Its 1.1.11

Make a wish! It's 11:11 1/1/11

oooooooh.

I started a 365 project!
http://365project.org/

The 365 project is a free online photography site that allows you to post a picture a day, every day for 1 year. My friend Tania introduced this to me and I'm hooked! It's definitely easier than blogging every day, I already takes pictures everywhere I go, AND I can't wait to see my year in pictures come January 1, 2012. :) I'm suuuper excited!
Here are some of my pics so far.

Boston was soooo beautiful for the New Year!

This one is titled " I heart Cute Tips"

I just bought ramekins, googled a recipe making sure to look for something titled "EASY", and viola! 2 hours later sans torch, Creme Brulee.:P

Our new puppppeeeeee! His name is Cheech so far.

Here is an invite if you want to follow me:

http://365project.org/invite/r/84d903c464

I will follow you as soon as you sign up!

On a Personal Note...

I'm really shocked.

I can't believe I only posted 35 times last year. ONE HUNDRED post less than last year.
I'm beside myself.
But there is an explanation, so are you ready?
I suck.

Okay, no that's not it, it's just really hard to know where to start. Let me work my way backwards. As my profile alleges, I am a student. Weddings by day, student by night so to speak. I study my brains out when the kiddos sleep and on the weekends I play with flowers. I have been doing it for the past two years, and this year I transferred to UC Berkeley. Since I have a big family, I can't exactly live on campus so I commute 2 hours a day there, make it back home in time to pick up kids, and then get on with my mommy duties.

It's freaking hard.

There's no way around it, Cal is challenging. I had 7 readers and what felt like a gazillion papers due and they were not easy. So when you factor in my classes, my homework, my emails, my brides, my wedding, my vendors, the walk-throughs, the consultations, the prep work and labor, the set ups, the husband, the kids, their homework, their school stuff, and all the other basic life stuff we all go through. Needless to say I was overwhelmed. Then my grandfather got sick, then we experienced a death of several family members, then I got sick. That's about as far as I will go with it, but you get the idea.
I had a decision to make by September and it was not pretty. I had to basically let everything go and take care of myself, seriously take care of myself, and then take care of the remaining brides I had and get through mid terms and finals.

I survived.

I made it to the end of my semester and I completed all my big beautiful weddings and I kept my sanity and worked on my health. Thank God for my husband, he helped out and supported me like you wouldn't believe. I looked up and realized, I had 1300 emails in my inbox, I left a lot business on the table, I let a lot of opportunities for collaborations, guest blog spots, publications, contests, and potential clients go. Not to mention personally, I sacrificed a lot. Professionally and personally I was stretched too thin and burning the candles at both ends.
But fast forward to now; I got my act together, cleared my calender, set up a vacation and here I am!! BACK with a vengeance. I came close to giving it all up in order to focus on one thing but the tide has turned and I'm healthier, and that is a BIG part of what made me realize I love what I do and I can't give it up. In the time I was gone for my vacation in Boston I received 19 inquiries for weddings(!) and I am in the process of returning emails now. FINALLY!

Thanks for checking in on my little blog, thanks to those who stuck with me and those who I will work with in the future. I appreciate your business and I hope to start posting my little heart out very soon! I have a lot of weddings to catch up on and a lot of photographers to contact so you may see a random October wedding or Thanksgiving post or even a summer wedding show up.

To add to all this we got a puppy for my mama, a Jack Russel Terrier, but something tells me he is going to be our puppy since he's so cute and I'm the one taking him to Puppy Prep Academy and raising him until I go back to school. Isn't he a cutie pie?

{photo by Rig Galvez}

Always go with your gut

Dear Gut,

I am sorry.
I heard you say "NO! Don't do it, this is bad news!"
But I thought I could make it work.
I should have stopped when I knew they wanted something for nothing, yet, I blocked out your nagging and it turned out you were right. I even tried to get out of it, and had a chance, but I didn't take it because I thought it wasn't as bad as I was making it out to be. Turned out I was wrong and you, gut, were right.
I am sorry I didn't listen to you. Seriously.

Love,

B

no seriously.

Ok, so here's the real deal.

I have been swamped on so many levels it's not even funny.
Between weddings, and school, and flowers, and my daughter, and family emergency, and traveling, and parties, and plays, and sports, and MOVING...it's been a crazy year.

But the main reason is that I have been working hard to get myself and my daughter transferred to new school. She auditioned and got into a performing arts school which I am *thrilled* about. But between the transcripts, the interviews, the tests, the auditions, the recommendation letters, the shadows, the tours, and the open houses for six different high schools...I thought I would just die. But on top of that I had my transcripts, essays, interviews, paperwork, ect. to apply for my schools as well.
I am happy to say it got me into UC Berkeley where I will be going to study in the fall. WOOHOO!

