Now, some of you may know how I feel about D.I.Y. flowers for your wedding day and if not you can read ALL about it HERE, when I wrote an article about it a few weeks back over at Elizabeth Anne Designs.

BUT- I do love flowers. I love them so much. I love them more than anything. And knowing how to arrange them for your life, your home, your family, your wedding… is so so gratifying. SO- learn! I suggest it. If you’re crafty at all, you will love it. There’s not a better forum than this to do it!

Summer over at Grey Likes Weddings [a fabulous new inspiration blog] is throwing a fun D.I.Y. workshop for floral design! You don’t need to be a pro but you DO need to have a fun attitude to go to a thing like this. Summer’s a GREAT floral designer and has done the wedding flowers for her 3 sisters [two this past year] and friends so far. Her florals are always lush, romantic, and beautifully arranged. I’ll bet if you attend, you won’t regret it! Now at $120 per person [or $140 for two people should you want to share supplies!], it’s not a “steal”- but taking home a fresh arrangement PLUS snacks and drinks while you’re there… so worth it! Sign up now- registration is now open!!

Go HERE to sign up and get more information about this great workshop opportunity! And for a little visual inspiration of Summer’s work [and a little 6-degrees-of-separation for you, too]:

This is the sisters, at Hayley’s wedding above, a few years back. Hayley [2nd from left] is married to Travis Ryan. Travis leads worship at Saddleback Church’s San Clemente Campus. This is where Josh plays bass every Sunday. They’re BFF.

This is Brooke and Trever’s wedding from summer of 2008, shot by the ever-fab and personal fave Michael Norwood. Not only was Michael a groomsman in this wedding, but Trever is the one who took the STUNNING photos of my Josh for his new EP [see the photos by clicking HERE... seriously EPIC status].

Summer, Hayley, Brooke, and Brittany all grew up as family friends with Michael Norwood, so he also shot Brittany’s wedding at the end of 2008. Some of Summer’s insane florals from that day:

I know, I know… they’re all gorgeous! BUT- look at the flowers, too! What a great gal to learn from, am I right?? Don’t delay- sign up today! If enough of my clients want to go [email me and tell me if you've registered], I’ll join you guys for the evening! Any excuse to hang out with my B’s for a night, right? What?? Oh, B’s means BRIDES you silly readers!!

xoxo,

A.

So in my last “rundown” below, I posted about my little poppies and they just looked so SAD! Figured I’d update you with some more happy pictures of them. I took these the following morning and I’m a bit bummed because they just kept getting happier [and I didn't document it!]. But alas, these will definitely do the trick in brightening MY gloomy days…

In case anyone is curious, my list of “favorites” about poppies is threefold:

1. Before the bloom, they look like little hairy toothless grandpas and I couldn’t love their little “faces” ANY more!

2. They’re wildflowers, so you just get a mixed bag of surprise colors when you buy them. The delightful randomness is tickling!

3. When they bloom, the reach their petals towards the sky as if it were their last dying breath. It’s incredible, encouraging, metaphorical, inspiring… I could go on.

xoxo!

A.

A very generous little birdie pointed me to these earlier today and I HAD to share my favorites.

These luscious florals are compliments of Dandelion Ranch located in Culver City [temptingly close for any of my weddings...] and they came to my birdie friend via Green Wedding Shoes.

Ranancs are my ULTIMATE favorite flower [soft stems, ugh, I LOVE them]. So of course I almost lost it when I saw these!

The garden feel to these dahlias and more above, is epic to me. I absolutely adore it. And you knew I had to throw in one more with Rananculus in it!

Enjoy the weekend and make it a GOOD one. Remember, “good” and “productive” won’t always go hand-in-hand. Make it good the way YOU need it to be, as a couple.

xoxo!!

A.

Since Alex and Brad [who you may remember from my initial post about them HERE and then my post on their invites- still in the works- HERE!!!] have a family friend who is their florist, they made the trek to downtown LA and braved the early morning market hours to have a little floral trial run. It came out wonderful and she LOVES it- which makes me more happy than anything. The staff at Dress My Chair were kind enough to allow me to borrow the linens for a bit to allow us to really complete the look! Here are some pics below.

The bridesmaid bouquets:

Cocktail centerpieces [but our linens will be aqua crushed satin]:

And now, for the centerpieces!!

Rumor has it the manzanita branches will be painted aqua to match the runner. Yippee… and moreover, we’ve got crystals to hang from the branches. I know in their venue, this is going to be so fabulous. YAY! I can’t wait for wedding season to start!

xoxo,

A.

If you follow my blog at all, you know how I feel about flowers. If you don’t, here it is plain and simple: I. love. flowers. So, so, so, SO much!

The other morning I went to downtown LA bright and early in the morning, mainly to pick up my floral pass for the next two years, but I decided to pick up some stems whilst there. It was a terrible morning. Not sure why but I felt I was “out of the mode” and I ended up spending $21 on over-priced flowers from a vendor that I wasn’t super impressed with, colors I wasn’t pleased with and walked out totally bummed on the experience. Typically I love the market but it just didn’t happen for me.

