Flower Arrangements

A friend passed along this link from Apartment Therapy, and the lovely arrangements captured my attention this rainy morning. The writer put these photos together as examples of bouquets that are "androgynous," i.e. not too girly. I think it's odd to categorize flowers as automatically feminine, and I really like a lot of these, particularly the one pictured above. What do you think? Guys, are all flower arrangements girly to you?

In other news, Official Taster and I are settling into Seattle. It's significantly rainier here than we are used to, and the cold was quite a shock to our Southern California acclimated selves. I got the kitchen unpacked and I will have a new treat up in the next couple of days (internet should be up and running tonight or tomorrow). My Etsy shop should also be up and running shortly! Just in time for you to start planning your holiday purchases...

Fun Food and Flower Photography

If you like food, flowers, fun, and good photos, head on over to Fulvio Bonavia's site. Under the Work section, there are some lovely landscapes, famous people, and also fun with flowers and food. These photos are but a sampling - do check his out!

Friday Morning Flowers

Good morning! Today's flowers are a vegetative design, like I showed you earlier, that I created with tulips, iris, and scabiosa (the light purple and sort of crinkled flowers). We were given a pile of flowers in class last night and told to make a specific design of our choosing (i.e. do something purposefully, don't just stick flowers in the oasis randomly).

I chose vegetative because I thought the flowers I had lent themselves to a very natural look. Remember, vegetative designs are supposed to look like someone took a shovelful of garden and stuck it in a pot. I really like the miniature world feeling that adding stones created- it makes me want to tunnel through the bushes like I did as a kid (or "kiddo", according to mom).


The past couple of days, I've been playing around with drying flowers, so I'll probably keep doing that over the weekend (and staring intently at my pile, willing my pansies to press faster). I'm very much in an arts-and-crafts mood, which is pretty much at odds with finals week, but I'll probably force myself to some studying as well. What are you up to this weekend?

Friday Morning Flowers

I don't know what I'm going to do when my class is over and I no longer have eye candy for you every Friday! I love being able to share my creations with you each week. It makes me feel like each arrangement is getting the attention it deserves, rather than just sitting on my table while Official Taster and I live our lives around it.

This week we could make whatever we wanted, as long as we used one each of the pink Gerbera Daisy, pink Snapdragon, white Alstroemeria, and deep purple Limonium. Beyond that, we could scavenge the classroom for flowers, greens, and containers. I chose a pave design, like the other week, because I like them, and because I thought it was a good way to make the required flowers work together. I'm pretty pleased with the result.

This weekend, I don't have to work, which is always exciting, and I think I'm going to hang out with a new friend of mine I met in a pottery class. What about you? Any fun plans? If you want something to make your (or your loved ones) Sunday more special, check back tomorrow for my suggestion!

Friday Morning Flowers

Good morning! I realize that posting both here and on facebook has been a bit, shall we say, sparse this week, and I do apologize. But I have to plead mitigating circumstances- my parents are visiting! It's of course lovely to see them, but they do cut down on my computer time. Which might be a good thing come to think of it...

In any case, today's arrangement is pretty tall, which I think you can tell from the picture. It's about 3 ft tall, including the vase, so it definitely grabs your attention. I don't usually like Bird of Paradise very much, but I think they work well for this, and I love the Gerberas. The yellow-green Spider Mum is a fun accent. It's always fun to see what other people in the class create with the same flowers, and this week was no exception. I think last night's arrangements were the best of the semester so far. Go team!

Friday Morning Flowers

Good morning! It's a beautiful day here in Southern California. I hope it's nice where you are too! Today's flowers are purple dendrobium (the orchids), orange ranunculus, and orange asiatic lilies (they haven't opened yet).


This weekend I'm going to Art Alive at the San Diego Museum of Art. Floral designers (really good ones) interpret art through flowers. If you're around, I recommend checking it out. I hear it's awesome.
What are you doing?

Friday Morning Flowers

Good morning!
Today's flowers are simple and sweet- a yellow rose and purple tulips in the center with greens and alstroemaria around them. Enjoy!



Also, I have new cookies up on Etsy!
I'm really excited about them because they're a brand new creation of mine. I used organic lemon zest and mint from my [container] garden to fancy up some vegan sugar cookies. Check them out and let me know how they sound! Don't forget Mother's Day is sooooon.... I also think they'd be great for showers, teas, favors, graduates, or your next snack.

Have a great weekend!

