225 Flowers in 3 Days...

I received a phone call last week from an unexpected venue and they are doing something for an upcoming event and saw my flowers in the Fall issue of Inside Weddings and asked if I would sponsor 225 white anemones with pink centers to go with their color palette for the event. this is just a small fraction of the flowers I made in ONLY 3 days!!!

Needless to say, I had moments of self doubt, moments I wanted to throw in the towel and forget it, but thankfully I am done and managed to get 235 flowers done in the time frame I had in order to let them dry enough before they ship on Thursday. Thank you to my husband for his encouragement and support as to why I had to do this. I hope to share more in the coming weeks about what this is for! If it weren't for him and taking care of our 5 year old, making the meals and keeping the house in order, I wouldn't have been able to get it all done.

White, Black and Tiffany Blue

My client Mehgan asked me several months ago if I could create her wedding bouquets. This was no small order. She wanted her bridal bouquet, 6 bridesmaid bouquets and 8 anemone hair flowers. I was thinking this would be an easy order, but it was very timing consuming. Each ranunculus had 60 petals or so each. There are 42 total (7 in each bouquet).Mehgan originally wanted damask ribbon with white & black and Tiffany blue & black, but I had a hard time finding it, so we opted for just solid satin in those colors. Mehgan's bouquet consisted of white and black anemones, white sweet peas with a faint hint of green where the "pea" is and whitish ivory roses.

Her bridesmaids bouquets are all white ranunculus with green centers. This order ships out tomorrow.
Sorry I haven't been blogging much lately. Believe me, it's not that I don't want to, it's just been HECTIC with massive amounts of flowers....

Fall is in the Air = Red and Orange

After doing purples and whites, I'm now onto deep reds and oranges. My bride, Wendy wasn't sure what she wanted in terms of flowers. She just knew it had to be red. She was torn between going with a simple all red rose bouquet or to have a mixture of red flowers.

For her bouquet, she decided to do an all red rose bouquet with a white ribbon. 43 roses in all! Simply beautiful.Her bridesmaids she decided upon whimsical gerbera daisies in fall colors to go with their candy apple red bridesmaid dresses. Best wishes to Wendy and her fiance on their wedding day!I'll be a little consumed with work the next couple of weeks so my blog posts will be sparse until I resurface end of next week. Lots to talk about and share, but until then, back to working on TONS of flowers!

Final Pieces to the Lilac Bouquet Order

Today, I feel a sense of accomplishment, satisfaction and relief! I finished Jessie's order today. You might think 4 corsages, 6 boutonnieres and 2 hair flowers is nothing, but when you consider that the boutonnieres were grape hyacinth and the corsages comprised mostly of lilacs, it was a lot of work! I think each boutonniere had 60 components and the groom's had 90 individual pieces. The mother's corsage had 70 pieces and the other corsages had the 2 roses with about 35 lilacs.I am totally pleased with how this order turned out. It's so hard to say goodbye to my creations, but Jessie has been the epitome of a fabulous bride to work with. She's been super patient and a wonderful bride! She's actually in the wedding industry - she's a wedding celebrant! Check out her site at www.eclectic-unions.com.Originally Jessie had wanted bouquets for her bridesmaids but her mom was a little apprehensive about all clay flowers. So we decided to use the extra money she had put towards the bouquets to her bridal bouquet and make these deep purple lisianthus flowers for their hair and they will carry fresh flowers to appease her mom's request! :)
Taking a break for the rest of the evening to decompress after this big order and then it's another day of teaching and starting lots of red roses for the next couple of orders!

My New Favorite Bouquet!

I think I have made my new favorite wedding bouquet! My client, Jessie asked me to make her a light purple lilac bouquet with English roses, lily of the valley and sweet peas all in the ivory, cream, purple and hints of mint green.

I finally finished this bouquet. Most of the pieces were done but I still had to finish all the lilac buds and blossoms which I was able to do this morning. I was determined to finish this bouquet tonight and it's TRULY STUNNING! The colors are so spot on and it's soft and dreamy! What really completes the bouquet is the wrap that Jessie sent to me which is heirloom lace from her grandmother.I have several other pieces to complete tomorrow but I wanted to share these photos that I took tonight!

Fall Wedding Cake Flowers

My client, Nicole sent me photos of the flowers that were to be used in her wedding. She is getting married on 10/10 and wanted white cymbidium orchids with burgundy details, red roses, red hipericum berries, mango callas, white callas, and this beautiful two-tone yellow and red freesia. She has a multi-tier cake and she wanted flowers for the top of the cake as well as to put between two layers.

