Orange-a-glad glad?

As in " knock knock. Who's there? Orange/ Orange who? Orange-ga-glad I didn't say banana?"

My daughter tortured me with that knock knock joke after I taught it to her, lol. She couldn't get enough!

What does it have to do with this post?
Nothing!

But Orange-ga-glad this bouquet is a little different than most orange bouquets? eh? eh??
Don't mind me, I'm just giddy from the New Year. = )
Lots of trials and tribulations last year, but 2010 is going to be alright.
Calm, cool, collected. That's how I am going to tackle this year.

Here is a bouquet I forgot to share last month. I absolutely love euc pods, the kale, the milva roses, and the tulips.

The ribbon has a blue butterfly accent that played off nicely with the all orange and cream wedding with hints of that bright blue!

This is a simple boutonniere with a small orange tulip, some euc pods for accents and a ruffled galax leaf finished off with the orange and blue ribbon.

One of my resolutions is to learn how to spell boutonniere on the first try and to post more. : P

Orange and Blue

Aww man... I was planning my big blog comeback and my memory card in my camera won't upload my photos! ; (

All I have are these for now.

Be back to share my Havana Nights Party!

Bread Bread Give Thanks!

This is my centerpeice for Thanksgiving! I went to the flower market and my heart said tulips, anthuriums, eucalyptus pods, and kale. I rolled with it. =P
The roses are Milvas; so coral-ly! hehe

Well, Thanksgiving is not turning out to be as planned but I am thankful that I have the
opportunity to be home with them today. : )
My honey has been sick for two weeks now and still cannot eat solid foods so I feel terribly guilty dragging him to my mother's house for dinner. My mom has offered to make him turkey soup which I will come home and blend so it works out. : )


Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

A Happy Halloween Bride

{Halloween Bride}
It was a crazy floral weekend folks...
A bridal bouquet pick up, Halloween party flowers, a mock up for a trial bouquet for a brown copper yellow wedding, and a succulent wedding today. I'm beat.

This bouquet was a quick pick up for a bridal bouquet and matching boutonniere.
It was a simple bouquet composed of peach roses, chocolate cosmos, and burgundy succulents.

The matching boutonniere was a simple rose to match on peach, a smaller burgundy succulent with a leave backing and a grosgrain brown and gold ribbon I have been harboring for a while now.

This little burgundy succulent was one of the smaller ones that I couldn't use on the centerpiece for my succulent wedding but perfect for small boutonniere.

See? Halloween bouquets don't have to be scary right?


***************************************************************************

Part two of this post is a few pictures from my sisters Halloween Party.

Iguana roses, rose hips, china berries, a tiny bit of pitto, amaranthus, and a branch that is spray painted black with some orange glitter.

This one is I wanted to make with clear separate groupings with contrasting colors.
Rust cymbidiums, yellow oncidiums, black millet, orange mokara orchids, green china berries, and red rose hips.
I printed a picture of my sister and her boyfriend on some velum paper, taped it to some cylinder vases I had, stuck a candle inside and called it day! :)

She made some cupcakes and caramel apples and borrowed my cupcake stand and created a beautiful(and yummy) display.
I was shocked when I walked into the kitchen because my sister, self admittedly ,can't boil water and this looks damn good. So good in fact I paid her a backhanded compliment and told her I thought for a split second that maybe I had made it! lol

Cutest pumpkin centipede or what?

Anyhow, hope you had a great Halloween!

AIFD Symposium{Floral Vendors and Displays}

Why go to symposium when you have me to share all my pictures you are wondering? Hehe.

Although I have about 500 pictures, I only took pictures of stuff that really got ideas in my head going or that I thought were super inspiring. The other stuff, I had seen before or maybe I didn't get, so really don't trust my judgement 100%. You gotta get to a floral show, convention, symposium, competition - whenever you get a chance. it's pretty awesome.

So before I share the Euro designers I would like to share with you some great shots I got of the meet and greet mixer with sponsors and vendors that happened on day one of the AIFD symposium.

This vendor was selling glass containers and I fell in love with how simple the arrangements were but how much of an impact they made.
I think Anthuriums are so beautifully elegant.
Damn near handsome they are.

I needed to buy some of these but sadly, they weren't for sale.
They did have a catalog that I perused and they have interesting containers.

This vendor had the brightest exotic flowers EVER!
I needed to take a shot of these babies.

I especially took note at this table because the multi-colored blooms are the theme of a wedding I have in two weeks!
I had to invoke the God of self control so that I wouldn't remove the stamen of the lilies and risk offending the vendor.

I heart sunflowers in my personal life.

In my floral life, I don't really like to use them unless it's the day after Halloween and they are gone by Thanksgiving. It's just not natural to me.....
So when I saw this I was conflicted:
One the one hand" Hello! look at how great this huge piece is" WOW.
Fall Wedding or what??Hi, Indian summer Autumn in San Francisco wedding!
( ya gotta be a local to know what I'm talking about)
Then they coupled it with submerged succulents in a tall Pilsner vase? Be still my beating heart.
*love it*
On the other hand it wasn't Thanksgiving.....
In the end, beauty was the victor and I snapped a few shots :)

I adore Manzanita trees, and this huge mammoth of a floral installation took my breath away. I was all up in their mechanics trying to figure out how they suspended the floral disk in between all the branches.

Sacrilegious.
I could never cut down a lily this low, but isn't this kinda cool looking?

This Modern Purple Ikebana inspired table killed me. I wanted to scream with delight but was scared to upset the vendor.They wouldn't understand that I am unable to express happiness in words so I have to be violent and primal about it...yes. issues.

