Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Pink, Orange and Green Flowers for a Destination Wedding in Jamaica

My client Michelle, contacted me almost a year ago and asked if I could do her flowers for her wedding that is going to be in Jamaica. It's a small destination wedding with their family and close friends. She found me via my other blog post of a past bride who also got married in Jamaica. Michelle fell in love with Elisa's bouquet as those were the exact colors of her wedding.
Michelle also realized that I do wedding invitations and so I ended up doing her invitations as well. I'm in the home stretch. I just have the boutonnieres, corsages and cake flowers to finish up, but the main pieces, 4 bouquets and 3 centerpieces are finally done.Michelle ran into a small snag with her reception flowers and asked if I could do the job. We decided to incorporate her bridal party flowers as centerpieces and then she asked me to make 3 more centerpieces that were lower that would compliment the bouquets. We agreed on frosted glass vases and wrapped them with her fuchsia pink ribbon that she asked me to use as it matches the pink that is used throughout her wedding, not to mention her shoes. :)
The color combination is vibrant and striking. I never get tired of this combination of lush greens, pinks and oranges. Definitely makes you ready for Spring and Summer!

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Hair flowers for a Southern Wedding

My husband's nephew is getting married in May in Georgia and as part of our way of helping them out, I agreed to do their wedding invitations and some of their bridal party flowers. Tanya, our nephew's fiance wanted to have a lily of the valley headpiece for her hair and pink dogwoods for her bridesmaids.
Since her hair trial is coming up very soon, I had to get these pieces completed for her. I like how they came out. The lily of the valley headpiece is two combs which I think will be great after the wedding as it would be nice to have a small comb to wear for special occasions while not having to use a large piece. This definitely has more bling than my original design.
I have still yet to make Tanya's wedding bouquet, some cake flowers and corsages, but I will be sharing that with you in April.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Clay Flower Classes Coming to Kitchener, Ontario - September 17-19, 2011!

I've been hinting at a big opportunity in the last month or so and I can finally share with you what it's all about. Today, Chrissie Boon of Icing Inspirations and Too Nice To Slice in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, announced my guest teacher classes being offered from September 17-19, 2011! Chrissie has a very successful cake studio in Kitchener where she makes beautiful wedding and special event cakes, but one better she has a large back studio where she can offer interested cake enthusiasts classes on how to make sugar flowers, cake decorating courses and more! I definitely hope that many of these cake artists will want to learn more about DECO Clay Craft Academy and want to become members of the school and learn the fabulous skills and techniques that we have been taught as instructors.Chrissie has been following my work on Facebook and asked me last month if I would consider teaching some workshop style classes to cake artists who would really take to the clay flowers. I am completely honored to be asked and to have the opportunity to share the art of clay flowers taught to me by DECO Clay Craft Academy and the CLAYCRAFT by DECO products with talented cake artists! This is a great opportunity to promote DECO Clay Craft Academy member classes in Canada so cake artists who take a liking to DECO Clay art to learn the techniques from a DECO certified instructor (Tracey Paul of Invite Me Creative Announcements). Tracey has graciously agreed to assist me in teaching these classes.

This will open up a whole new medium for them and although quite different in the way we construct flowers, I think they'll find joy in making clay flowers as an alternative to sugar and possibly want to join member classes!
I'll be teaching 2 different flower arrangements that lend themselves to more of an English style arrangement as well as a tropical arrangement, and explain how DECO Clay Craft Academy art can be applied to not only cakes but so much more! The above photo was chosen because Chrissie wanted to showcase how amazing the clay art of DECO Clay Craft Academy is and all the amazing things you can make with this amazing clay!

Class size is limited. If you are interested in the classes, please visit Icing Inspirations for more information.

Chrissie has had amazing cake artists such as Rick Reichart of Cakelava and James Roselle who were both featured on the Food Network Cake challenges! I'm honored to be among the artists to be asked to teach at her wonderful studio in Kitchener! I have had quite a following of sugar and artists from around the world who have been amazed at what I do, so I'm VERY excited to finally be able to share the art of DECO Clay Craft Academy to Canadian cake artists.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Coral, Pinks, Greens and Whites...