She had asked if I could possibly do a mock-up so her cake person could see how to possibly arrange the flowers since I have never worked with her before. So of course, I was happy to oblige. I couldn't assemble these on my faux cake since the fondant is too hard to break through and I never created holes to put my flowers for future purposes. So unfortunately I had to just use cake forms for these photos.I love how the flowers turned out. The epitome of fall!

Enter to Win a $50 Gift Certificate from DK Designs via The Bright Side Project

Several months ago, a friend of mine told me about The Bright Side Project blog, the concept is simple, you can submit your product for review and they may feature you if they feel it's a good fit and if they feature you, you offer one of their readers some sort of giveaway. I had contemplated doing it, but like a lot of things, I got too busy and never contacted them.

Well, a couple weeks ago, Miss Lindsey of The Bright Side Project contacted me! They are doing a special giveaway, one of their reader's boyfriends, wanted to propose to his girlfriend who is an avid Bright Side Project blog reader so they set it up and he proposed to her online and caught it all on video. It was so cute! Of course she said yes. So the idea was that Matt and Lauren would receive a gift from the vendors who participated in the giveaway as would one lucky reader.

Well today, it's my turn! Check it out. All you have to do is tell us your favorite flower and why! Be creative! I or the team at Bright Side Project will pick a winner on 9/22!

Fall Wedding Bouquet - Purples and Browns

Well, this isn't what you'd call a traditional fall bouquet, because I often think of oranges, yellows and browns. This bouquet focuses on plums, browns, greens and white. Wendy asked if I could create a bouquet for her using spotted orchids, hipericum berries, English roses and monkey tail fern curls. The final piece actually took 3 tries to get it right.

Spotted orchids have more of a magenta hue to the mouth and spots. However, Wendy asked if I could deepen the color to be more plum. So we worked together to see how we could continue to deepen the color. Although she wanted somewhat of a white bouquet, she also wanted the deep hues of fall to include the dark browns and plum colors. It's a very striking bouquet. Below is the groom's matching boutonniere with some purple wiring accents.I have 24 more orchids to paint that she intends to use for her manzanita branches for her centerpieces that the florist will be attaching. Hope Wendy will share photos of her wedding day as I would love to see how that looks! Best wishes to Wendy and her fiance on their wedding day!

Check out Petal Chic's New Listings!

In between all my orders and projects going on, I promised my dear friend, Myrna that I would process her images from the photo shoot and product shots I did for her yesterday. So she's busy listing her fabulous creations! Check out Petal Chic on Etsy!If you're looking for some really great handmade silk flowers for headbands, hair flowers, accessories for a wedding gown or a blouse, check out her latest creations. She's really outdone herself! These are great for little girls and for women of all ages who just want something pretty to wear! I love wearing Myrna's silk flowers to dress up a top or wear in my hair. I'm so sad to send these beautiful creations back to her, but, I'm looking forward to the next batch of beauties she creates that I can take images of. :)Plus I had fun getting a chance to spend time taking photos of my nieces and doing a little bit of post processing, which I have to admit is kind of addicting! Snatch these beautiful creations up soon, before they are all gone!

Check out Petal Chic

Gardenias and Purple Crown Orchids

Another bride came to me by way of Etsy. She originally ordered a gardenia hair flower and a few purple hydrangea hair flowers. Once she received them she emailed me to ask if I could make her a petite bridal bouquet for a beach wedding. She originally asked for bluish purple orchids, but later we agreed on white orchids with a purplish-magenta mouth, better known as purple crown dendrobium orchids. So we mixed in the gardenias and the orchids.

Kristen also requested another gardenia hair flower to be used as a brooch pin for her wedding gown. No one has asked me to do it, but it actually is quite striking. May just have to start thinking about some design concepts when I get a chance to breathe.Best wishes to Kristen and her fiance on their wedding day!

Double Happiness Cake Topper

Recently a bride came to me with a last minute order and asked if I could make her a cake topper not of flowers, but of the Chinese character for double happiness. How hard could it be, right? I decided to blow up a couple images of the Chinese character to the size that I was going to trace. Then as I started I realized tracing wasn't going to work for me so I started to freehand it. Although the clay is relatively thick, I still needed wire supports throughout since it's 7 inches tall and 6 inches wide.

I'm hoping to get professional photos from the bride because I would love to see how this looks on a real wedding cake. :) Best Wishes to Jess and her fiance!