New Arrangements on Etsy for Valentine's Day Gifts

I've been trying to create some pieces to sell in my Etsy shop as Valentine's Day is fast approaching. I had posted one last week and it sold the same day I listed it!  So for the last 2 days I've been making flowers, assembling and painting so that I could list 4 new arrangements on my site.

Some arrangements are in my signature mini teapot design, I have one more of the mini heart teacup and saucer arrangement and I decided to put one arrangement in the small white cup vases I used years ago. So much vibrant color in these small little arrangements! Click here to visit my Etsy shop!

Tropical Wedding Bouquet for a Destination Maui Wedding

It's been a busy week of getting flowers done in between being a mom. Today, I finished this beautiful tropical bouquet for my client, Malia. She's from Canada and is planning to get married in Maui next month. She shared with me a photo of a silk floral arrangement that she really liked. This bouquet contained plumerias, Asiatic lilies, calla lilies, 3 different colored roses and greenery.

We made a few modifications to the original bouquet, but overall the color scheme and flowers were included. We added pave rhinestone button accents with a cranberry ribbon wrap and bow.  It's definitely vibrant and full of color. It makes you long to be on the islands smelling the beautiful plumerias and enjoying the beach! Congratulations to Malia and her fiance!

Magnolia Cake Flowers for a Destination Wedding in the Dominican Republic

I'm always in awe of how far my flowers will travel! Leslie found me via Etsy and asked if I could make her 3 magnolia cake flowers like the one I have listed in my shop but in specific sizes. This is how they turned out. Leslie is having a destination wedding in the Dominican Republic in a couple more months!

Best wishes to Leslie and her fiance and thank you for asking me to create your cake flowers!

Real Wedding Image - Single Stem Peony Blooms for Bridesmaids

This morning I received a lovely photo from one of my client's who got married this past summer. She had seen my previous blog post about the creamy yellow, single stem peony bouquets for bridesmaids, and it reminded her to send me a photo from her wedding. Working with Ann was so awesome, such a super sweet bride and easy to work with. Just absolutely gorgeous! This photo is courtesy of Nina Perini Photography.

Creamy Yellow, Single Bloom Peony Bouquets for a Destination Wedding

 A client contacted me last year to see if I could create single bloom peonies for her 8 bridesmaids for her 2013 destination wedding. Her colors are yellow and gray. After some discussion she had really wanted the stems to be longer, but it was discussed after the flowers were already created. So instead of trying to redo the stems, we agreed to add really long silvery/gray bow/ribbon to elongate the look.

 I am sure the single bloom peony bouquets will be stunning with the bridesmaids' yellow dresses. I am hoping the bride shares photos with me after her wedding!

 

Gifts for Chinese New Year

 

One of my son's classmate's mom asked if I could create some arrangements to give to her mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law for Chinese New Year, but we agreed that something they could have all year long that would be beautiful yet have meaning made more sense. So since my friend likes pink, we went with a single pink peony bloom with a bud and leaves in a simple glass vase.

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.

Blush Pink and White Heirloom Roses for Valentine's Day

An international client of mine contacted me again and asked me to make some special roses for his significant other for Valentine's Day. It's always a great compliment to have reorders from past clients and that they continue to enjoy my work. He thought of long stem roses and he wanted a lighter shade of pink. He said that she liked the white ones I did for her last time so maybe we could incorporate the two colors. So I decided to do a blush pink with white outer petals. These are 18 inches long. 

I hope this weekend I can come up with some Valentine's Day arrangements to post on my Etsy site as it's getting close to February 14th!

More Lilacs for 2013!

Last weekend, I spent the entire weekend working on lilac buds and blossoms. Yes, I had back-to-back orders for lilacs. This time it was for a sugar artist and friend, Jacqueline Butler of Petalsweet Cakes! Ever since I created the lilac bouquet for one of my brides years ago, she has had it on her wish list. She recently moved to a new place and wanted to have an arrangement of them for her office to inspire her and add color! I was completely honored she wanted to have my work in her office!

I hope the next lilac arrangement I make is for myself. :) I can't wait for Spring and Summer. It's been unseasonably cold here and I'm over all the rain we got, so arrangements like these brighten the wintry days!

BHLDN and DK Designs!

With the new year comes new opportunities. For the last month and a half I've been working with the staff at BHLDN.com to create an exclusive clay flower cake topper for their Spring 2013 collection which launched today! It was a lot of long days cranking out hundreds if not thousands of flowers to create the final piece all during the holidays no less. The best part is that my cake topper made their DECOR landing page! I couldn't be more thrilled!

(Image courtesy of BHLDN.com)

I love BHLDN.com and I wished they were around when I got married. So many beautiful and unique things for weddings. The Spring Collection is just gorgeous in every way! Hopefully later this week I'll share some behind the scenes images of all the work that went into making the cake toppers for the launch!

(Image courtesy of BHLDN.com)

For now, please check out their website! I am so extremely honored that their decor staff found me and asked me to create a design exclusive to them. This is my BIG announcement that I've been waiting to share with all of you!

Featured in Southern Weddings Magazine V5

I've been really bad about blogging in 2012, but my goal is to blog like I used to in 2013. I have been meaning to write a post about a feature spread in the latest issue of Southern Weddings Magazine (V5). Last year, Emily Ayer contacted me to see if I could rush them 6 gardenias for a shoot they had the following Monday. Good thing I had gardenias already made to ship her. I'm blessed that even after a few years, they continue to enjoy the timeless look of my gardenias. When I got my copy in the mail I was so excited to see how they used my gardenias.

V5 came out in late November and each issue outdoes the one before it. It's so gorgeous, every detail and the amount of work that went into this issue is apparent. Eye candy galore!

The gals at Southern Weddings Magazine did a featured on Something Old, Something New, photographed by the very talented Nancy Ray Photography. Here's a link to the images in the spread. I highly suggest you order your copy if SW is not sold in your area.

Thank you again to the wonderfully talented women of Southern Weddings!

Lilacs to start the New Year!

Happy New Year! My goal this year is to get back into the blogging mode and be more consistent on sharing with you what I'm working on. 2012 was a good year, but filled with many challenges. I'm very excited about 2013 and things are really looking up. Ready to kick it into high gear for my winter brides. 

The first big order for the new year is out the door. Stay tuned as I will have some really exciting news in a couple weeks. It's BIG! :)

Until then, I wanted to share this project I worked on for a dear blogging friend, Susana of citrusandorange blog. She asked me to create lilacs for her. It's been something she's wanted for a long time, ever since I made it for a bride a couple of years ago. Susana is an amazing designer and can put together the most stylish table top designs and decor. She has used my flowers in the past which has gotten me noticed on Design Sponge and Amy Atlas.It's always a delight to see what she does with my flowers and how versatile she makes them.

I think I must have gotten quicker at making lilacs because the first time I made them it took me forever. Susana had a time restriction and because she lives in Portugal there's also a shipping lead time to factor in for a special project she is working on. So, I turned these around in 3 days. Even the leaves and foliage are all out of clay as well!

This arrangement definitely makes the cold wintry days seem brighter and definitely motivates and inspires me to make 2013 the best year yet for DK Designs. I'm looking forward to sharing more projects with you in the near future.