In fact, they’ve been sitting in a bucket with water just waiting to be arranged, all wrapped up, until tonight around 6pm. Over 24 hours! So, I went ahead to Alberston’s and picked up a few more small bunches to whip up a bouquet for myself, because I NEEDED to.

The results:

Alstromeria, 2 packs of carnations [dark full sized and mini lighter carnations], spray roses, and deep purple calla lilies.

This is how completely NOT into it I was: I wrapped the bouquet in that cheap-o “paper-y” ribbon that feels terrible to the touch, creases instead of bends, and is 100& unpleasant. I pinned it up the back with some cute red-headed pins to salvage my pride a bit, but it is what it is… and I’m content with what it is.

Yep. Totally not my fave. Totally uninspired. But, this is why I dubbed it my “therapy bouquet”. It shows me not only how easily I can become “out of practice”, but more than that, that I need to just jump back on the train and good things will still happen. After all, it’s still pretty, fresh flowers to fill my home with their implied smiles [don't you always think of flowers as smiling?], and for that I am so grateful! Even if I was gouged with the prices at the market!

Oh, and P.S… mind my ‘zilla hair. I went to Disneyland earlier today [which was empty and SO much fun] and the water rafting ride over in California Adventure completely soaked me. I took my pony tail out 10 hours later, and it was still wet. Eeeew! Love me anyway!!

xoxo,

A.

I know that, from my generation at least, baby’s breath is like one of the “worst of the worst”, bottom of the line things to have in your florals. But honestly, I can’t deny that pictures like this:

[which apparently- and not shockingly- I just found out was the work of favorite OC florist Flower Allie]

And this:

are forcing me to re-think my entire understanding of the small “filler flower”. They are dainty, delicate, soft, subtle, and most of all… gorgeous! I’m urging you to re-think it as well!! Have a fabulous Monday night. Great inspiration to start a great week! xoxo!

Apparently the mice will learn about flowers and the cat will come home jealous of their new found knowledge. Okay, enough of that analogy.

I received a card about three weeks ago from Christine Saunders [of The Spiraled Stem Floral Design] informing me about a workshop she was holding for coordinators. “Floral Emergencies” and such for us to be able to have the skill to correct those little last-minute problems, should we have any. Immediately I knew I wanted to be there. However, I was in Vegas at the time!! So, I signed up 3 of my team members to join Christine at her studio to soak up all the floral goodness that they could and then leak it out to me, like little sponges. They had SO. MUCH. FUN!

And here are some pictures to prove it! When everyone arrived, they were greeted with wine and cheese and some down time of mingling…

Alicia and Miriam above. They were ALSO greeted with their very own take-home “emergency” kit, which is awesome!!

I so love that Christine did this, and the contents are SO useful. It’ll go perfect in our POMPs. Okay, maybe not the whole shebang on the side of my body…

They went straight into learning how to make boutonnieres. Here’s where I get SUPER jealous because I kinda missed that day in my floral class last year.

And, all 3 of my girls’ rose bouts. Alicia’s is the one falling apart, closest to us. Haha, Alicia!! :)

Christine used Mir’s lapel to teach the class how to pin on boutonnieres properly. She’s a pro!!

And they did a round 2 of boutonnieres as well- mini calla lillies. My FAVE. They look much better!!

Mir and Shan listening intently:

Or, Shannon just being cute. Either way. :)

Bouquets are done!!

Christine’s all-rose nosegay bouquet totally ROCKS, of course [pictured below]. I love that she taught them the tricky-to-catch-on-to [but totally, totally worth it] method of spiraling the stems!!

For the last trick of the evening, Christine taught the ladies how to decorate a cake!

Using a cake that she got donated to the class, she decorated the top of the cake in flowers and each tier with mini clusters. And of course the bonus was that they all got to take some home!! Yum!

Vwah-lah!! Or something like that [or so Josh thinks].

Alicia gladly enjoyed some yummy cake!

Time to go home, after a successful night of flowers!

All in all, through pictures and straight from the ponies’ mouths, they had a GREAT time! Lots of fun, learning, and goofing around. Hopefully I’ll be able to sign Brittany and myself up for the next round of floral goodness. :)

So, if you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll have run across some of my floral design stuff from my class earlier this year. I MISS flowers when I’m not arranging. I’m still not a seasoned designer or anything CLOSE to a professional florist but I do love flowers probably as much as any florist does. It’s a sickness!! So, the other day I picked up some greens and some of my favorite flowers ever- ranunculus. I decided I’d try to make an arrangement that looked like a living plant… a hedge/bush with flowers “growing” out. Here’s how it came out:

Delicious!!!

Changed rooms for lighting purposes…

It didn’t come out exactly as planned [I wanted it a bit more structured and it came out more "wild"] but I truly love it! Also, BONUS, my Josh-husband-friend told me today that he really loves fresh flowers in our home. SO, hopefully this means we’ll make having them a bit more of a priority! I love that it’s something we both enjoy having! What do you think?? Too bleak looking, or just right?