So that is why I have been so busy and not blogging. So now I am free and will be catching up on pictures since MARCH...can you believe it? I can't.

So bear with me if anyone is still there...I will be posting in random order so if you see somehting form like the winter...you know why. ; )

Thanks!

I love love....Dorothy Hatchel style

Last month my family and I threw a big shindig for my grandfathers 80th birthday.
It was a surprise party and we had about 100 people there. The additional surprise was that my soon to be brother in law was planning to pop the question that night. Of course we all knew, but my sister was unaware and we were trying to figure out how to work it in without the help of my Grandfather and without her knowing since she was in on the planning.
Well, he got down on one knee and did it in front of everyone and she was shocked!
Too cute!

Dorothy captured all the moments beautifully and I am so thrilled she was able to shoot our event. I will post the party pics later this week, but in the meantime check out her amazing blog and the rest of the pictures of the engagement!

debbie + daniel
Dorothy Hatchel Photography


Congrats Deb and Dan!

Sometimes when it rains it pours...

...so I have been away for a while and will resume my beloved blog in a week or so.
Thanks for checking in on me, be back soon!

xoxo
Brenda

Blogs I heart

Too many to actually read on a daily, but I do gets my fix in.
I updated my blog list if you want to take a look at some pretty cool blogs on flowers, weddings, inspiration and things. I went from about 10 to 30, some oldies but goodies, something I just found. I have like 30 more but I think I will rotate them in and out. The big ones that everyone has linked are in the old Google Reader too, but I like to keep the hidden gems close. :)

Whenever I find a blog I heart, I go through all the blogs they list to see what they are working with, ya know?
Takes me to some cool places across the web.

Got any blogs for me, bring them on!

Molto Grazie

Clustrmaps sent me an email that I exceeded my map capacity. hehe, I don't know why but that cracks me up. Every time someone pops by, they leave a red dot on my map from the country or state they visited from. My map was completely red in the U.S. and in other random places.
(I'm huge in Japan, lol)

So it restarted itself! I just noticed the map was different when I finally opened up my email today.
I have had 120,500 hits to my spot!!!swe-eet.

Thanks for stopping by! :)

B

c-ya

Gone for the week to see my grandmother. I have to make sure she gets her second opinions and such. Be back next week for a Pink wedding in a Green Room.

Have a beautiful first week of August, time is flying by isn't it? Dahlias season is here and before you know it, pumpkins and squash will be everywhere and then is tree time.*sigh*


(mathew mead)

Floral Couture {Delicious Eye Candy Anyone?}

So I am jumping all over the place, I know , I know.
I haven't finished on my Euro Bouquets, I haven't' posted my lavender wedding and I am dying to share with you my two latest obsessions. But I am bursting with a need to be creative. My juices will be all dried up because I start school back up in three short weeks, and I am feeling like I am running out of time to get all my summer"projects" started.

Obsession One: Floral Dress

I am in love and have been obsessed since Bouquet to Arts in making another dress.
Here is the dress I made out of flowers. Silver tree, cymbidium orchids, ti leaves, flax, and melveccia vine for the birdcage veil.
Someone suggested to me I should get into making floral wedding dresses and in that one night they planted a seed in my head.

I have been playing around with the idea for the last four months and I walked into Ross the other day looking for something and I came across this. Sure, I lied to myself and bought it to hold my earrings...yeah right. My mind was spinning with making miniature dresses.

I had to have it.
It has been sitting in my kitchen for the past week calling my name.
Then I started thinking of all the designers I researched along with the Yves St. Laurent catalog when I was making the dress and the nagging thought that I should make a dress came back.
So I wanted to share with you some pictures and artist that have been inspiring me.

Franz Grabe out of South Africa is bananas.

Nicole Dextras via the Orchard Studio. If you are a flower whore like I am you will love her blog.

Best. Eye Candy. Pictures. Ever.

Alexander McQueen is a savage.


{via)

So then I thought about all the beautiful couture dresses made out of recycled items; magazines, coffee filters, newspapers, rubber bands...you name it, chances are someone out there made one.

Or how about a dress made out of say, condoms?
Adriana Bertini dresses out of condoms. Whoa.

The famous phonebook dress.

{Stylelist}

papier-couture

After seeing these pictures I feel like running to my studio and making a dress immediately.

But sadly, I need to sketch and buy flowers and all that jazz. Kinda important, right?

Obsessions Two: String Art and Armatures

Why? I can just picture the placement of flowers on a perfectly constructed armature or string art installation.

Elly Lin is a master at her work on botanical fashion. My god, have you seen her books??

Whew! I love her twig dresses and I am so surprised that I cannot find one of her dresses online but this is a taste of the magic she works with plants and flowers.

