Just a few shots of an arrangement I did this week. Pretty much all of the non-face flowers in this bouquet came from my mom's garden, so you can call me the backyard flower bandit. Is it bad that I drive around thinking about which budding flowers I can get away with snipping? And how GORGEOUS are these ranunculus exactly? I really think they must be local... Jersey Ranunculus have been very good this year.

As promised, pictures of the arrangement I did at the little flower school last weekend. Unfortunately, the shots don't really capture how leggy all the jasmine and eucalyptus was, but there's more where this came from on it's way. I'm headed out the door to do some shopping to get maybe vases and maybe flowers, or maybe neither, but before I go, a list of the flowers in the above bouquet, since I always enjoy when the stars are credited by others.  Ranunculus, Parrot Tulips, Chocolate Cosmos, Stock, Spray Roses, "Juliet" Garden Roses, Narcissus, Jasmine Vine, Rose Geranium, Dusty Miller, and Seeded Eucalyptus. More posts this week, I promise!

Despite the fact that I have much more flower arrangement content waiting in the holding pen, tonight I feel motivated to talk about my plans for a Mother's Day weekend sidewalk flower stand, which will most likely be located at Broad & Main in Riverton, NJ. I was thinking for a minute to forget about it but after my fabulous flower class this weekend (which I swear there will be pictures from), I feel re-energized for the project. 


My plan is to have a sort of miniature version of the aesthetic of my shop interior right there on the sidewalk, allowing me to hopefully draw unsuspecting passersby into my little world of flowery bliss. So as for my set up, here's some stuff I have planned:

 

images via True Value, Wholesale Flowers & Supplies, billyBoards, Dick Blick, Studio Calico


As I'm looking over these, I feel the conspicuous lack of color, a hole which will hopefully be filled with lots of beautiful, colorful flowers. I want to have a mix of flowers, but I may have to make some choices. There will definitely be pink, because I think its good for the wife and mom/grandma/etc. since, unlike red, it could be romantic or just sweet, although some less femme women may not like it so I hope to have some distinctly non-pink options available as well. I will definitely have either garden roses or peonies, if not both, and hopefully some delightfully free flowering branches and hydrangea filched from my own mother's garden. 


I will also need to finish my logo and print up some business cards (or maybe some kind of little post-card sized flyer with info instead), as well as design some nice little tags to hang on the bouquets that my customers can write messages on or have me do right there, if they prefer. Steve thinks I should commandeer some little children from a friend to boost sales, but I think that might be too distracting from the point of me getting my name out there. Maybe I'll settle for bringing the cute little pup along... at least no one will think he did the arrangements.

After seeing this post on Snippet & Ink, all I could really think was omgwtfpansies. Pansies were my favorite flower when I was little, because they were what I chose to plant in my first ever designated patch of garden. I suppose I have always had somewhat victorian sensibilities; I also chose a serious dusty rose for the color of my childhood bedroom at the ripe old age of 4 or something. 

Apart from my own personal history with the flower, I found this little bouquet refreshing amongst the never-ending parade of "big fluffies" in bridal bouquets (you know... peonies, dahlias, garden roses, etc). With so many modern brides choosing dresses that are a far cry from the Cinderella ball-gowns of their mothers, I think it's only fair to try and show more different styles of flowers as well. 

In the interest of full disclosure, I'll admit that I tried to get the sweet violets, which would have helped fix the primary functional problem of this bouquet, the extreme short stems. I didn't get them, but I think I could quite possibly have rigged the bouquet over a small floral foam core and used a very opaque wrap and no one would have been the wiser. As for the notorious short vase life and even quicker wilting out of water of these little puppies, I was surprised to find my little bouquet still pretty darn alive when I arrived home after about 7 hours, despite being barely in the water due to aforementioned short-stemage. I believe a bride could easily make it down the aisle with such a bouquet and then set it in water on her table during the evening and have it last the night. I hope some brides will take a chance on pansies in the future... the best weddings  are the ones that try things that are different because they feel right.

So, this is where it all starts, with a somewhat overexposed but still (I hope) appealing pictures of my latest treasure, a pot of Spring Promise Hellebores. The sun we get in our little hovel is pretty intense and high contrast, occurring in the hour or two just before sunset really begins. We, by the way, includes me, my someday-husband, and our little Papillon.

What are we doing here? I guess explaining that will require a bit of history (I'll try to make this short). About nine months ago, I graduated from a prestigious design school, which I am not yet sure I intend to ever name here, with a degree in fashion design. Let's just say it's in New York City and the aforementioned major is what the school is best known for. About 5 days after graduation, my lease was up, I moved out, and landed in something of a whirlwind back in the very place I came from. Fast forward, I'm still here. If you're just about anyone trying to get hired right out of school, or trying to get hired at all, I don't need to explain why. Needless to say this is not what I planned (hoped? dreamed?).

"Form a new plan!", I said to myself. So, without a long and likely uninteresting account of the struggle and meditation required to come up with one, here it is:

1. I will, instead of pursuing fashion head on for the time being, apply my taste and design capabilities to floral design. In the interest of improving my technique in this new area, I will practice and take classes. In order to build my portfolio, I will do flowers at-cost for a few weddings, a pretty major event, and it looks like a couple photo shoots.

2. I will blog about this new endeavor, with as much focus as I can muster on staying on-topic, in the hopes of building a sounding board for my ideas and photos of what I'm working on.

3. I will, sometime in the next year or so, open a brick and mortar flower shop. The shop will cater mainly to brides, but also serving more general floral needs of the public. I would like it to include some small bridal accessories as well, such as pretty hairpieces and wraps, some of which I may also design.

Who knows what will come of all this, but it's where I'm headed right now. More on all this to come, though the next post I have planned is just about beautiful, wonderful flowers.