Friday Morning Flowers

Today I have a pave design to brighten up your weekend. In a true pave, all of the flowers would be at the same height, but as you can see, the roses are a little tall. A smaller variety would have worked better, or taller other flowers. But I really do like this kind of design- the patterns appeal to me. Many of them remind me of looking out an airplane window and seeing fields below. The colors we got this week are fantastic- we got all the colors except blue (rare in flowers), which I thought was pretty rare and wanted to do something to highlight that. Voila, the almost rainbow/color wheel.

What are you doing this weekend? I'm planning on going to the farmers market tomorrow, finding delicious fruit, and making a crisp. I'll share with you, assuming Official Tester doesn't eat it before I can photograph it!

Friday Morning Flowers

Good morning and Happy Friday to you! Today's parallel arrangement involves pink roses, yellow snapdragons, purple leatris, white chrysanthemums, some green leaves that I forget, and elephant moss down at the bottom. As you can probably figure out for yourselves, parallel arrangements require that the stems be, well, parallel. Vertical, horizontal, or diagonal is fine.

Have a great weekend!

Friday Morning Flowers

I know it's Saturday. afternoon. I apologize. The internet was down yesterday morning and I didn't have time to deal with it between studying and getting to class (no worries, parents, I got 111%!).




Anyway, for today you need to think beachy, luau, Jimmy Buffet, drinks with little umbrellas in them, Hawaii, warm sand....

And you get this tall table arrangement. It's supposed to kind of look like a one of those beach umbrellas/huts made out of grass and I've got happy, bright, tropical flowers below. I was skeptical at first, I admit, but it's grown on me.

I like it :)

So Happy Saturday!

Friday Morning Flowers

Good morning! This will be fairly short since I have 2 tests in a couple of hours, but I couldn't not do Friday Morning Flowers!
This week was Botanical Arrangements. The idea with this type of design is that you show the whole life cycle of the flower (usually a bulb flower like iris, daffodil, amaryllis, etc). This means you include the actual bulb in your design, as well as dead and dying flowers. You can even have petals down on the base or the table your arrangement is placed on.

Now, that's all lovely, but I didn't really want a whole lot of dead flowers in my arrangement. Partly because they are less pretty (duh), and partly so I didn't get the "why are there a lot of dead flowers in there? didn't you just make it?" from The Official Tester. I figure the daffodils that started closed will be opening and the ones that were open will start to droop and the dying ones I put in there will continue to fade.

Have a great weekend!

Friday Morning Flowers (and chocolate!)

Good morning! Happy March! I realize that I have not posted in a WHOLE WEEK, and so, dear friends, I present lots and lots of flowers for you. There's actually another vase of the Gerberas upstairs, but I thought you could visualize for yourself. Since it's up the stairs.
very far away.





Daffodils were on sale at the grocery store 2 bunches/$3 and I love them. So I bought them.
The Amaryllis (much more red in person) were a post-Christmas Christmas present from Mom (thank you) and I've got a second starting on the windowsill.
The roses are, I think, a little less orange in real life and a bit more peachy, but pretty either way.

Did you know that you can make a Bird of Paradise have more "feathers"? If you hold the flower under water you can open the slit on the top of the green part (facing the right in the arrangement) and get out some more of the orange and purple. Cool, huh? I thought so!

I brought home some left over flowers that were pretty and needed a home and plopped them in a beer glass. Classy, I know.


ALSO! Chocolate flowers! yay! I love these little fudge blooms and I hope you do too :) I thought they were perfect for spring and I'm hoping to get them posted on Etsy this weekend. Maybe Mom will comment with a review since I just mailed her some?


Enjoy and have a lovely weekend!

Friday Morning Flowers

Good morning!

I hope if you're on the east coast you're not totally snowed in, and if you're here in sunny CA that you can enjoy at least part of this beautiful day outside :)

Today's arrangement is a waterfall design, which, I've discovered, is not my favorite. I think you really need a lot of flowers to make it look good. But I do like the happy yellow tulips!

Friday Morning Flowers

Good morning! Today's arrangement is a vegatative design, and the idea is that it should look like someone took a shovel to your garden and dug up a patch and plopped it onto a table. So it should look natural (ish. it still has to be pretty).








I love the flowers in this one because they are so springy! Yellow forsythia, pinky purpley tulips, purple iris, and the white ones are called stock.

Friday Morning Flowers

Good morning! I really like this little arrangement I made last night, and I hope you do too!

Friday Morning Flowers

Happy Friday!
I made this arrangement last night in my first floral design class of the semester. It's Pink Anthurium and I thought it might brighten your day :)