String Art via {curious g30rge}

So you can see why I interrupted my regularly scheduled program to bring you into my obsessive world of dresses right? right?

What's in a Name

*Roll with me on this one, I have a point, we are just going to take a little trip first.

A penny for your thoughts, he said.

So here they are.

************************
The world is holding out on me. I'm convinced.
I never knew there were yellow watermelons.

I love the farmers market. My mother used to drag me out there every Saturday and I loved it as a kid( ok, ok, it was the free samples that won me over...kinda the way I love Costco now.....)
and then I hated it as a teen. I wanted to sleep , she wanted to pick fruit and flowers.

But then when I had my daughter I suddenly needed to go back and I have been going there on my own for the past 12 years. So today I came across for the first time a yellow watermelon and I am delighted that I am still discovering things and I took it as a green light to explore more.
So naturally I came home to Google it and I cam e across this:

"When using the open palm technique for ripeness, avoid melons with a high-pitched tone or a dead, thudding sound. "{source}
I don't even know what this means.
I'm tone deaf so maybe this is why I can't pick a melon to save my life.

*******************************
We had a brand new baby born on Monday.
A 9.3 lbs. baby boy!

It got me to thinking that my own little boy is growing up so fast.
I am starting to shop for preschools.
*GULP*
So then I got to thinking that I adore baby toes and baby fingers and chances are, my son Kuba, who is such a ham, is probably going to be my last and he is getting so big. Well, he started out that way, he was 10lbs. when he was born, his dad is 6'5 what can I say?
Am I getting the baby blues all over again?

Which brings me to my next thought.
**********************************
I love my mom.
She makes things.
Out of scratch: cioppino, pies, clothes, stuff.....
It's amazing how she turned my daughter's T'shirt that is 7 years old, into a a pillow at my request!
My daughter, Gaby, wore this T-shirt way back before I even know I loved flowers as much as I do today, and I could never get rid of it. A crafty friend suggested I make it into a pillow and I thought"That's perfect!, I'll do it!" (read: My mom will make it.)

Which brings me to how I came up with Kuga.
Ku-ga is a mash-up of my kids name.
KUba and GAby.
My boy and my girl to represent the things that I love best outside of them.
The loves of my life and my flowers.
Kuga Designs.

AIFD Symposium

I'm baaaaaaccccckkk!

I just love San Francisco. Love love love my city. :)
I went to the American Institute of Floral Designers Annual Symposium in Kansas City Missouri.
I competed in the Student Competition and I attended flower shows that ranged from nice Christmas trends and ideas to ridiculously inspirational European Style design that left me a puddle in my seat.
The flowers, oh the flowers, were gorgeous. Tomas De Bruyne was fabulous as were all the European designers. I have made it my new goal to go to Belgium and study with:
Marc Derudder, Geert Pattyn, Moniek Vanden Berghe, Tomas De Bruyne.

There are too many pictures for me to attempt just one post so I will do a series of post on my trip, the shows, and my competition.

Seattle Flowers

C'mon, you didn't think I would go to Seattle and not check out the flowers did ya?
I took pictures of the Pike Street market because my eyes were about to pop out of my head.

These flowers bunches were $5 each.
Excuse me?
DOLLARS?
What the hell are they made of? I know you're thinking
"Tell me how you really feel, B"

But seriously, I was a little delirious because it was rows and rows of gorgeous flowers for $5 for each bouquet.
They had peonies and lilies and roses and dahlias and freaking tulips.....they were killing me.
I mean granted, they were wide open, so the blooms themselves were good for about 2 days tops, but still.
That's a pretty sweet deal.
The sweet peas were TWO mo#$%rf*&king dollars a bunch.
Who grows them? Are they made out of magic seeds?
Or have I been buying flowers in San Francisco for too long?
Am I over reacting?
probably, huh?

Then this gorgeous arrangement of peppers and statice
were hanging in the market and I fell in love.
I really need to have one of these in my kitchen.

The view from our hotel?
Was definitely not this but we were only about 2 blocks away from the Space Needle! hehe, it was beautiful
Did I mention it was hot out there?
I'm from San Francisco
Ya know the old saying
"The coldest winter I have ever endured was a summer I spent in San Francisco."
We are used to 50-60 degrees.
So 90 degrees per day without being near a pool and a steady supply of pina coladas was pretty darn tough for me.

So we went to this gorgeous fountain at the Seattle Center ever day so the kids could run around and have fun.

Everywhere we went, I saw Michael Jackson's tributes and heard his music. It was pretty awesome. We happened to go to the Experience Music Project and outside of the building they played Michael Jackson songs continuously all day long and people had written tributes to MJ in chalk. I love this CH'MON shot I got.

Seattle has art installments everywhere and I have tons of pictures but this is my favorite.