I've been busy teaching for the last 7 days as well as working on orders. I was able to complete this order this morning. My client wanted corals, pinks, greens and whites. Her request was to have peonies, ranunculus, roses, stephanotis, gardenias, hydrangeas and dogwood.
The original request was a 10" diameter bouquet, but ultimately it turned into a 14" bouquet! I had a lot of coral going on so I needed to mix in the green hydrangeas with pink highlights as well as light pink ranunculus. It's a really spring like bouquet that makes you smile. Believe it or not, I didn't use any artificial fillers in this bouquet!The maid of honor bouquet is a single 6" diameter coral peony with a teal/jade color organza wrap since the MOH bouquet is that same color.
The groom wanted a single whitish ivory rose boutonniere with simple fillers.
The groomsmen will wear stephanotis blossoms with rhinestone centers accented with tuberose buds and green fillers.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Large Form Magnolia Cake Flower

Recently I received an email from a cake designer in Australia who asked me if I could make a large white magnolia with some buds. Her client had a specific look in mind of all white, but I think after she saw the hint of color on the inside of the magnolia, she asked me to add a bit of color. This flower turned out to be over 6 inches in diameter. It's gorgeous!
It definitely gives me other ideas of what I can do with large form magnolias. The last of the magnolias flowers are starting to fall to the ground and are being replaced by lush green leaves where I live. Love seeing my flowers travel to different parts of the world!

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Ivory, Chocolate Brown and Pink Cake Flowers

A wedding cake designer in Vero Beach, Florida, contacted me recently and asked if I could create the flowers for a specific cake she was trying to recreate. The cake is 4 tiers with brown satin ribbon bands at the base of each layer and the cake had pinkish brown lilies, chocolate brown leaves and ivory roses. The cake also had wispy brown reeds and crystals throughout.
Granted, my faux cake cannot accommodate all the flowers, but I wanted to share with you just a segment of it. I was skeptical that it would turn out nice, but in the end, I was quite pleasantly surprised at how well it came together. :)
It's hard to stay focused these days with all that is going on in Japan. My heart breaks for all the families suffering from the earthquake, tsunami and the unstable nuclear power plants. I have family and dear friends who are affected directly and indirectly and our thoughts and prayers go out to them. Even though we donated to help the relief effort, it honestly doesn't feel like enough.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Red Roses, Freesia, Stephanotis, Tuberose and Hipericum Berry Bouquet and Boutonniere

Things have been quite hectic working on orders back to back. Plus managing my son's busy schedule of after school activities.My client, Christine, when she first came to me had wanted to match her bouquet to the sash for her wedding dress. There were a couple changes, but they finally decided on red! She had a specific red in mind. She sent me some sample images of bouquets she liked and elements she preferred. She was on a budget so we decided to do a dozen red roses, stephanotis with pearls, tuberose, hipericum berries and freesia for that element of greenery, but she wanted the roses to be the flower of focus.I'll be busy the next few weeks with fulfilling orders and teaching my student/instructor, Jules who is visiting from the UK for 10 days. Looking forward to catching up with her and sharing all the new C3 techniques.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Final Design of Fleuri

Well, today my aunt and uncle who have a wealth of knowledge in home remodeling came over today to help me decide how I am going to mount Fleuri to it's final backing. Whatever I come up with, it's going to take a lot more thought process to work it out and build. However, my image must be sent to Japan ASAP so this is the final design layout I think both represented our work and showcase Myrna's intricate figurine and floral scenes without being overwhelmed by my boxes of flowers.

We are both quite happy with the final design!

Fleuri - finally coming together...

I received Myrna's pieces for the Fleuri project and they are stunning with my floral pieces. I still have yet to put them together so they are one standing piece, but I was able to lay them out and get a shot over them so you could get a glimpse of this amazing collaboration.

I'm so proud of Myrna and her attention to detail and her unending creativity. She's always up for a good challenge and it definitely was a challenge for both of us. I love that we can both have our own individuality in design, but when it all comes together it looks like a very cohesive design When I teach, I teach the basic techniques that were taught but I also encourage my students and instructors to have their own sense of design and style. I don't think ultimately everyone's work should look the same. That's the beauty of the clay art, you can express your own individuality and creativity!

Once the boxes are finally adhered together, I'll have new photos to share, but for now, this is just a glimpse of what it's supposed to look like!