New Items on Etsy.com...

I decided to add more items to my wedding section to keep up with the requirements stipulated by the Etsy Wedding Team, plus I had some time last night to get caught up on some samples I needed to make. I made some gardenia hair flowers. I normally don't make hair flowers to sell in volume. However, I figured brides have been asking me to make them more and more so I thought I would post a few to sell on my Etsy site.

I also made another Passionate about Peonies Series arrangement. I've been continually trying to perfect my peonies and ranunculus and I'm almost there. There's always room for more improvement, but I feel like I'm getting very close! :) It's a little more modern and different in terms of the way I arranged. I wanted to incorporate more of the vase instead of just flowers sticking out of the top so I added this great little tea leaf vine that happened to be in a rich reddish burgandy with hints of green.

In the coming weeks I hope to share with you some more information about other wonderful Etsy wedding artisans who are part of the Etsy Wedding Team. Stay tuned...

Victorian Elegance Bouquets Complete...

Last night I managed to stay up and finish Laura's toss (keepsake bouquet) and maid of honor bouquet. This morning, I woke up and finished her bouquet. Her bouquet flowers consist of light peach peonies with copper centers, peach ranunculus with the signature green centers, copper tone roses and mauvish purple roses with copper tone accents. I have to say, trying to put together a bouquet with peonies is a bit challenging just with the size/shape compared to the other smaller flowers, but I think they all came out really nice. The colors are beautiful together and the copper tones warm the entire bouquet. Laura didn't want any white or ivory tones in her bouquet and she wanted the focus to be on the copper color. So on her bouquet I decided just to use the copper toned flower clusters and add in more of the lighter copper tone roses. I used one more open peony to make the arrangement fuller and added some peony buds to fill in. She wanted her stems wrapped in all brown so I wrapped the stems with double faced chocolate brown satin ribbon and then crisscrossed back with brown organza ribbon.



Her toss bouquet and MOH bouquet were similar yet different. With those I went with the stephanotis with pearl pins and the tuberose flowers to fill in the gaps. I think it also brings out the colors of the other flowers quite nicely. Both of those were wrapped with the chocolate brown satin ribbon, but no secondary ribbon for those. Whoever receives the toss bouquet will surely be ecstatic to have something like this! (Laura.... I really hope you're just giving this to your special wedding guest and not doing a "free-for-all" toss.... Although the flowers are durable, they aren't meant to be tossed. :)

As I continue to make more bouquet orders and see how many people entrust me with their wedding day florals, it really makes me stop and think that the times have changed and people REALLY ARE looking for alternatives to fresh flowers. I think the even better thing for brides in terms of considering clay flower bouquets as an alternative is that someone (me) handcrafted each flower one petal at a time. I'm enjoying more and more the creative side of doing the flowers more so than the invitation side I guess because I continually perfect my flower making techniques. Well... onto the next orders in line (favors, baby shower invitations, guest book and more favors)...

One More Bouquet Order Almost Complete
So I've been playing catch up again on the 4th of all days... I guess when you run your own business, there is technically no day off. Although I did go out to dinner with our friends and play the Wii Tennis game and basically came home with a really sore arm.... I know... PATHETIC! At least though I got some aggression out since it was a really tough parenting week.

I'm almost done with my second Canadian bride's order. She found me after seeing the post by Miss Pineapple on http://www.weddingbee.com/. She wanted apricot colored dahlias, but after she saw what samples I created for Miss Pineapple, she couldn't resist the same flowers. Don't worry Miss Pineapple, your flowers will be uniquely your own! :) Anyway, Laura started with just her bouquet, a maid of honor bouquet and a small centerpiece utilizing her flowers from her bouquet. It turned out she wanted the Victorian Elegance II arrangements (2 of them to be exact) and a toss bouquet (hopefully not really to be tossed) so the centerpieces are done and the flowers for the bouquets are drying,but I hope to have those built out by tomorrow.

Here are also some arrangements that I made using flowers that I had initially made for Laura, but wasn't happy with the colors or the way the ranunculus turned out. Midstream in the process of making the ranunculus, I found a new technique that I felt worked better and was able to give me the look I was going for and I wanted Laura to be happy with her flowers. So not that there was anything wrong with these flowers that are now being sold on my Etsy site, which by the way I think look fabulous, the way the ranunculs flowers came out the second time were much more what I wanted. Plus it's another addition to my ongoing "Ranunculus Series" of arrangements I'm selling on the site. I almost didn't want to post it and keep it for myself (the peach ranunculus one)! As in my previous post, I LOVE ranunculus flowers!