Thursday, April 30, 2009

New Items Just Listed on Etsy


So the 2 items I posted about previously that I had listed on Etsy sold! Goodness... They're selling like hotcakes! :) So today I worked on some more items. Some are items I've had, but just haven't had time to photograph and list. The other two I just made today which are the floral arrangements. The plumeria one was listed for 10 minutes and sold! It's so exciting. :) It's just like the level of sales after I was on the Martha Stewart Show.At any rate, tonight I have to work on my sales tax filing with the State and work on some invitation samples for my client. More than likely no more flower making until tomorrow morning. Don't miss out. The below item is still for sale as well as the hair flowers, but they might go fast!

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

New Arrangements for Etsy

Today has been a whirlwind! After being featured on the home page, I was scrambling around to process orders and get flowers made so I could post some new arrangements. One person who purchased one of the arrangements I listed yesterday asked if I could do another one instead with pink flowers instead of purple. So I had to make a new one. I decided to relist the purple version and it sold in about an hour!
I also made 2 new arrangements this evening after spending the entire morning on making flowers. I feel like I should have made more. I decided to make poppies, ranunculus, roses, hyacinth and tuberose arrangements in purples, greens and whites and the other one in coral, peach, pink and green tones. The two in the rectangular vases are now available on my Etsy site. I really like these rectangular vases I have. They are so cute and hold so many flowers. Just wish I had more of them.
Anyway, back to making flowers. Hope you like what you see!

Loving My Lensbaby!

I bought some ranunculus and viburnum yesterday at the market as I love to look at the fresh flowers to help me improve on making my clay flowers more realistic. I decided this morning to take out my Lensbaby and take some shots. These are what transpired. So beautiful!!! I forgot to mention after my previous blogpost on using my Lensbaby on my clay flowers that Craig Strong (the creator/inventor of the Lensbaby) started following me on Twitter! How cool is that! I feel kind of weird because I don't even know the true potential of this amazing lens! But I am inspired by all my photographer friends who use it to keep playing with it and creating art through the camera lens!

Coral Pink Ranunculus Arrangement Makes it on the Etsy Home Page

This morning I got an influx of Etsy convos and then I looked on how many people viewed my items listed for sale and one in particular saw a huge jump in traffic. I realized that maybe it was featured on the home page and low and behold there it was. My listing for the coral pink ranunculus in the urn style vase!!! It's always such a wonderful feeling when those around you love what you do. I also was featured in another artist's treasury picks today, which may or may not make it onto the homepage of handpicked items. It was my clay gardenia cake flowers!
Thank you to all the Etsians out there who have featured my clay art on their treasuries! I am truly honored and appreciative. The handmade artisan community is TOTALLY AWESOME! I've really been focusing on trying to look for unique gifts and items for myself on Etsy more than via the larger retailers. It's important to support the small business owners. Check Etsy out if you haven't already. So many wonderful items to purchase for yourself or as gifts. All handmade by the people around you! :)

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

White Cymbidium Orchids with Merlot Accents

Here's the bridal order from my client Lori. She too found me on Etsy and asked if I could create her flowers. Originally she wanted white plumerias and then she changed her mind and wanted orchids. We agreed on the white cymbidium orchid based on her budget.
She ordered 2 bouquets and then later decided she wanted 4 corsages and 6 bouttonieres. So, these are some sneak peeks at her order. The first is of her bridal bouquet and the other 2 pictures are the corsage and the bouttoniere. I like the smokey champagne ribbon with the merlot accent on the stems. With the merlot colored fillers I had, I thought it worked perfectly with her colors.
Now that this order is essentially done, I can move onto my long list of other orders to work on. Never a dull moment in my life and work. :)

Monday, April 27, 2009

New Items on Etsy... Just in time for Mother's Day!

Since I was on a flower making spree yesterday evening, I decided to keep the momentum going. With Mother's Day fast approaching, I decided to make a few arrangements to sell on my Etsy site. Granted they are $90/each plus $10 shipping, but if you think about how much you spend on fresh flowers for your mother on Mother's Day, at least this is $90 well spent because they get to keep this for years and years to come! They won't wilt, turn brown or die! Eco-chic too! Can't beat that! :)
So these are the 3 pieces I created and posted today. They will be ready to ship on Thursday. I hope to create more pieces tomorrow, time permitting, but I have to also focus on my current order load too. If nothing else, these 3 pieces would make great home decor arrangements as well. I just love all the colors. So vibrant and fresh!
Check them out before they're gone... www.dkdesignshawaii.etsy.com!

Read My Interview on WeddingbeePRO.com

Bee Kim, creator of Weddingbee.com and WeddingbeePRO.com contacted me in early March to see if I would be interested in possibly being a guest blogger on the PRO site. I was so excited at the opportunity and blown away that she wanted me to be on her site. Of course, it probably helped that Mrs. Pineapple hired me and talked me up on her blog posts where Bee Kim took notice. :) (Thanks Mrs. Pineapple!)

