Gearing Up for My Son's Angry Birds Theme Party

My son seems to pick birthday theme parties that are ahead of the party supply stores. He had two themes, Angry Birds or Skylanders. I told him Skylanders was out of the question because nothing exists out there in the way of party supplies and I knew it would be a lot of work for me.

We agreed on Angry Birds. Although there are things out there and several DIY party ideas, almost everything you have to buy online. I decided to make cupcake toppers out of clay and initially I thought I would just place the clay figurine on the cupcake, but I decided to put the cake pop sticks at the base of the figurine so it doesn't touch the cupcake.

These are what I made for his classmates for his class celebration next week. I still have to make 12 more figures for his actual birthday party. I actually think my pigs are better than the red angry birds! I've made his banner, worked on the favor bags/tags, milk bottle tags and a few other things. Still a lot to do, but he's loving all the crafty things I'm doing for his birthday!

Reds and Magenta Pink... Beautiful Valentine's Day Gift!

When I went to get more vases, I found these I LOVE U ones too. So I decided to do a red and magenta pink trio with garden rose, open peony and tulips. I again did the bud and full flower combination for each. I decided to experiment with my peonies again and I just LOVE how this turned out. Petal unfolding onto petal.

I don't often do tulips, so I decided to work on that as well. Hope you like what you see.

This one is also featured in my Etsy shop. I have a few other ideas on color combinations and flowers so stay tuned for that.

Light Purple Trio of Hyacinth, Lilac and Sweet Peas

Ever since I found these cute vases, I've been spinning my creative wheels thinking up some cute trios of flowers to put in them. My inspiration was from my dear friend Susana at citrusandorange blog! She was redesigning the bedroom of her 2 beautiful daughters and she had stated how she loves lilac and sweet peas. The room was filled with love shades of purple and yellows.

I wouldn't say lilac, sweet peas and hyacinth are new flowers for me, however, for the first time I actually made sweet peas complete with buds, vines and leaves. I did a hyacinth stalk before, but this is the first time I did it with leaves. Single stems and stalks of flowers is just so beautiful and simple.This set is also available in my Etsy shop. Of course, my flowers wouldn't be complete without a dessert to pair with it. :) This time I tried a recipe from Better Homes and Gardens via an Etsy friend of mine who raved about this cheesecake. It's blueberry coconut cheesecake. I substituted macadamia nuts for the pecans. What's not to love about blueberries, macadamia nuts and coconut.

Love is in the Air....

I've been saying I need to work on arrangements for Valentine's Day. Yesterday, I was at the store and just happened to walk down one aisle to see what they had and found these oh-so cute vases with the words. "LIVE", "LOVE", "LAUGH". Instantly I had a great idea and decided to buy them. Now I just need to go back and buy more!

Today, I got my vision of what I wanted to create for these vases, 3 of my favorite flower varieties, roses, peonies and ranunculus! I did a bud and full flower combination with clay leaves. It's such a beautiful statement. Three little words that have a lot of meaning, 3 words we should all live by!

So check out my Etsy shop as I just listed it now. I still need to make the final touches in the accent painting which will happen tomorrow. I hope to list more. If it doesn't sell, I'll happily keep it for myself! :)

New Poppy Cake Flower Trio in Two Shades... Lemon Yellow and Salmon Pink

After making the poppy hair flowers, I decided to make a trio of the salmon pink poppies as cake flowers. I got to thinking that lemon yellow would be equally as beautiful, so late last night after a business meeting I decided to stay up and complete those flowers as well.

So this morning I finished the accent painting and assembly and decided to list the flowers for sale on my Etsy shop. I feel a lot better about getting things up there for sale for 2012. I've been really bad the last year or so making new things. It's nice to have some new fresh items to share with all of you.

The flower trios have 3 different sizes. The smallest poppy is 3 inches, the medium is 3.5 inches and the large is 4 inches. Obviously I can customize them to the size you need. I could totally see an ombre layered/frosted cake with these flowers complimenting the shades of yellow or salmon pink! Only wish I was good enough to make a cake to go with the flowers to show you what I envision. Maybe one day....

Check out my Etsy shop for these flowers. They are ready to ship, well in a few days when they are completely dry!

New Hair Flower Listings.... Poppies!

I've been trying to find new things to offer in my Etsy shop. Always being creative is not as easy as one thinks. I think in 2010-2011, I felt drained from being so busy with orders that I felt that creative burn out! It was hard to try to find my bursts of creative energy. For 2012, I intend to focus on being more creative, developing new things and making sure to offer more things in my Etsy shop.

