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!
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! :)
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!
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!
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!
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! :)
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.
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! :)
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!
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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!
