Snippets from my BHLDN Order...

I thought I would share some photos and my journey as I created the exclusively designed cake topper for BHLDN's Spring 2013 collection. Discussions began in mid November, but we didn't finally agree to everything until mid December. I hadn't even created a sample for them to review up until this point. Finally I got the go ahead and created the sample for them to review and they loved it. They requested minor changes, but overall they were quite pleased with the cake topper. They didn't want any plastic or silk fillers that I often use in my arrangements because they wanted it to be 100% handmade out of clay!  

Once I got the go ahead which was literally a week and a half before Christmas, I started making flowers. This was no small task. Every cake topper had A LOT of flowers. Thousands of petals were made in the process. I think I literally cranked out 40 peonies in 12 hours! It was a race against the clock in between hosting Christmas dinner with my family and all the holiday gatherings. I managed to finish all the flower elements before New Year's Eve and then the final assembly began the week between Christmas and New Year's and the week after that. Even after all the flowers were made, I had a lot of things to wire, wrap with tape and paint. I even cut my finger cutting wires. That's always a fun experience. Luckily this time it was just a graze and fortunately the flower making was complete. The casualties of my job make me appreciate how important my fingers and hands are. I was sore on a daily basis sitting in my studio cranking out every single petal, flower and leaf! Did I mention the large flowers all got calyx too? 

I even needed to figure out my own packaging and how I was going to package this beautiful cake topper. They said it didn't have to be anything fancy, but I wanted it to have appeal. I had hoped to find sturdier boxes, but with such a short lead time to get everything to their distribution center, I had to make do with what I could find short notice.

I'm so grateful for the opportunity to create something beautiful that is completely handmade for BHLDN. To know that they appreciate all the work that was put into the cake topper is reward enough. All the energy, time and sore body parts was worth the effort. Thank you to the amazing staff at BHLDN, they are truly AMAZING! If you're interested in purchasing the exclusive design with BHLDN, please click here.