Jackie & Jeff’s Spring Wedding

This gallery contains 14 photos.

One of the reasons I love planning and styling weddings is the opportunity to think out of the box and to create unique venues for clients. Fortunately, my clients have allowed a little design craziness. And as expected, some cockamamy ideas … Continue reading →

Pretty Tea Cup Favors

Happy Sunday! If you’re looking for a unique favor for your next event, why not repurpose some orphaned tea cups. There are a gazillion uses for these lovelies but I think they make the perfect vessels for tiny plants and look so charming. They’re perfect for give-aways at weddings or events!

You’ll need:

• Tea cups – your cupboard, flea markets and antique stores are perfect sources for these lovelies
• Tiny plants like ferns, succulents, violets, and orchids – the selections are endless
• Moss – any craft store will carry this item
• Paper, twigs, and all-purpose glue for a place card pennant (optional of course) – again, craft stores have tons of paper options and your back yard can most likely offer up some twigs

Here’s how ya do it:

1. Simply repot the plant of choice directly into the cup. It’s important to have plenty of soil around the root system of the plant.
2. To conceal the dirt, add moss around the base of the plant.
3. You’re done! OR you can add hand-made place cards like I did. Cut paper to the desired size and shape, write your guest’s name on the card then glue it to a tiny twig. Poke it into the cup and you’re done!

Happy crafting!

 

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Simple Flower Arrangements & Flea Market Finds

 

Last week I had the privilege to do some floral styling for a video shoot. The photographer we worked with was photo journalist and Pulitzer Prize recipient, Matt Rainey. The images he captured are exquisite and Matt was kind enough to share these photos with me so I could share them with you.

For this assignment, I used simple and elegant thrift store vessels to compliment the freshly cut spring flowers. There’s really no need to spend big buck on vases … let the flowers express themselves.

Hallelujah – 12 Days Till Spring

Colorful flowers are a great way to say goodbye to winter and hello spring! This combination of light pink tea roses, orange kalanchoe, blue grape hyacinth, and thistle in a birch bark vessel are the perfect combination of color, texture and fragrance.

If you’re looking for one of these custom creations, please look me up at Rodale’s General Store. I would be delighted to create one of these lovelies just for you!

Styling & Planning a Wedding

Creativity is a drug I cannot live without. — Cecile B. DeMille

Last fall, I shared a blog post about my dear friends wedding. As with any event, I was honored to have the opportunity to help plan and style Jessica and Ryan’s special day. Since there are so many moving parts to wedding celebrations, planning can sometimes seem challenging but with great resources, creativity, fantastic and dedicated helpers (who I love and adore), and many, many to-do lists, events like this all come together.

Jess & Ryan recently shared ALL of their wedding photos with me and I pulled a select few to share with you. The photographer, Farid Widjaya, brilliantly captured every magical moment. Enjoy!

Jessica’s bouquet, sunflowers, thistle, craspidia, spray roses, scabiosa pods, white hypericum, silver brunia, and ferns

Birch slabs painted with chalkboard paint.

Sweet little Cora.

We’re ready for our closeup Mr. DeMille.

Vintage cobalt blue bottles under a glass cloche. These were the table centerpieces.

Gussied Up Glass Cylinder Vase

Want to know how to dress up a plain glass cylinder vase?  Simply buy some decorative paper from your local craft store or download and print a vintage wallpaper image from the web.  Then cut to size and slide it inside the vase.  Your done!  Obviously this only works when you are arranging dried flowers.  No water needed for this beauty!

This arrangement features craspedia, brunia, thistle, hypericum berry and scabiosa.

Enjoy your weekend!

Bailing Twine Flowers

My friend Kate made yarn pom poms for a wreath (and her cat Fable) and I thought I’d try the same technique but use bailing twine instead to make flowers. I love bailing twine – it’s inexpensive, a roll of it goes a long way, and I use it in a lot of my projects.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Bailing twine
• Florist wire
• Scissor
• Your fingers

Here’s how ya do it:

1. Loosely wrap twine around four fingers starting with your forefinger to your pinky finger. Wrap the twine around your four fingers about 25 times.
2. Remove the twine from your fingers and twist florist wire in the middle of the flower to bind the center of the flower.
3. Cut the looped ends with a scissor.
4. Now simply fluff up the flower to the perfect shape and cut the flower to the desired size.
5. Done!

I hot glued mine to the ends of twigs but there are countless creative uses for these beauties. Have fun, and happy crafting!

Saturday Flowers

Recently I provided the flowers for a Garden of Hope event hosted by the Cancer Support Community of the Greater Lehigh Valley. It was an outdoor event filled with inspiring stories of courage, hope and inspiration from a cancer survivor and a Salsa performance by Lehigh Valley Salsa.

The flowers I used were a few of my favorites: golden rod, hydrangea, chrysanthemum, voodoo roses, zinnias and hosta leaves to line the interior of the clear glass vases.

This little fella was still feasting and wasn’t quite ready to give up its tasty meal.

And here are the creations.

Happy Saturday!

Sunday Flowers

This is going to be a quickie post but I wanted to share my latest creation. Today I whipped together two giant arrangements like the photo above using only free floral bounty I could collect locally — no store-bought flowers here! And no, I didn’t break any laws.

In a galvanized bucket, I arranged hydrangea, anemone, red wheat-head celosia and crab apple.

Happy Sunday!

Summer Flowers

 

Recently I created this summer flower arrangement for a dinner organized by Rodale Catering & Events.  The container is a round glass jar, wrapped in hay (yes hay), then tied off with a generous portion of twine.  It is filled will all sorts of locally sourced flowers and ivy from my back yard.  It makes a casual yet elegant impression for any table or outdoor gathering.