back downstairs to take some bridesmaids pictures.

Flowers girls are so fast! I took about five pictures and I couldn't capture her still, lol!

Here are two bridesmaids waiting their turn to take pictures with the bride.
Check out the pew flowers.
FAKE,FAKE, FAKE!
But you can't really tell right?????

One last shot of half of the bridal party.

Then it was time for me to go.
Congrats guys!
Thanks for letting me be a part of your day :)

{They Lived Happily Ever After........}

Mint Carnations

I made myself use these mint colored carnations because I unfortunately think the color is so ugly. But I am changing my mind slowly.
My autumn arrangement is growing on me. :)

Orange Wedding

I had my Orange and Yellow wedding today, except it was more
Orange and Garnet Red/Burgundy-ish.
It was a bit of stressful weekend, considering I was in the Hospital Wednesday and Thursday. I just knew one way that Friday would be a serious flower day. :)

Here is a sneak peek at my Lovely Bride!

She's so beautiful!

Plenty O'Thanks

So what do you think of my un-Thanksgiving Cornucopia (sp?)

I really wasn't trying to do fall so I thought I would add some Pink rununculas, Passion Flower, Privet Berries, Eucalyptus, Lavender,Kale, Thyme, and Geranium.
I kind of like it and think it could work as a centerpiece for an event or maybe even a wedding.



But look!
I wasn't the only one, hehe.
jenny said she couldn't help but Goth it out a bit by spray painting hers purple and adding lace.
I think it's cute. :)


Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!!!!

Pretty in Purple

I can be in love with a picture can't I??
Thanks goodness for LotusHaus and her wonderful blog.......run, don't walk over to her site if you haven't gone yet! I hate to piggy back her post, but I am in love with purple right now!!! :P

Center Piece Ideas for a Wedding or Event

I have got to catch up on my pictures....it's been a long semester and I am SO ready for the Holidays!!!!
Oh yeah. Back to the pictures. :)

So here are some surprisingly easy centerpeice ideas to try out. We learned different mechanics in class and really forget the flowers used.
{Can't knock free flowers that we use in school. It's practice and in real life I can substitute with whatever flowers my little heart can afford. I mean, desires.}

These vases only have one entire hydrangea stem thats broken apart, a couple horsetail and 5 carnations and like 7 statice sprigs?!?!?! Holy crap if you had vases this would would cost you like $6!
P.S. the stuff holding the hydrangea florets are cellophane........Donovan is a genius.

This one is a square wreath foam you can buy pre-made. You literally just soak it in water and insert whatever flowers you like and then in the middle you can stick whatever sort of candles you like. In this case she used 4 pillar candles in little glass cubes. She accented with hydrangea florets. It can be hung on a door and then reused as a table centerpeice.

This is a round centerpeice using a round floral foam wreath. This one however, was just covered with galax leaves and decorated with pearl head pins and then tricked out by looping bear grass and 4 hydrangea stems to round out the middle. Perfect for a pink wedding!

This guys look hard to make but they are super easy! You basically use a tall cylinder vase, fill with water and then rubber band bear grass up the vase, then fold back over and secure with a another rubber band that you can cover up with the ribbon of your choice.

Here is a closeup.
The whole look is the bear grass so you really don't need a whole lot of flowers.

This one is my absolute favorite. Nixon, this talented guy in class, made this centerpeice and I think its fabulous. Like maybe for a guest check in or a gift table. I can see this at a wedding or a baby shower actually. I think it's the most beautiful blue that I believe is "Lake" from papersource.

I love the sunflowers and the wraffia and the little gourds he threw in for the fall.....

It's just a styrofoam box that's ribbon wrapped and then the flowers are pushed into water picks which are secured in to the foam. Easy Peasy!