Tropical Heat

The inspiration for this party was Jamaica - a favorite place of the guest of honor, the birthday girl. The host wanted bright, bright, bright colors with a hint of the exotic and I selected flowers primarily in the pinks and oranges family with pops of other complementary colors for interest - yellows, purples, greens. I also focused on texture - fuzzy, fluffy, spiky - to create additional visual variety.

The result was a riot of color and the arrangements worked wonderfully against the bright orange cloths.

Continuing along this line of bright exotics, I've included a few shots of a set of bouquets I did around the same time - chartreuse green cymbidium orchids with hot pink roses.

Using brights may seem daunting, but I encourage you to explore the outer edges of the usual pinks, oranges, and greens and try a few neons, electrics, and acids. These super bright colors are all the rage now in fashion and design, and it's fun to experiment a bit with flowers.

Materials pictured include: pink hydrangea, trick dianthus, hot lady roses, mombo spray roses, donna roses, seedum, billy ball, bullit purple allium, thistle, hypericum, concador lilies, aspidestra leaves, eremurus cleopatra orange, cymbidum orchids, and sweet unique roses.

Workshop: Holiday Decorating

Happy December!

A few weeks ago, I was asked to conduct a holiday workshop at St. David's Golf Club. For a few hours on a crisp winter night, I demonstrated a variety of holiday floral ideas, including the three options the participants could select to create themselves: a mixed green wreath with gilded pine cone rosettes, wheat, and green apples;  a jewel-like arrangement of roses, boxwood, and berries in an oversized julep cup;  and an oblong arrangement in a mossed log of greens, white roses, casablanca lilies, orchids, and gilded elements.

There were so many of us, we took up an entire ballroom! What a great evening!

A special thank you to my friend and colleague, Laurie Velitskovich, who was so wonderful to come and shoot the event - her photos are below. Visit her blog and her website to see some more of her work.

Workshop: Ode to Spring

Happy Mother's Day! I hope everyone who celebrates this day in some form or another has had a wonderful day. I celebrated doing what I love most - working in my garden.  Such gorgeous weather!

Anyway, it's been a very busy month for me - April simply flew by and I intend to post all that I have been up to for the past four weeks - so please be patient!

First up is actually my most recent endeavor - last Wednesday evening I was so happy to be asked to lead a workshop at St. David's Golf Club. Over the course of two hours, I demonstrated a host of ideas for springtime arranging, using a vast array of materials - all types of flowers, greens, and even fruits and vegetables - as well as some more unusual, unexpected materials such as scented geraniums, french lavender, veronica, buplurum, thistle, dusty miller, thyme, and rosemary.

Each participant then created her own lush masterpiece, using the prettiest of spring flowers - peonies, concador lilies, pink spray roses, marlise roses, larkspur, stock, delphinium, snapdragon, viburnum, hydrangea, and ranunculus.

Thank you for such a fun evening. Have a look at all that we did in two hours - so much creativity in one room! (Thank you as well to some of the members for contributing their photos.)

Individual buckets of flowers for each participant

Getting ready

Some of the materials I used 

Dusty miller, hydrangea, and ranunculus

Peony perfection

Parrot tulips and trick dianthus

Talking about using warm and cool colors in an arrangement

Before 

and after - succulents, orchids, moss, and river rock for your terrace

Acid green athos and sweet william pop against the vintage blue glass

A fun look for a party - see the strawberries? Strew them down your table.

Before

and after. Unexpected springtime kissing balls - one herb, one moss and daisies

Star of Bethlehem and ranunculus

Asparagus containers - add the Star of Bethlehem from above to complete the look

Moss purse - pink and green

Moss purse with veronica, herbs, and purple tulips

Designing an arrangement in an urn

The work of the participants

Each designing their own masterpiece

Lots of fun!