Bloom2Bloom
The sweet team behind bloom2bloom sent me one of their pretty floral bouquets. Flowers without a special occasion, sold.
And get this, not only do they provide pretty flowers, but any time anyone makes a purchase a portion of the purchase contributes to the donation of arrangements to women's shelters, clinics and hospitals. Goodness, imagine if more companies did this. I'd probably feel less guilty about impulse purchases.
But back to the flowers. I love receiving (or purchasing) a ready-made bouquet because then I get to turn it into something a little more special. So many times I see people do this with their bouquet.
They just stick it in a vase and call it a day. What? That's it, you're done? What an insult to flowers. Other times I do see people remove the wrapping but don't trim the stems to accommodate the vase it's going in.
I say have fun with it. Get creative.
Spread that bouquet
and pick a vase.
I don't always lay out my vases. But when I do, I take pictures.
I had enough flowers to create two different arrangements. It's like I directly donated to myself.
arrangement one
I didn't want to squeeze all the flowers into this one vase to allow flowers to breathe. It's the equivalent to sharing one water bottle with eight strangers.
I put the extra flowers in this teapot I rediscovered while I was cleaning out a cabinet a few weeks ago. It's never been used and rather than wait for tea time, I repurposed it for flowers. Give your flowers extra personality with out of the ordinary vases.
And seriously, check out bloom2bloom and buy someone you love, or even just like, a bouquet, especially knowing you're donating to someone else in need. "Spreading smiles", as b2b says.
Happy Thursday!
Sixtieth Anniversay Party. With Pictures. Just a Few.
Today I'm sharing some pictures, taken by Carolina C. Page, of my grandparents' anniversary fiesta.
We did the whole catholic ceremony shebang and everything. I realized sitting through an hour long mass wasn't so bad. I could barely even sit through an hour of Housewives and I choose to watch that.
The candid picture of my grandparents is my favorite. My grandpa is quite the funny guy and grandma rarely shows any real emotion in her pictures, and this one here depicts just how much grandpa still charms the panties off of grandma. Hope no one got any mental pictures with that one. Now you did.
I did the centerpieces. And thank jesuschristo my aunt's sister was visiting because it was her idea to steal greenery from my uncle's garden when we ran out of flowers. Here I was thinking I bought extra to be safe. It's tough to judge the exact amount of flowers one will need for twenty plus centerpieces. I even asked my usual guy at the flower mart. Thank you flower mart guy, you really know how to stress a lady out. The 230 degree temperature didn't help either. Every flower stem was like, I want the last sip of water. For vases, I went with these buckets that reminded me of the days my grandparents used to milk their cows. Moo.
In the end it really (usually) does work out and I'm getting good at practicing my patience.
And no Mexican fiesta is complete without the mariachi.
Arriba arriba.
Happy Thursday!
Super Easy Flower Arrangement
We had some guests over for dinner the other night and I wanted to make a simple floral centerpiece for our outdoor table setting.
After asking TH to pick up some flowers for me on his trip to the grocery store, he suggested I pick some roses from the garden.
The roses were pretty much all sunburnt so I kept things extra simple and snapped some basil, and wild flowers growing from a bush. This was the easiest arrangement I've ever made, taking no more than 5 mins to assemble.
To go with the garden theme, I put the flowers in a pot and voilà, an arrangement was made.
By the time I finished setting the table, it was way too dark to take any photos. And it wasn't anything you haven't already seen, so instead I styled them a bit and photographed them in our hallway.
Moral of the story is, save yourself some bucks and check out what you have growing in your yard before you spend money at your local flower shop or market. Simple flowers go a long way.
Happy Wednesday!
Hot Pink Sparkle Feather Leopard
This past Saturday I decorated a girl's birthday party.
The birthday girl requested hot pink, feathers, leopard and a touch of sparkle.
Here's what I pulled for her.
A happy birthday banner to put around the cake table.
Feathers in greenery to create the illusion that they too are growing out of this plant.
Feathers in vases for half of the centerpieces.
A basket for cards.
Pink candles and feathers to put around the cake as well.
I took these pictures before the cake arrived in case you're like, where's this cake she keeps talking about.
It was a three tier cake with leopard spots on the first and third tier, and plain cream second tier with pink trim throughout.
I mixed in some leopard lanterns along with varying shades of pink lanterns.
I used flowers for the other half of the centerpieces.
These were actually a pain in the ass to make. I have one floral arrangement class under my belt and I start thinking I'm some kind of floral magician. Like I seriously thought I could make six arrangements in an hour.
I even used the grid and my flowers were still acting up.
I think the peonies were getting all diva on me because I was forcing them next to carnations.
I arranged, rearranged, and un-arranged, moved on to the next one, back to arrange and finally my flowers somewhat gave in.
I photographed the best angle.
