image via pia ulin

spring flowers (it is still spring, right?)

Last summer I took a class on floral design and at the time I foolishly thought that it would lead to fresh flowers in my home on a weekly basis. That idea never took off (despite it being a lovely lovely thought). And though it is embarrassing to admit, I’ll say it, I never made an arrangement after that class.

That all changed when a few weeks back I was finally able to put those lessons learned to good use. How quickly everything came back to me.. even the not so great things like how I had forgotten how slow I am at assembly. Or how I always really like my first arrangement and then think “let me try something else” only to never get the flowers as perfectly arranged as I did on the first try. I’ll have to remember these things for the next time. Needless, I’m happy to have gotten the practice.

End results below.

craft: a summer purse

Did you know H&M sells infant and toddler clothing? Cause they do and they are super cute and affordable. Plus I have a love for European anything so dressing my son in European inspired clothing is something that makes me laugh and smile. I always get suckered into the low low prices and end up with something funky that has me scratching my head. On our last trip I think I went a bit overboard cause my son has been sporting some wacked out stuff. And not like “that’s cool” we’re talking “OMG, what did I do.” Going forward I’ll need to practice better restraint.

On our recent trip for some H&M toddler clothing I picked up a bag for myself that was $13. I think I must have been having a moment where carrying my fancy purse had me feeling bogged down and frustrated. So I thought, nice summer bag and it’s cheap. Before I knew it I was also holding a fist full of faux flowers that are intended to adorn your hair. They were cheap enough so I got a few and decided to make a craft project out of my goodies.

Well this trip to H&M was about two months ago and I’ve been a bit slow to complete a few different projects. Sunday I decided it was time to get going and made an effort to work on a few things. With a bit of pins and hot glue I came up with this. Despite the flowers having a loud plastic center I do like them.

What do you think of my summer purse? I myself just love the flirty-ness of the flowers. The way the petals curl is simply perfect.

purse and flowers from h&m

finished purse

flowers: pink

My mom unexpectedly came to town last month. Some of you may remember that we had childcare issues and she flew in to rescue us. That unexpected visit happened to correspond with her birthday. My lovely husband wanted to give her flowers on her big day so I selfishly request one of my favorite – ranunculus.

 

My wonderful husband picked up these beauties. Don’t you just love them?

Birthday flowers for mom

Pink Ranunculus

flower school

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:

Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging, originated during the 6th century in Japan with the introduction of Buddhism from China. It was the custom to place floral offerings in front of altars to honor the Buddha and the souls of the dead. Over time, these floral offerings evolved into floral arrangements designed to express the harmony between man and nature and between spirit and matter. By the 13th century, the practice of Ikebana became a form of meditation for Zen Buddhist priests. In 1927, a radical new approach to Ikebana was launched by Sofu Teshigahara, the late founder of the Sogetsu School. Teshigahara broke with rigid classical rules and emphasized the artist’s freedom of expression. He said, “Ikebana is not just about sticking a flower into a vase: it is about the love and need of the artist to create beautiful forms.”

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.

crafts: flowers and gift tags

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:

yellow tulips

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.

gift label

florals

Why, hello pretty!

low and lush floral arrangment

Here’s my floral arrangment from yesterday’s flower class. I’ve had so much fun doing this. It’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed my Saturday nights this much.

fate

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.

brooklyn flower shop

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.

crafts: favors and flowers

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