This last one caught my eye because it was a silk...oh sorry...PERMANENT BOTANICAL....(ooh I'm snarky today!)...and normally I will walk past it but I had to touch them to make sure they were fake, and then I had to confirm it in a hush hush whisper to my friend" is this...fake?" She nodded knowingly.
So a picture I took to remind myself not to be a floral snob.

Love the apothecary jars with the Flowers inside.

AIFD Symposium{Modern Personal Flowers}

I think by far what inspired me the most was the boutonnieres and corsages that I saw.

The personal flowers were modern and funky. I would totally wear these myself. :P
Again, they were all from the AES evaluation I posted about yesterday.

Pretty nice contemporary designs right?

Mango Wedding {The flowers}

My fabulous Menlo Park couple re-tied the knot today and I dropped off a few goodies for them.

Confession time:

I wanted to eat the brides bouquet.
Seriously.
I have this weird habit when I'm extremely happy or visually stimulated by something outrageously fantabulous, I tend to express my thoughts in extreme ways that don't make sense to most people......like if an arrangement somewhere stops me in my tracks I say:

"They are so gorgeous I want to eat them."
or
"Ugh. They're so fabulous I want to puke."
or
"OMG, the color is so ridiculous , I CAN"T STAND IT!!!"

My husband is used to this but when I say it out loud to some people, they look at me all strange....what they don't know is that sadly that's practically the best thing my brain can come up with when its on beauty overload! hehe.
I have issues :P
ALSO!
I got a new camera for mother's day and I just want to show off my pictures to you.

I love my camera so much, I want to eat it!
See? Now you get me.



Milva Roses and Coral Hypericum.

Scotch broom is growing wild right now and I adore it! :)

Mango Callas.


I mean look at these GORGEOUS yellow spray roses

Don't they make you sick???
Or is it just me?
oh.

So then it was off to work.

I loved making this bouquet so much because I truly love Milva roses and Mango Callas.

Stay tuned........

Cream of Tomato Soup Flowers

She wanted Kitsch, I gave her copper bundt cake pans in her kitchen and cream of tomato soups cans on her mantle.

I love it when people say do what you want, here are my colors!
I got a call to dress up a home for a woman's dinner. The only instructions I got was to make it fun, bright and hopefully something that could be taken home at the end of the night.

So I kicked around a few ideas and asked Brandon for some help and here is what we came up with.
We kept a food and drink theme for all the flowers and started with the kitchen pieces.
The first was a bright red and orange floral arrangement made out of Tulips, freesia, seeded eucalyptus, safflower, carnations,red and orange gerbera daisies, mauve cymbidiums, and orange roses. I designed the flowers into copper bundt pans so they could sit on her kitchen counter.


The second was designed in a copper "le saucier" pot that I absolutley adored and hated to part with!

For her piano I made these flower cocktails in margarita and wine glasses with that colored foam I talked about a while back.

She was thrilled with how well they matched all her home decor and was happy she would be able to give everyone a floral arrangement when they left for the night.

Ok. So here's the deal with these flowers. Remember when I said I thought that the coke bottles in the bathroom at the De Young were kinda cool and that I thought they would make great centerpiece? Well I wasn't playing around! I was dying to make them and then out of the blue someone asked me for them!

I thought they looked great on her mantle.
I used billy balls and tulips in the coke bottles and safflower, orange roses, red carnations, orange and red gerbera daisies, and some seeded eucalyptus.

Treasure Island Wedding {Part One}

So I would like to share with you my

Treasure Island Wedding
This lovely wedding took place in the very beautiful Casa De la Vista on Treasure Island in
San Francisco, CA.

Here is the happy couple, J&R, enjoying the blue skies and gorgeous bridge views on Treasure Island, in beautiful San Francisco. All the vendors were FABO: Chris from Chern Loong, Dorothy from Dorothy Hatchel Photography, Sunset Bakery, Kevin from Denon and Boyle and I bought the flowers and Jonathon arranged them! Lynne and the staff at Casa were so nice and I would love to work with them all again. Thanks to Alison and Brandon for coming through to help. :)

We crossed our fingers for good weather and I assured Julie that I would employ my skills as a weather changer...ok, ok...really, I stalked weather.com and hit up my almanac for last years weather. But I could tell her it wasn't going to rain and that we would be ok *cross my fingers*.

And guess what?? It worked, I'm magic. No rain.

Moving right along..... :)
So we proceeded to set up shop. First we made sure the aisle was big enough for Julie to walk down the aisle with both parents, ommitted an extra row from the front aisle so Dorothy(Dorothy Hatchel Photography) would have enough space to do her magic up there and then it was on to the place cards.


Ok brides out there, can I please ask a bug favor? Could you maybe alphabetize the place cards before packing them away? I will tell you why: when I opened this bag I could see that they meant well by placing them in the order that the guests would sit at the tables, however, it's way too hard for a guest to try to look at each table number in hopes of finding their name. So make sure they are alphabetized so that we can lay out the placecards and have the guests just look for their last name.
I laughed because I was saying out loud
"...ok, wait I have 12 Go's and like3 12 Wu's....so I need to start on their last names ok A,B,C,D...." yes, arranging Dave, Dan and Donna in order somethimes throws me off, hehe.

Then it was off to check on the ceremony site, the cocktail area, the reception room.
I loved how they used this hurricane glass to swirl in the napkins!I'm easily impressed :P


The view from Casa de la Vista was GORGEOUS!
I love San Francisco and to see it from this view was magical....

Here is the setting for the sweetheart table.

Look at this this ceremony site...is it not to die for? I fell in love with the tree as soon as I saw it.

Then it was time to get the tea ceremony going.

So I will continue with the tea ceremony, the western ceremony, and the lion dancers!