This weekend, I worked on a few orders that I needed to get done, but found some time to make some new hair flowers to offer on my Etsy site. The sunny weather that we're getting makes me excited for Spring and now that we're going to get rain for a week, these bright poppy hair flowers are a reminder that the rain will bring beautiful Spring blooms in a few short months.
I love the look of these 3 shades of salmon pink poppy hair flowers. They are roughly 4 inches in diameter. I love the ombre look of cakes you see gracing so many of the wedding and cake industry blogs, so I thought, why not do it with hair flowers. These would be perfect for a bride who wants to give her bridesmaids something that's the same yet different. I could just imagine bridesmaids dresses in these shades.
I didn't get a chance to make them this weekend, but I loved this combination so much I'm thinking it would be equally as perfect as cake flowers. Kind of like the hibiscus cake flowers I did, but poppies would be great for a Spring wedding! Stay tuned for that.Check out my Etsy site for my latest hair flower listings. Later this week I hope to have some floral arrangements to tell you about as well.

Experimenting with Desserts...

I've been busy in the studio completing special projects for clients to give as gifts. While I can't reveal until after they give the gift, I thought I'd share with you some other things I've been working on, albeit not technically flower related.

My son's birthday is coming up and although he wants an Angry Birds themed party, I want it to be special. He's seen me make fancy desserts over the last several months and gets to enjoy them. His favorites are panna cotta and these delicate financiers. A kid with expensive taste. This weekend was my first time trying to make financiers and he loved them.
I made a coconut mango financier from a recipe courtesy of Chocolate Chili Mango's blog. So good and yet not too sweet. They are so tiny you can't just have one.

The other one I made was a blueberry macadamia nut financier from a recipe courtesy of Mowielicious' blog.The last dessert is a blood orange and vanilla bean panna cotta via Eat The Love blog.
While taking photos of my desserts that I made this weekend, I thought my flowers paired nicely with the colors in the desserts! It gave me a thought to do a dessert and flower pairing party. Hmm... Maybe in the Spring! Until then, back to fulfilling orders for my clients.

Orange and Pink Wedding Favors for Destination Maui Wedding

I finally finished some wedding favor samples for my client, Gina. I was fortunate to be hired by her to create her wedding invitations pictured above. She went on to ask me to create her favors as well.

Gina loves white plumerias and she was torn between having the orange hibiscus like on her wedding invitations versus going with the plumeria. I told her I would create a mock-up of each favor so she could decide. They are equally as beautiful and I'm sure it will make her decision more difficult. If she can't decide I gave her the option as well to do half and half so she can have the best of both worlds.

Lots of orders have been coming through the pipeline and inquiries from my new website. I'm super excited about all the new exposure and business. Now if I can just kick this cold and be at 100% I can create some more things to share with you.

New Year = New Flowers... Agapanthus!

I've decided that my goal for 2012 is to really focus on creating flowers I've always wanted to try but haven't had the time or bandwidth to do because I've been stretched so thin. One flower I decided to experiment with yesterday was agapanthus (lily of the Nile).

I'm very excited to share it with you. There's still some things I want to do to perfect it, but I'm quite happy with my first try at this beautiful flower. I love seeing this flower all over the neighborhood. Hopefully I'll get a chance to photograph them in bloom this year!

Dogwood Flowers Take 2...New Etsy listings

I get asked now and then to make dogwoods. When I saw them last Spring at a local garden, I realized I made them way too small. They can be quite large in size. Granted I can still make these bigger, but I thought the larger size (between 2-2.5" in diameter) and the lovely veining detail was worthy of posting on my Etsy site as hair flowers and also cake flowers.

I love always trying to find new ways to make my flowers look more realistic. Lots of flowers I want to create in 2012 so back to the studio! Be sure to check out my Etsy site as I'm listing new things each week. Definitely need to stock the shop for Valentine's Day!

DK Designs' New Website is LIVE!!!

Without further ado, I'm pleased to announce my new website has officially launched! It's been 2 years + in the making but it's finally live. A fresh look and a fresh start for the new year! I hope you like what you see. In the coming weeks I will be adding on the mobile/tablet version so that non-flash based electronics can view the site.

I'll also be updating the watermarks for many of the photos you see as I didn't get a chance to do all of them, but the owners of these images had given me previous permission to use them. I hope to have that accomplished by end of this week.

Please visit the blog as this will be the location where I will post my most recent work. I'm excited about the new website design as it will be easier for me to upload new photos compared to the one I was using in the past.
Above are screen captures of just some of the pages. Lots of photos to see and I've posted general pricing guidelines as well. Happy New Year!