AIFD Symposium{Student Competition}

It was a cold and stormy day.......

Haha! This is how I felt every time I looked out the window at the Hyatt we were staying at.

It was overcast, but hot as h*&# everyday! It rained on the day of our competition. :(
Notice how long the streets were but that there are no cars on them?
It was strange, the city had no life. But we didn't care! Everywhere we looked we saw flowers :)
Our day started out early. 7am is early on a non market day for me.
We arrived to the room where all the participants had to process all their flowers and greens and has to to check to make sure we had the same amount of supplies and accessories.

As soon as we were done at 8am they started the first category. The dreaded Buffet piece.

Personally I hated it. It was designed in a martini glass and everything I practiced flew out the window. 25 minutes into my piece and my mechanics fell apart. It was like the cake and candy competition on the food network, where the judges walk around, you are timed, and there is a collective sigh if a piece breaks off. Except when my mechanics broke apart I wanted to drop an F-bomb and chuck my martini glass across the room. :P classy, I know.
So they call time at 30 minutes, then at 15, then at 10, then at 5, then 4, 3, 2, 1, TIME!!!!
Ugh. Talk about stress!
I started over again and she called 30 minutes, so then I had thirty minutes to start a new design.
All bad.
BUT!
I will take a low score than no score at all. If you do not walk across the room to place your piece on a table, you are disqualified and you and your team gets NADA.
So here was my piece.

moving right along.
They were looking for this.

The sail looking thing is pretty cool I must say.

Areum, my team mate made this. *love* her leaf work.

So the designs were all over the place. It ranged from simple to WHOA!

Then they said, ok, you got 15 minutes to break and then the next category started.
The bouquets. This was the one category I flip flopped on.
I knew what I wanted to make, but when the time came, I needed my equiseteum for the sweetheart table design so I switched and did a basic Bouquet.*hanging and shaking head*
I gave them this.
They wanted this:

{This was one of the winning pieces in this category}

Then they called time and we started on the sweetheart table.
I made this:
They wanted this:


Areum made this.


Mac made this:
Holy crap. Some dude, made this bag!!! I loved it.

This was the winning piece.

Then the final category came and I finally did something that I had sketched and practiced the night before I left to Missouri.
Out of all the things I practiced, I finally stuck to the plan and made my napkin ring design.
I placed in the top ten(7th) I'll take it. :)

Here were the other designs.
Rubie made this one.

This one I would rock!

Then it was time to leave the room while the judges scored.
Here we are trying to take a peek at other stuff.

We came back at 3:30 and they had us place all of our designs together for the People's Choice award. The guy that made both the sail and the purse won. He totally deserved it!

Then it was time to unwind, hehe.

We all pulled out our "lucky" charms. Mine is a glass heart I got from a perfect stranger two years ago. :) (No, the cosmo was not mine, I needed a beer)

Then we had to wait 2 whole days to find out how we placed!!!
They brought us to the front of the stage and stood us in a room full of at least 1000 people and announce the winners.
On the scream flashed:
"CCSF"!

Sadly it was not me, it was Nixon.

He is such a great designer and he has mad skills so we were all super stoked for him.

Then it was time to "unwind again".
I learned a lot! How to work under pressure, what other people in other parts of the country are doing, what the competition is really about and what they look for. What to do next year to place higher...ok, ok, so I shouldn't be so competitive, lol. But I like to do well, ya know?
It ws a great experience and I did have fun so Iencourage anyone who has the opportunity to compete to do so.

Now the good stuff comes:
European bouquets.