Sunday, September 25, 2011

Another special project - Pinks, Yellows and Peaches

I was asked to sponsor another special project that's happening on Thursday. I hope that in the coming weeks I'll be able to share with you some wonderful professional photographs. Until then, here are the images I shot of the arrangements I made for this event.The request was for some of my mini teapots. The person in charge of this event asked for pinks, yellows and whites, but I also thought peaches would lend itself nicely. I don't want to give away the vignette that this will go in, but I promise it will be good. I'm very excited as this is the 3rd special project I've been asked to collaborate on with local industry professionals. Interestingly enough, even though I'm based in the Bay Area, I rarely do collaborative efforts as I don't go to many networking functions. All of a sudden I have requests left and right. The power of Facebook. :)
Hope you have a wonderful Sunday. Off to work on a couple more small orders and then spend some quality time with my family and some good friends!

Saturday, September 24, 2011

More Little Teapots

Since I returned from Canada, I've been catching up on some orders that I wasn't able to finish before I had to leave.
This is another order for my Australian retailer. She showed some of my work to her clientele and one person wanted a custom piece. Since her client was ordering she decided to order a few more pieces.Hoping once I get through my upcoming orders I can focus a little more on my Etsy shop and get it ready for the holidays. Pretty frightening that we're almost into October. Definitely looking forward to a little down time so that I can focus on redoing my website! It's been a long time coming - 3 years!

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Beyond Sugar Flowers Workshop Classes at Icing Inspirations!

One word sums up how I feel about the Beyond Sugar Flowers workshop that I taught at Icing Inspirations... AMAZING! Everything about my trip, the workshops, the students and the Icing Inspirations team was AMAZING!
I arrived Friday afternoon into Toronto and Chrissie Boon of Icing Inspirations and Too Nice to Slice picked me up. We stopped by her shop/studio to drop of my supplies for the class and she had everything set up for the class! What a huge help. That's what I love about her and her team, they make it effortless. There were only a few things I had to do which had to be done the morning of. From there we had a nice dinner and I rested up for the evening.
Saturday was the first day of class. I had 11 students, all who for the most part are cake designers. Many of them are local celebrities because they were featured on the new show in Canada called Cake Walk!
Most of the women had exposure to sugar flowers so there was a little bit of a struggle because they had the mindset that everything must be THIN! Once they tried to stop thinking that they were working with "sugar" they were getting the hang of it. I was definitely worried that we wouldn't finish everything they were tasked to do in the 3 days, but they did a phenomenal job!This was their very first exposure to clay and they soon realized the benefits of clay over sugar. Of course I had no understanding of the process of sugar flowers either so I was educated on how long their process takes and how fragile it is compared to clay. Many of the techniques of DECO Clay Craft Academy were very different from what they know of making sugar flowers, but they quickly saw how wonderful a medium the clay is to making flowers just as beautiful as they are with sugar, but in less time. Everyone commented about how clean the clay is, how quick the process is to construct the flower, how durable they were and how lifelike they can be.The first day we focused on more traditional flowers, but ones they would enjoy - peonies, ranunculus, lily of the valley, hydrangeas and lilac. The second day focused on various tropical flowers. They were probably all sick of teardrops by the end but they felt the amount of repetition was very helpful with trying to get a good understanding of the techniques in such a short amount of time. I let everyone decide what colors they wanted to make their flowers and I love the variety and differences in each of their masterpieces!
I have a new found appreciation (granted I already had one before this) of the work that goes into sugar art! I really had an AMAZING time in the 5 short days that I was there. I made some new friends and I learned a lot as well. It's been a long time since I've taught more than just a handful of students at a time so it was a great lesson on how to help keep the class moving and making sure everyone finishes in the time allotted. Surprisingly they all told me this was the only class where they actually finished early! Chrissie's husband and business partner also loved the fact that clean up was a SNAP! Hardly any mess. He just had to sweep the floor! LOL.If you're in the Ontario area and looking for a great line of products for cake/cookie decorating needs, definitely check out Icing Inspirations. Chrissie and Justin have a great line of products to sell. I even bought some sugar art tools to try out myself. I am very excited to see if I can use some of the items I bought. They even offer free shipping Tuesdays!
I am so very honored to have had this opportunity to share the art of DECO Clay Craft Academy to Canadian sugar/cake artists! I can't wait to see what they create in the coming year out of clay! I know they will wow their clients with their clay flower creations.
Thank you also to Tracey Paul of Invite Me Creative who came a distance to assist me with the classes and keep them moving along.
I'm happy to be home again with my family, but I do miss my new cake artist friends that I've made over the last few days! I'm always in awe of their work as well because while they couldn't believe what I can do out of clay, I also couldn't believe what they could do with cake and sugar! I have lots of wonderful memories of the last 5 days and as a keepsake, Chrissie gives each student an Icing Inspirations apron to have the instructor sign, however, I asked all my students to sign my apron so I have a lasting keepsake of my AMAZING experience with some truly talented artists!
Thank you Chrissie and Justin for believing in what I do and knowing that your community of cake artists would love the art of clay flowers! You two are unbelievably talented, kind, and just down right AMAZING! For those of you in the cake world, definitely check out who will be teaching at Icing Inspirations because they have a FABULOUS line up of FANTASTIC guest and local instructors. They book quickly so don't delay if you see a class you want to take.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

And another special project...

