Intuitive Floral Design

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Imagine bouquets of arenda orchids, plumeria, and passion flower, lush leis on every neck, the crashing surf, the wet sand massaging between your toes, and dolphins punctuating the horizon as they delight in the turqoise waters.

I'm in Maui doing florals for a very private ceremony. The gentle breezes caress the face with wisps of hair and the combined smells of sweet flowers and nurturing ocean waters. I LOVE doing this! It's another whole layer of joy for me in my business. Besides creating the vision with floraé, I love to travel. Destination weddings are a natural next step for me, whether the destination be Hawaii, India, or the bride's parents mansion in the next county.

Labels: destination wedding, Maui, travel

This coming weekend I will be delivering exquisite florals to another beautiful wedding at our beloved Sutter Club. Colors and arrangements will include Black Magic (Deep Red) Roses with gold and crystals.

There's something about late fall that tugs hard on our heart. It seems our emotions deepen with the colors, and even as the trees deepen their connection with the earth, growing their roots deeper into the source of their heart's sustenance.

It's real easy to think of the dazzling Autumn leaf palette when considering a fall wedding. The warm tones speak splendantly of the warmth and nurturing of a loving relationship even while enchanting our eyes in tones of red and orange and yellow. And still in fall, the opulent peacock colors balance the offerings with blues and teals, rich golds and emerald.

And now it is October. We are headed into winter. I look outside at the grey and drizzle of the last couple of days, and I feel that heart call to deepen.

Jewel tones celebrate the lavish abundance of boundless love in a sumptuous way. I love to create magnificent floral tapestries with ruby red roses, brilliant blue hydrangeas, rich dark greens and texture them with stems of fresh raspberries and pomegranites. It seems, just like love, there is an unending supply of resplendent colors and textures of the radiant jewel tones.

Labels: deep colors, jewel tone florals, wedding flowers

The colors of fall: orange, red, yellow and muted greens, right? Of course the rich warm colors of harvest and chrysanthemums awaken the celebratory feelings of the season of crisp apples, rotund pumpkins and sun-ripened squashes. That doesn't mean though that we are limited to those colors.

I love to mix things up, calling out to a pleasant surprise now and again. In the garden during this season we see the dark purple berries, the bright orange marigold, and antique-rose roses. It is not necessary to shock the senses to awaken them. The simple juxtoposition of oranges and pinks together calls upon our sensibilities to attend and embrace the garden's rich yeilding.

Labels: fall colors, harvest

Nature is lavishly abundant. There is no doubt that nature delivers bountiful beauty. Just take in a field of wildflowers, the rows and rows of lavender on an herb farm, or the brilliant sunshine of Daffodil Hill. You can’t help but be struck by the unsparing pallet of profusive allure. Even a single snowflower, popping out through the stark white in spring bears witness to Nature’s generosity of comeliness.

When designing a wedding or other special event, I strive to celebrate the occasion with the same feel of unrestrained artistry that Mother Nature paints her poppies. It’s not about more is better, not in the slightest. Rather, it is about creating a righteously gorgeous space. Sometimes a single simple arrangement can carry a whole environment. Other times, it is a generous placement of arrangements tall and small lining a rose petal lined aisle that bespeaks the vision of the day.

The point is, it really depends on your preferance and the space. There is no end to the creative ways to express your love, your vision, your celebration of lifes beauty.

Labels: abundance, creating environment, vision

Have you felt it? The air is just a tiny bit crisper in the evening and the morning. The leaves will be turning colors soon, and so will the colors of weddings. September and October bring the warm tones and dahlias and orchids.

One of my fall brides is planning a Peacock-colors centered wedding. I'm excited about this palette: deep blues, chartreuse, greens, and chocolate browns. So rich, you can almost taste it. Yum! Deep blue hydrangeas, fern tips, green dendrobium and cymbidium orchids, and deep purple calla lilies. I will share photos when the time comes. This kind of excitement has got to be contagious. I look forward to sharing the joy of it.

Labels: fall colors, peacock colors, wedding flowers

Something that is important to me is going green any way possible. I think this gorgeous planet is worth taking care of any way that we can. Let's face it, this is our home. Here at Design with Floraé we do many little things that help the environment even while creating with natures lavish abundance of beauty. The rules of going green are simple really:

1. Reduce: Reducing is best! If you don’t use it in the first place, you are saving money and energy and stopping pollution and waste.

It has always been a concern of mine that we don't waste from the beginning. I minimize use of any kind of "use once and throw-away" products. There are some expendables that you just can hardly avoid using in the florist industry, yet there are a lot of items which you can choose differently. It is our practice to buy quality items that can be re-used or re-cycled.

2. Reuse: Reusing comes second. Find new life for items that would normally be thrown away. Even just one second use helps reduce what you need to buy again.

We have made this a good part of our business. We have a large selection of beautiful vases, stands, candelabras, an arch, a cake-tree, a money tree, pedastals, and other special decorating items for rent. This saves our clients money, and helps the environment too. We also re-use all of our containers in the design shop.

3. Recycle: Recycling is a distant third to the first two. Recycling requires fuel, energy and water consumption for transportation and reprocessing. However, it is still better than throwing items away, only to end up in a landfill.

If we can't figure out a way to re-use it, or we have already done so to an items maximum amount, we re-cycle. We recycle are cardboard and plastic. Also, we're very grateful for the green waste program here in the Sacramento area. It is good to know that all our unusable organic material is going to going green program.

4. Go as organic as possible. This one is near number one in my book. As much as possible I use local, non-sprayed blowers. I don't add preservative or bleach to the containers either.

Our planet is our beautiful home. Nature provides lavish beauty and an abundance of gorgeous flowers. The more we go green, the more we can help sustain this castle full of treasure we live in.

Labels: florist going green, organics, rentals