sorting

My current week consists of 4 weddings and 3 editorial photo shoots. Boxes, petals, water, vases, stems, foam, and cherry pits from my mid day snacks are everywhere.

I was in shock when the fed ex man backed into my driveway to unload his truck earlier this week. I didn't believe all of the boxes were mine, and I made him wait while I checked all the labels just to be sure. Then the same thing happened the next day. I am going through my storage rooms and emptying linens and keepsakes out of plastic boxes so that I have something to put all of these flowers in.

It is funny to think about all the different types of packing, sorting, and groupings cut flowers go through in their lives. They are clipped, bunched, and banded in the fields, then put in plastic sleeves. Then they are sorted in buckets by type, then in more buckets as they are set aside for my order. Then they are wrapped in paper, put in boxes that are lined with foam and/or paper. The boxes are wrapped in tape then plastic ties. They are shipped to me, going through countless sorting processes though the shipping system. When they arrive to me I peel off all of the aforementioned layers, then sort (shove) them in buckets. I take them out of their buckets when the time comes, arrange them in new groupings, inside a vase. The vase goes in a box, lined with paper to make it fit tight. That box goes in another bigger box, then that box is packed in my car. I get to the wedding venue and again unpack all of the aforementioned layers to place the arrangement on the table or in the hands of a bride.

this is my life lately.

sure is pretty though...

how do i love thee? let me count the ways.

You get the idea, right?

Truth be told, I am a little tired of doing "pink and romantic" this summer...but I am finding new ways to make it something I love each time. This time it was the dark greens and the pink that was almost beige mixed in with the blush and the peach that did it for me. One of the bride's colors was a dark charcoal gray and I used that dark purple vine to hint at it. I quite like the way it turned out. I picked up most of these teapots while I was in the Middle East.

Are you starting to recognize the blue wall behind the flowers? Well, get used to it...it will be around for a while. It was still in progress in these pictures and I can't wait to show you the finished product.

p.s. I had to make a new facebook page when I changed my name, like it here.

leftovers

All but the top bouquet (featured here this week) were made with leftovers.

I am trying harder than ever to not let anything go to waste.

this bouquet was tightly bound as requested, but within the bouquet there were a lot of shapes.

bits

Bits here are there are from my garden....I love snipping a handful of things from my garden as I am walking out the door for the day.

little yellow

This was mother's day. i made my mother's gift while sitting outside on her lawn, made with leftovers and things I collected on the way there. My nieces and nephews were running in circles around me, the air smelled like barbeque and lilac. I love working outside.

I thought May was crazy busy at the time, but the memories of sitting on the lawn and leisurely arranging are long gone, and the madness of summer weddings ensue...

orchids, passion vine, and tree peonies

bleeding hearts

You know when babies are so cute you want to eat them? Or at least bite their cheeks? When I really like how flowers turn out, sometimes I want to eat them, too.

I only had time to snap pictures of this myself after the shoot it was for. So it had sat in a hot car for somewhere around two hours, and then had been outside and out of water for a couple of hours too. The petals start to lose their strength and become a bit softer. Not that I would want that for a client, but I prefer to look at them this way. They are more fragile and paper-like, the texture is more intriguing and you are reminded of how temporary flowers are. A few days later those bright poppies had a faded lavender edge that was so uniform it looked like each petal had been dipped in a bowl of paint.