Just wanted to share this yummy stack o’ floral inspiration and how-to books- I’ve been pouring over them, and will be bringing you reviews and a peek inside each in the coming weeks!
www.floretcadet.com
 www.floretcadet.com Yesterday I delivered birthday flowers to Downtown Women’s Center resident Gloria on a beautiful sunny day. I’ve moved on from wrapped vases to exploring lined / filled vases, and her arrangement was two stems of white hydrangea in a chocolate candy lined vase. Detailed photos, cost breakdown and how-to will follow tomorrow. But meanwhile, a bit more about the DWC and how I got involved… Cut flowers are such an indulgence – as much as I always wanted to learn the craft, I always felt a little uncomfortable buying flowers for myself for no real occasion. But precisely because cut flowers are a luxury and not a necessity, they have the power to make someone in need of a boost feel really special. A few years back, I was thrilled to discover that the Downtown Women’s Center, where I’d been volunteering in an after work cooking club that prepared lunches for hundreds of homeless and formerly homeless women on Los Angeles’ Skid Row also had a ‘Birthday Guild’. Their detail? Planning a monthly themed birthday party complete with gifts for the birthday women among the 47 formerly homeless and/or extremely low income residents, and also hand delivering flowers to each lady on her actual birthday. Participating was as easy as requesting the resident birthday calendar and signing up for dates when you could commit to delivering flowers (with a price limit of $25 to ensure that the residents all got comparable flowers on their birthdays.) The center also happens to be just blocks away from Los Angeles’ Wholesale Flower District, and they’re generous enough to let me use their kitchen to make arrangements. This is a wonderful program – I love that I can pursue my interest in learning floral design and at the same time share the happiness that flowers bring. For anyone in the Los Angeles area, there are lots of individual and group volunteer opportunities at the center. And there are of course people in tough circumstances in every city across the country who would really appreciate a flower delivery- from rape crisis centers to hospitals, homeless shelters to retirement homes, I suspect that someone offering to deliver one arrangement for the lobby or 20 centerpieces to brighten resident rooms would be welcomed. A DWC PSA and more about the center after the jump no comments   Happy labor day! Speaking of labor, I wrapped a few more vases with both fabric and paper the day I did the Wood Paper project, and while none of them was a slam dunk, I learned some valuable lessons. Here is a picture of one of the other arrangements, using handmade purple paper glued over a standard dollar store drinking glass. The flowers are white hydrangea, fuchsia mini carnations, and purple mystery flowers (note to self: always get flower names so that I can share them with readers!). Total cost of this project was $16: Glass – $1 Paper – $2.50 (I had leftovers, also in a batch you could order big sheets of paper to economize) Hydrangea (1 bunch, 4 stems) – $6 Mini carnations – $4 (1 bunch) Purple mystery flowers – $2.50 (1 bunch) Here’s the result, followed by what I learned from this project:  www.floretcadet.com I think that with all of the wrapped vases I made, the scale was off. I used tall skinny vases, with big bunches of flowers more appropriate for a bigger vase opening. I also think that these guys look better the simpler they are (see below!) Here’s a florist who has got the look 100% down. It goes to show you that even with a relatively simple DIY project that isn’t technique intensive, an artistic eye really is key and it takes practice to get it looking professionally slick! These arrangements are from So Cal based Rockrose (photos by Mi Belle)- their website is an absolute confection as well, with a great soundtrack – I love it when wedding vendors don’t take themselves so seriously and infuse some personality into their web presence. The Rockrose team tells me that they use wall paper to wrap these vases, so now I’m off to scout cool wallpaper sold in small enough quantities to make a few of these puppies the right way…  Images by Mi Belle courtesy of Rockrose I’m convinced that these wrapped vases are going to be a really big wedding / DIY trend in 2011! They’re really modern, really easy, really accessible (they work best with drinking glass sized containers and single flower types!) and really inexpensive. I’d group them 2 or 3 to a table in slightly differing heights. If you’re careful each small one can be done for under $10 ($1-2 glass or vase, $5-7 flowers, $1 – $2 in paper depending on type, but need to look into the cost of the wallpaper) so you could really have a nice complete look for around $30 / table. Stay tuned for links to specific containers and papers that will work best for these! no comments |
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