I was asked by Eileen Chiu of Enchanting Events if I could create a floral centerpiece and some individual peony blooms that would be for the individual place settings to be placed in designer cupcake wrappers. The table design is going to be featured at the Stuart Rental showroom.The colors are a light mauve pink and wine with accents of silver. Eileen envisioned peonies and cymbidium orchids. This is how the centerpiece turned out. I added silver accents in the ribbon to the vase and using Dusty Miller style leaves.
I can't wait to see the finished table design. I hope to share the photos soon.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Summer Giveaway via Anna and Blue Paperie!

Remember that fabulous Aloha Summer birthday party that I told you about that showcased my colorful hibiscus cake flowers? Well, Stefanie of Anna and Blue Paperie along with many of the talented artisans involved with the party are doing a giveaway via Stefanie's blog!
Click here to check out what you have to do to win all of these amazing items! The winner will randomly be selected via random.org next Monday, September 19th! Good luck!

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Butter Yellow, Ivory and Blues...

My client, Kim contacted me a while back and asked if I could create her wedding flowers. She wanted to tie in the colors of her wedding and the inspiration was this wonderful oriental vase lid that tied in their blue color palette as well as their ethnic background of French and Vietnamese. They did these lovely wooden, Asian inspired wedding invitations which also highlighted the blues and yellows.
Kim chose butter yellow and ivory ranunculus, light blue forget me nots which I colored to match the light blue in this vase lid and royal blue African violets.The bridesmaid bouquets are smaller versions of the bride's bouquet but with more yellow than ivory.
The groom, man of honor and groomsmen boutonnieres mimic that of the bouquets. The father's also have the same boutonnieres as the groomsmen.Kim asked me last minute if I could also create 2 additional boutonnieres and a corsage for other family members or friends who she wanted to include. For these we decided on ivory ranunculus with forget me nots and light yellow hyacinth blossoms.
The groom asked that his mother's corsage match his dad's boutonniere. While Kim asked me to create something to match her mother's dress colors. So we opted for ivory ranunculus with lilac colored hyacinth and a violet on a wristlet. Kim's grandmother is wearing pink so we created the same flowers but in the pink and ivory color palette.This order took some time because every ranunculus had so many petals! I'm already working on the next special project that's due on Tuesday as well as a few more items I need to finish before I hop on the plane for my workshop classes at Icing Inspirations!

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Plum, Brown, Green and White Wedding

I'm finally done with my big wedding order today! This bride's colors are a plum purple and a hint of orange with greens and browns. She opted for her bouquet to have spotted white and plum phaleanopsis orchids with whitish ivory roses, fern curls and hipericum berries. To add a bit more plum she requested lilacs to be added.Amanda has 1 maid of honor and 4 bridesmaids. She asked that the MOH bouquet be larger than the bridesmaid bouquets. Their bouquets consisted of plum phaleanopsis orchids with an orangey-yellow center, lilac purple roses, fern curls and hipericum berries.
The groom and groomsmen flowers mimicked the flowers in the women's bouquets.Amanda also wanted flowers for her fathers/brother and mothers/grandmother.The final piece that Amanda added were her cake flowers. While there are no anemones in her bouquets, she requested to have ivory anemones with a plum center.
This was no small order and lots of individual petals that all had to be taped together. I'm happy the order is complete and now I can move onto the next wedding order before completing some more special projects and orders.

Friday, September 2, 2011

Still time to sign up for my workshops at Icing Inspirations (Sept 17-19th)!

I'm officially into countdown mode for my trip to Kitchener, Ontario, Canada to teach my 3 day workshops at Icing Inspirations! The workshops are September 17th-19th! VERY EXCITED!

There are still a few slots available so if you're still interested in joining the 3-day workshop and learn lots of clay flower techniques, you definitely should sign up!

Details and registration can be found on the Icing Inspirations website! Don't miss out!!! Looking forward to meeting those who have signed up and sharing the wonderful art of the DECO Clay Craft Academy!

Peony Hair Flower for a Special Project

This peony hair flower is larger than what I normally make and has a bigger rhinestone button center and more feathers. This was also created for this special project that I'm working on with other wonderful industry colleagues.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

A couple of small custom orders...

In between working on this big wedding order I have to finish by Monday, I had to complete a couple custom orders for a coral peony cake flower and hydrangea stems.Just wanted to share a couple of photos of these completed items. Hope you have a great Labor Day Weekend! More to share with you early next week!

Featured on Amy Atlas' Sweet Designs Blog Again!

This morning after my early morning work out, I opened up my Facebook account to see that the Aloha Summer themed birthday party that I had the opportunity to create cake flowers for made it on Amy Atlas' Sweet Designs Blog!
This is my third time to be featured in less than 2 months! What an honor! I never get tired of seeing Stefanie's (of Anna and Blue Paperie) wonderful birthday party display and all the wonderful things she created or had made for this very special birthday party for her two sweet daughters!For the complete featured submission, visit Amy Atlas' blog!
All images courtesy of Amy Atlas and Anna and Blue Paperie.