Then I blinged out the birthday girl's initial and that's when the party started.
Happy Tuesday!
To the Mart
I'm off to the flower mart!
I'm helping out with a girl's birthday party tomorrow and today will consist of more centerpiece creations.
Before you know it, I'm going to be a florist.
I love flowers, but not enough to give up interior design.
Hope you all have a wonderful weekend and tell your dads I say hello.
Happy Friday!
Pretty Bouquets
Last night we attended a wedding. I'm exhausted. I've been out of bed for hours but I think I'm actually just now waking up.
The bride's bouquet was so pretty. Pink and full of peonies. I would've loved to have caught it.
Oh, and if you haven't noticed, my blog got some botox. I've been wanting to make a few minor changes to the blog and I turned to my girl Erika for help. Her talents go way beyond what she did here. If you're in any need of web or logo work, check out her portfolio.
Hope you all had a great weekend!
Fun with Flowers
My floral arrangement class was fun.
Class started with, Help yourself to some wine.
Wow, classes have changed since I've been in school. I usually had to sneak in the alcohol. I should've signed up sooner.
Cheese and other snacks were also provided.
I mostly stuck with wine.
I learned quite a bit of new tricks and tips. I learned to spiral (not a dance move) flowers into a bouquet, how to cut and prep flowers, and how to look for fresh flowers: for roses, pat with the palm of your hand. If firm, they're fresh. But try to avoid touching white flowers because they'll brown faster.
If you want your floral arrangement to last longer, change the water every day and cut the bottom of the stems a bit so the flowers absorb that water. When it comes to changing the water, I'm so guilty of never doing it. Once I fill that vase with water, I just leave it as is until my flowers die. I vow to treat you better, flowers.
If your flowers aren't easily removable, you can run your arrangement under the sink and flush out the old water.
When starting to arrange, creating a grid helps a lot. It allows flowers to stay in place. You can also use some of that green floral foam but you can't really use that if you have a clear vase, and they're not environmentally friendly. Look at me, getting eco on you.
The grid, brought to you by Martha Stewart Living.
You can fill your bowl, or vase up with water first. Make sure to dry the edges well otherwise your tape won't stick. This has happened to me when I'm rushing and try to force my tape to stick. Just do it right the first time.
You can figure out how big to make your grid by figuring out the thickness of your flower stems.
And use floral tape. Scotch tape is too wide and just doesn't work the same. Speaking from experience.
The last hour of class was spent making our own arrangements.
The instructor gave us some tips, but she said it's mostly instinctual. I'm sure there's more to learn in the advanced courses, but this was a basics class. She wanted us to learn how to make arrangements look more professional with bouquets and flowers you'd find at the super market. She said to just play around with the flowers while you're arranging. It's all really personal preference too. It all kind of depends on the look you're going for. I like my arrangements low and compact.
With water and all, mine weighed like 30 pounds. I rushed home to try to take some pictures outside before the sun went down.
What do you think? Did I pass?
If you're in the Los Angeles area, next intro class is May 31st.
Classes by Flour LA.
Happy Thursday!
Prepping
It's another baby shower filled weekend for me.
Prepping, hosting and then attending one on Sunday.
Someone please invite me out to a bar after this.
Last time I used light peach carnations. Yes, carnations.
No light peach carnations at the flower mart this morning. I slightly panicked.
Instead of going with the white stock like last time, I went with the light peach stock and white cushion pom poms.
Still using coffee bean and dusty miller.
And everyone seemed to like the yellow billy balls. They're fun to say and they last a long time.
That's a look into my weekend.
Happy Friday!
Floral Arranging
Yesterday I decided I want to take a floral arrangement course. I don't know why this didn't occur to me sooner.
I love table setting and flowers are a pretty standard centerpiece.
I usually go with simple flowers in mason jars, milk glass and the like.
So simple and pretty, I feel like anyone can do this.
Why take a class? Am I missing something?
Uh, well, my floral arrangements never look like the photos below, so yeah, I am missing something. A lot of somethings, I'd say.
It's time to step it up and take a course.
Sign me up.
Hope you all have a lovely weekend.
images via style me pretty, to-be-charmed
Floral Fun
Mutual Friend: Why do you have this empty coffee tin?
The Husband: I usually use it for flowers.
Me: ???
Wait, maybe you didn't catch that. He, my husband, said he uses an old coffee tin (a Cafe Du Monde one from our trip to New Orleans) for flowers.
Where does your husband like to put his flowers? That's not a euphemism.
I like how even a simple, single flower can make a room look more...pretty.
I'm kinda curious as to why that cord wasn't hidden though.
I'm going to venture out from my typical milk glass vases and look for more unique vessels a la TH's coffee tin.
I also usually keep things simple and low.
It's time to go big.
And try a Vespa.
Happy Thursday!