Custom Orchid Arrangement

My client and past bride, Joyce asked me to create an arrangement that she could put on her altar with a gold statue of the Bhudda. Joyce always challenges me with her requests because she usually picks flowers I haven't yet done before. She wanted dendrobium orchids, cattleya orchids, miltoniopsis and bulbophyllum aruicomum, which are the national flower of Burma. 

After Joyce showed her mother the arrangement, she said that I didn't get the bulbophyllum orchids right. The tough part is when you have to depend on the internet and you can't find a detailed image of the flower you want to replicate. Nonetheless, Joyce is very happy with the arrangement and is excited to put it next to her Bhudda statue.

She said she would try to get me a replica of the flower so that one day I can create the orchids correctly!

Cake Flowers (Poppy, Gardenia and Peonies)

I love how one flower can make a beautiful statement on a cake. It's simple yet beautiful. Don't get me wrong, I love a full cascade of flowers on a cake too, but there is also beauty in just one big bloom.

I had the opportunity to make these for a client this past week: gardenia, poppy and peonies. The peonies are actually a set of 3, painted with gold highlights per the client's request.

 This red poppy with green and yellow center was also made. Initially the client wanted a green and yellow center but she decided to have the stamens in black instead. So this one below is for sale on Etsy. You can find the listing here.

Custom Plumeria Favor Boxes

My past bride, Keva, contacted me recently to see if I could make 5 more favor boxes but with custom colored plumeria flowers and matching ribbons and tags. This was a fun one. I wasn't sure how they would all turn out but I'm pleasantly surprised how well they all work.

 

It's a great way to see that you're not just stuck to one color plumeria for your favor box!

Custom Floral Arrangement for a Past Client

I'm always very thankful for repeat business from my past brides. This particular client/bride ordered from me years ago and she still asks me to create special arrangements for her and her loved ones. Her uncle recently passed away and she asked me to create a floral arrangement for her aunt in memory of him. 

She asked for fragrant roses, jasmine, gardenias and orchids. Mostly in white and ivory tones but with hints of color. I think it turned out really nice and hopefully it will bring her aunt some love, happiness and peace during this difficult time.

Joyce asked me to create another arrangement, which I will be starting tomorrow, so another blog post on that later this week.

We Got Snow...

While this post is a little late, I just had to share these photos. We live in Southern California and as you can imagine, unless you live in the high elevations, it's pretty rare to get snow. We live at an elevation of 1600 feet so the winter storm from Canada was forecasted for snow levels to drop to as low as 1000 feet. 

I kept telling my husband that they are forecasting snow and he, being from the East Coast, told me there is no way. Well, at about midnight the of the 30th/31st, the rain turned to snow. Of course, we figured there's no way it would be there by morning. I awoke to the sound of kids' voices at 6:30 a.m. I looked outside and viola, it was WHITE as snow!

Since we are new to the area, everyone said that it's been 10 years since they had snow and that it stuck. I had experienced snow when I was little in the Bay Area and never again saw snow that stuck and I'm much older now. My son has not even experienced the snow so he was in for a treat. We weren't prepared by any means so it was hard to go out and have fun but we managed to throw some snowballs. Even Molly our little Boston Terrier loved the snow!

It was a nice way to bring in the New Year, but boy did it become an inconvenience. No one here is prepared for snow. It literally stuck around until January 4th! We're happy to be back in warmer temperatures and it's forecasted to get close to 80 this weekend!

Peonies, Sweet Peas and Lilacs

Another project I just finished today was this beautiful custom arrangement for a lovely woman in France. She saw some arrangements I did for Susana of the citrusandorange blog years ago. She asked if I could do a similar arrangement but with slightly different flowers and colors. She wanted various shades of pink. 

Sandrine asked for peonies, lilacs and sweet peas. The arrangement turned out beautifully. Thinking if I have some time, I would like to create some of these to sell in different colors of course. Originally I had done the peonies in the deep pink, but she wanted a bit more contrast so we ended up agreeing to add some yellow into the inner parts of the petals. 

I've included both the original and the final arrangement photos. So thankful that my arrangements travel such distances and that people are still willing to order my flowers to decorate their homes with.

 This arrangement definitely gets you ready for Spring!

Ivory, Yellow and Green Wedding Bouquet

The first week of January was spent working on this bouquet. My client is not getting married until later this year, but she is having a bridal photo shoot with her photographer and she wanted to be able to have it for that shoot. When we talked about her flowers she wanted hints of coral in her bouquet. We hadn't talked much via Facebook so there was a bit of confusion. So the first 2 photos are of the original bouquet.

The subsequent photos are of the final bouquet design as she only wanted a touch of coral in the bouquet as it better matched her color palette. While both are very beautiful, the original one adds a pop of color while the final version is more of a muted color palette, but also quite nice.

 The flowers that the client chose were, ivory roses, white ranunculus, green viburnum, coral hipericum berries, plumerias, yellow calla lilies, white and yellow tulips with an ivory ribbon wrap.

 Best wishes to Lien and her fiance!

Happy New Year... New Projects

Happy New Year! I hope your 2015 is off to a great start. I know every year for the past couple of years, I come out with great intentions of getting back to blogging and then alas, the blog posts are few and far between. As I reflect back on 2014, it was definitely a year of transitions and change. While it provided us with a new beginning in a new community, it also lead me to try to escape things I didn't want to face or do through spending countless hours on social media (unfortunately not blogging). So what has changed? I will write a separate post very soon, but for now, I wanted to share some projects that I've been working on.

The first of the year has been quite busy with orders and I'm so grateful for all the work that God has blessed me with. It's a great motivator after a very slow 4 months which is typical around the holidays.

The first image is of some wedding favors that a client requested. She decided that since they were having a lot of flowers on the tables that they didn't need the flower favor boxes. Instead she wanted coral pink boxes with white ribbon and a matching favor tag. Her colors are coral pink and grey/silver. 

 The first week of 2015 was jam packed with lots of anemones. I had one client who wanted a large anemone cake topper (shown above). 

 Another client who is an event planner not too far from where we live and she is doing a table design at a big event conference called BASH. She asked me to make anemones because they aren't in season. So she ordered 18 white and black anemones. I can't wait to see her table design for the event and hope she wins the competition

Thank you for stopping by, and I'll have a few more posts to put up after this.