Anyway, my orders have consumed me since March 8th. I felt really bad because I am so honored to be asked, but I had to make sure my brides' orders were taken care of first. Plus I had a photo shoot and Bee asked if I could supply her with some "action" shots of me making flowers. I felt it best to wait until those pictures were available.

Thank you Bee for allowing me to share my love for clay floral art with your readers!

You can read my guest interview by clicking here!

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Matching Corsage and Hair Comb for a Mother of the Bride

My client, Mary Lou, asked me if in addition to the 90 mini ranunculus if I could make her a hair comb and a matching corsage. She found a nice mint green suit dress and she saw one of my hair combs for sale on Etsy and asked if I could create one for her.
So these are a couple images of those pieces. They ship on Tuesday and I hope she is happy with them. Back to working on a bunch of other things. I have to make some more orchids for a bridal bouquet order that I've been working on the last couple of days and hope to finish that on Tuesday so I'll have pictures to share soon. Also made more gardenia hair flowers since those sold out in about a week and a half. Plus I'm trying to get caught up with other small orders. No shortage of things to do.
Although today we went to a street fair for a few hours to see my niece dance and I got to see some old high school friends who I have not seen in probably 15 years! It was nice to get out and have some fun and I managed to get sunburned on my face (shows you how much I'm indoors always working! LOL).

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Real Wedding - Chrissy & Jay

My good friend Dianna Shitanishi of Hawaii Weddings & Events asked me last month if I could create some favor tags for a couple of her clients. I turned it around in a short amount of time for her. Dianna always gives me referrals and jobs so I try my best to meet her requests. I found out yesterday (by putting the pieces together) that my other friend/colleague, Geralyn Camarillo of Hokuli'i Images was photographing the same wedding!
On Facebook, they confirmed they were working on the same wedding. Ger got some shots of my favor tags so here's one picture she uploaded to share with me! The other pic is of Dianna on the right in light blue with the bride and groom. The couple was so happy with the favors and surprised too because Dianna didn't tell them about the addition!

Working with fabulous vendors as Dianna and Geralyn is a blessing! You can't go wrong with this dynamic duo! Thanks Ger for sharing some photos from yesterday's wedding! A side note, everyone was worried because Hawaii was under flash flood warnings and the wedding ceremony was outdoors. Thankfully, it was a beautiful day for the bride and groom!

Friday, April 24, 2009

90 Mini Ranunculus for Place Cards

The earlier part of this week I spent making 90 miniature yellow ranunculus flowers with an individually cut center and 20 petals per flower, that are no larger than the size of a quarter, for my client. She is the mother of the groom. She wanted them for the place cards they are making for the wedding reception. I wish I had time to create some mock place cards to show how cute these would be on them for a wedding reception. I didn't have enough time so you'll just have to settle for a shot of some of them grouped together. I hope the groom's mother will share photos of them after the wedding. I still have yet to finish her hair comb and corsage she ordered, but those will be worked on and shipped by early next week.I hope to have more photos soon of another bouquet/boutonniere/corsage order I'm working on. Until then, may these beautiful, vibrant yellow ranunculus brighten your day!

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Zenatona - Creating Printed Material for a Dear Friend

My dear friend Debbie Friedrich, of Debbie Friedrich Photography and zenatona art asked if I could help her to create some little tags to put on her muslin bags so that those who open the bag know that the piece inside is the print. A little back story, I got Debbie's "Sunkiss" print for my brother for his birthday and he almost pulled the backing off the canvas print. So, it made Debbie think about how she could let people know what they are receiving. :) So, I created this little tag with her "Kualoa Lime" logo print with the print name and her company.
She also asked if I could create some zenatona logo'd note cards for her to send to clients. These are the first samples I created for her.. I love working with Debbie on creating her branding pieces that go out to her clients. I'm one of her biggest fans. I have 5 of her prints and more on the way!

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Estilo Weddings Cake Flowers on DailyCandy.com!

Maria at Estilo Weddings just posted my new hair flowers on her site. Lots of options now and they all come in the reusable, eco-friendly muslin bags with the Estilo logo! She's really excited about the new eco-friendly packaging which is awesome.
I was perusing her Buzz page and DailyCandy.com Weddings section did an article on interesting cake toppers for weddings. Guess what was among the cool cake toppers? My cake flowers that I sell through Estilo Weddings! They called it ceramic, but it's actually not ceramic. LOL. It's such an honor to get exposure via a wonderful company such as Estilo Weddings. I know that it nowhere says DK Designs, but just knowing that Estilo Weddings gets exposure, so do I!
What a great day. I also got my first interior design customer who purchased one of my pieces for a designer friend of hers as a birthday present. This particular designer is excited to buy my designs to give to her family & friends for mother's day and her clients! More details to follow on things to come soon...

