Birthday flowers for mom
Pink Ranunculus
I’ve been meaning to write more about my floral class at Red Rose and Lavender but time has escaped me.
If anyone recalls, I had mentioned I was taking two floral classes. The first was to be on French arrangements. I hadn’t a clue what that meant but it sounded lovely. Well, I was a bit surprised when I showed up at my first class and on the table was a small vase that resembled concrete. Like sidewalk concrete! But it gets better. Peeking out of the concrete was one flower. One single flower people?! Now, I’m not one for confrontation so I just stood there and thought – WTF? I mean, did I just pay money to learn how to put one flower in a vase? As much as I wanted to say something I just smiled and made small talk. All the while I had to wonder if there was some way I could get my money back. Again, come on, a vase with one flower peeking out? But stay with me and keep reading.
Eventually the class starts and that’s when the teacher explains that today’s class has been changed and we would now be learning the art form of Ikebana. A lot of information was given to us and then the single flower on the table began to take shape into something else. It would be too hard for me to explain the art of Ikebana arranging so here is a small informational from Zen Images:
It ended up being a really wonderful class. I think it was the perfect first class for me and as someone who greatly appreciates art I found Ikebana to have a similar attraction. Hard to explain but in Ikebana a lot of focus is placed on the look of a stem or the movement of a branch. It’s truly beautiful. And if you are into Asian Minimalist I think you’ll love this style. It’s simple and graceful. And it requires a lot of thought and patience.
I pulled these images from this blog dedicated to Ikebana arrangements so show you how the masters do it.
image via zen-images
image via zen-images
image via zen-images
Now my Ikebana arrangment didn’t look anything like those. 
It ended up being a branch with a few ranunculus sticking out of a concrete vase but I loved it and I think it looked pretty nice. Here is the only image I have from that arrangment. You can see a bit of the concrete vase at the bottom that I used. I was smitten over the concept of this beautiful flower with this unique stem popping up of something so sleep and almost cold.
first floral class
The second class was lovely as well. We focused on Low and Lush flower designs. I was so proud of my final arrangment. I loved everything about it.. the colors, my flower choices, the texture of the different items. I know I’ve already posted an image of my arrangement but here go some additional shots that I took. I used mostly ranunculus, which I’ve loved since seeing my first arrangement with this flower in Martha Stewart Weddings.
my low and lush arrangment from flower class, detail shot
my low and lush floral arrangment
low and lush floral arrangment
Aren’t those colors amazing! I had so much fun taking these classes and meeting some great girls. It makes me realize I need to be doing more. As full as my life is, there is room for me to keep learning new things.
I feel like my presence in here has been absent. I’ve been busy, busy living life. And well, for that I won’t apologize. Right now life is busy, good, beautiful. I’m fortunate.
As you can see from my previous post I’ve been busy writing notes to friends and family. As much as I enjoy sending snail mail I don’t do it nearly enough. And well, I like to savor my stationary in the way I like to savor my wrapping paper. As much delight as I receive from sending off a lovely note card I take just as much joy and pleasure in keeping my stash plentiful; hidden in boxes at the bottom of my closet.
And my weekends are also filled with Graycen. At present, we’ve been scouring the city for the best playgrounds. To see the smile on his face when we first arrive to a new spot brings me more joy then I ever knew existed. When I’m not busy with my little guy I am off, enjoying my time with good friends. I’ve been doing a lot of that as well. Hanging out, laughing, having a drink (or two).
May is quickly filling up with appointments that include more of the same – love notes, hunts for the perfect playground and time with good friends. Yes, I’m fortunate.
A few weeks back my lovely friend hosted a baby shower. She asked me to bring a floral arrangement and sadly the shower was the morning of my first floral class so I wasn’t able to utilize any special skills that I might have went on to learn. In fact, I made a big mistake with my arrangement that I solved in my class later that evening.
The only guidance my friend provided me with was that the color scheme was bright turquoise, espresso and yellow. How gorgeous is that? In fact, I think I will tuck these colors away for a later appearance but I digress. Instantly I knew I would need yellow flowers and picked up some lovely tulips at the market. I assembled my arrangement that evening and the morning of the shower I woke up to tulips that were big and wide. They had completely opened up. The perfect dome I had formed the flowers into had shifted and everything was off. The flowers were big and beautiful but I hadn’t wanted them to open up that big. I was disappointed and dumbfounded as to what went wrong. Well I figured it out at my floral class that evening. My house was too warm and the heat caused my flowers to bloom. For your viewing pleasure:
Lesson learned: If you need to open your flowers quickly, use warm water in your arrangement. Or, put them in a warm place. If you want your flowers to stay a bit more closed, keep them cool. This may be obvious to others but it wasn’t to me.