Jack & Jill Party and Wedding Thank you Notes

My lovely bride Kara is another one of my favorites. Always so appreciative and on top of it all. Her wedding is fast approaching and she asked if I could create thank you cards for her Jack & Jill party (with her pineapple theme) and her wedding (with her cymbidium orchid theme). So we took the designs from the original invitation designs and applied it to her thank you cards. Here are how the designs turned out.
I love it when brides have the budget to order multiple things to create a consistent look and feel for their wedding. She's getting married at this great outdoor venue close to where they live. She's doing her favors and table cards and hair flowers with me as well. We're doing 3 types of favors, orange hibiscus, orange cymbidium orchids and little wooden turtles with mini hibiscus flowers. All in her colors of peacock teal and orange! Even though she's getting married on the East Coast, she's having a lot of Hawaiian influences with her favors, table cards names, etc. Just so happens they'll be honeymooning in Maui!

Anyway, more samples to share as her wedding gets closer. I definitely love my sweet, fun and appreciative clients. They truly do ROCK! :)

Wedding Invitations and Details - Plumerias with Aqua Blue and Chocolate


Two of my favorite clients, Courtney and Todd, met with me last month and I shared with them a few design samples for their invitations and menus. They loved them and I told them I would create samples for all the pieces they wanted for their wedding (invitation, OOT tags, favors/place cards, water bottle sleeves and menu/fans). These are the samples I created last night for them. We're still working on their direction cards, but we're almost there! The first two pictures are their invitations. Thanks to Courtney she did the map for me so I just had to put it in her wedding invitation colors and get it to fit on the insert.

The next images are of her wedding reception dinner menu (YUMMY!) and the water bottle labels and tags for their out-of-town guests. The last picture is the favor box/place cards for each of their guests. They plan on filling them with Honolulu Cookie Co cookies! Yummy!
Courtney and Todd are super sweet and so easy to work with. I'm so fortunate to have wonderful clients like them to work with on a regular basis. :)

Monday, April 20, 2009

DK Designs Eco-Friendly Packaging

I've been trying to figure out how to repackage my hair flowers and cake flowers. I haven't been happy with the cellophane bag route as it holds moisture in the bag which is not good for the flowers. So, thanks to my friend at www.zenatona.etsy.com, I decided to go with the muslin pouch route! My flowers are always termed at eco-chic alternative to fresh flowers, so why not provide packaging that is also eco-friendly and reusable! I'm going to modify the background images from time to time depending on my creative mood, but for now, I'm using this image taken by my other photographer friend, Natalie Wi of Allure West Studios. I hope to share some other photos she took of my work soon! I like how this overexposed image came out and set against the oatmeal colored bag, looks really vintage. :)
At any rate, I will be using these bags to house my hair flowers and cake flowers that I ship to customers. As a side note, I always try to reuse packaging materials that I have from other shipments.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Name this flower and you could win a zenatona print!

Before I start working on my flowers, I'm letting you know about a contest of sorts. My good friend Debbie Friedrich of www.zenatona.etsy.com is offering this beautiful "Frida" canvas art print to the first person who can name what flower it is. Hint, I already tried guessing hibiscus... NOPE!
Anyway, if you have a twitter account, direct message Debbie of zenatona @www.twitter.com/zenatona. Debbie is doing this in honor of Earth Day! I currently have 4 of Debbie's prints and 2 more are on the way! I can't get enough of her bursts of amazing color and happiness! :)

Clay Flowers... Lensbaby Style!

Some photographer friends of mine use the Lensbaby and I bought one for myself as my birthday present back in October. My husband hates to shop so I figured I should buy what I know I want. LOL. I haven't take it out in a while, but after seeing photos from my friends recently I decided to take photos of my clay flowers with the Lensbaby and they came out pretty cool.... :) I should do this more often. Now my clay flowers are not only art, but they make great photo eye candy. :) Hence, clay flowers... Lensbaby style! I only wish I knew how to properly use my Lensbaby! Soon... soon...

DK Designs Head Shots...

My good friend & photographer, Debbie Friedrich (www.debbiefriedrich.com/www.zenatona.etsy.com), sent these over to me late last night. I asked her if she could send me some headshots and some photos of me making flowers for a project I am working on for another blog. I thought I would at least share the headshot photos with you. These two are my favorite! I haven't had my headshots professionally done since right after my son, Aidan was born. I desperately needed some updated ones! This is me, plain and simple... LOL. :) If you like the necklace I'm wearing, check out the fabulous Blair of www.joiedeviejewelry.etsy.com!