I also made tags to hang from the favors that were being given out. The theme was travel and when I found a clip art image of vintage luggage I was in love. Would you not agree? (image below)
I doubt I need to say this but it’s always fun to have an excuse to whip out my crafting supplies.
Ok, maybe using the word fate would be taking things a bit far but this is a true story. I think I’ve mentioned before that I can be a bit obsessive about paper products and such. I also get this way with things I deem “pretty.” It’s a random and bad bad habit but that’s me. It just is what it is, you know?
Well, I’ve been holding on to a few random things in my kitchen cabinets because they are “too pretty” to trash. Things we don’t use, things we don’t need. It’s crazy because I’m a minimalist at heart but certain things I can’t part with.. too pretty. Yet, my sons assortment of food is getting bigger and bigger so I needed the space but I still couldn’t part with everything. Now, I’m not a hot tea drinker but through my husband we’ve managed to collect several hot tea sort of things. Like two tins from our travels to London that had loose tea in them. They are too cute and the top has this raised seal – no way could I just dump ‘em. See, this is it… cute, right!
cute tea tin
I won’t even mention the part about the trip to London being about 4 years ago and how the tea was still sealed into the tins. We never opened them and even if we had the tea wasn’t fresh anymore. But I’ve kept them because they are adorable, you feel me. Well I finally took them out of the cupboard and snapped some photos cause I wanted to see if you folks had any ideas on how I could reuse the tins that I refuse to dump and then… it happened… I saw this photo while perusing through on old Martha Stewart Weddings magazine. (Summer 2006)
via Martha Stewart
It’s fate, right? And such an adorable idea, don’t you think? Also, it seems I’m not the only one thinking about pretty tea tins. While trying to hunt down an online photo of this image I came across this recent post by decor8. Nice to see I’m not the only one holding onto pretty tins.
Pretty Things: baby orchids, misting bottles and gnomes
Potted Succulents/Air Plants
Funky ceiling décor of pages from the Geographical Magazine and maps.
I’m a bit pressed for time this morning so I’ll have to post about my floral class later this week. I did still want to drop off some photos of Red Rose & Lavender, the floral shop where my class was held. They are located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and the shop was very Williamsburg, which is to say – heavy on the artistic appeal, hipsters’ vibe, young, vibrant and a little bit of grit. I absolutely loved it! Definitely the perfect setting to get creative.
Flowers for a Baby Shower
Shhhh.. don’t tell anyone but I belong to a Secret Society. That’s pretty much all I can tell you about this amazing group of woman. Well, that along with how smart, charming, witty and down right fashionable they are. Ok, enough about the Secret Society.
A few weeks back we had a baby show for one of the girls. I got to be on the Decorating Committee, which basically meant I supplied favors and flowers. I’m a crafter who never really crafts so I get excited when I have a chance to be creative and make pretty things. But sometimes I get ahead of myself. Like in this case… I knew I wanted to do something in a box and only came up with the what part after purchasing the boxes. Not really a horrible thing BUT I waffled back and forth between a cupcake and cookies. Cookies won out because we were getting a fancy cake for the shower and the double cake thing seemed a bit redundant. Bad idea! Or maybe the bad part was using recipes I had never made before. I decided to go with two types of cookies, a chocolate chip cookie and a Martha Stewart Butterscotch cookie. Both turned out pretty crappy and I was honestly embarrassed to have my name attached to them. So much so that I didn’t even include the chocolate chip cookies in the box.
Even if what was inside the box sucked at least the decor on the box was cute to look at, no?
Flowers and Favor Boxes
I got the idea for boxes adorned with ribbon and silhouettes from Sara Hicks Malone of Party Perfect blog. It’s a great blog so check her out.
Wedding of Sara Hicks Malone, Martha Stewart Weddings
Image from Martha Stewart Weddings
I’ll be taking two floral classes this month as well as a guided tour of the Flower Market here in New York City. My ambitions are pretty low.. I’m not trying to walk away with the skills of a florist BUT maybe I’ll be a tad better at throwing together an arrangement for my personal pleasure. One class will focus on French designs. Not that I have a clue what that means but it sounds lovely. The second class will focus on Low and Lush arrangements something I’m a bit more familiar with though clueless on how to arrange. In 10 days I take my first class. Yay!
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