The trip was great, the family kids had fun and the fireworks were pretty great.
Here are the smiley face fireworks at Lake Union.

So I am off to Missouri for the AIFD symposium.
Wish me luck, I compete on Saturday morning!

R&R

Well I don't know how much R&R I'm actually going to get but I am going to go away for it. :P

The fam and I are are headed out to Seattle for the holiday weekend. I am leaving in a couple of hours to check out the fireworks with the hubby and the kids so I will be blog free for a few days.

Have a great Fourth!

Live your life off the wall

I was at the flower market all morning thoroughly enjoying myself.
Early morning rush of finding just the right flower combined with a coffee in my hand and Michael Jackson remixes playing in practically all the stalls. All the vendors that I normally buy from had something to say and I enjoyed stopping and chatting about our favorite songs and how his music will live on forever. I went to a jazz club last night to see Karriem Riggins and Goapele came on stage to perform a tribute to Michael Jackson with the live band.
It was nice to see so many people touched by his music.

So all day long I have been listening to Micheal Jackson, old and new, and I have been humming off the wall for the last 12 hours as I work on my prple wedding to morrow at the Argonaut Hotel in San Francisco.


RIP MJ

"So tonight gotta leave that nine to five upon the shelf
And just enjoy yourself
Groove, let the madness in the music get to you
Life aint so bad at all
If you live it off the wall..."

Green and White=Delight!

Ok. So I will never be a rapper or some crazy storyteller that rhymes all the words, but hey, I tried. I am so UGH right now because I am I practicing for my competition and I am so uninspired!

I have to make something that's not commercial, not everyday, quirky and out of the box, but I only have 1 hour to make it. Or I am disqualified. :(

Everything I can think of takes forever! So I am feeling kinda
meh
right about now. Any suggestions? This competition is Iron Chef style; I won't know what flowers I will be using or what we are making till it's time to go and then it has to be done and walked over to the judging are in exactly one hour where the dimensions will be measured to see if it qualifies or not.
I need some cool things to look at....some eye candy.....anyone?
*thanks in advance*

Seriously, you rock....

...who?...Adie, Adizat, An Atlanta Bride,Amanda, Becky, Brandon, Sprout, Debula, Rosa B., Ductchbaby, Jen,Jess, Lotushaus, perfectly imperfect, Sealed with a Kiss, prosttothehost, Shannon, Janet, Rhonda Patton Weddings, Brassavola Floral Couture, KDLAsvegas, and can't forget "Anonymous!!!

Grazie!
Gracias,
Merci!
In all the languages that exist, I thank you for stopping by and saying hello. :)

I am always ticked pink when I hit a blog milestone because I so desperately wanted to maintain a journal/diary when I was a kid, but I was too damn lazy to keep up with it!LOL!!
So I am quite proud of myself that I am able to track my journey in this lovely world of flowers.
I am happy as a clam that I have posted over 200 times and have had 70, ooo lovely flower lovers stop by my bloggarden.

I know it's silly but it means a lot to me, so thanks for checking me out! :)
*virtual hug*

I will be MIA for a couple weeks cramming for finals in all my academic classes as well as my floral classes.

I have a ton of pictures to post and I will play catch up starting with my Pink Peony Bride next week.
Later-gator!


~Bree

30 grand in my hand

Ok.ok. so it's not really 30 grand in my hand
but I did slip over
30, ooo
hits last night just in time for my birthday!
I want to thank everyone who comes by my little site to check on my ramblings and my flicks of floral arrangements that I make. :)
My laptop is away for the week getting a new attitude....it was acting up so it went buh-bye.
I can't really post too much without my pictures ; (

HOWEVER!
I'm leaving to Vegas for the weekend, YAHOO! Wish me luck!
Have a great weekend :)

~B

December Gift #3

I LOVE Christmas.
No.
I adore Christmas, yes, adore.

I lovethe gifts, the decorations, the shopping, the parties, the gatherings, the food, the drinks, the sense of togetherness and love, just-everything!

But mostly I love the paper products.....everywhere I go I'm touching stuff to feel the weight of paper and I collect greeting cards and gift bags and paper.
It
It's a sickness.
All my friends have kids already, so why do I have about 30 baby shower cards???
They are pretty much past the Baptismal age, yet I have about 15 Baptism cards.
I can get away with my Birthday card collection but it's getting to the point where I don't want to give a way a card because it's too pretty.
Sick.

Which leads me to my point.

I need this container thingy from the Container Store.
I can store all my rolls of paper and bows and get this, I can SIT, and wrap paper.
Must have.


So really this is for the house, not for just me. :)

December Gift #2

Audrey Hepburn Embellished Vintage Makeup Train Case

{Timeless Totes}

I want this SO bad!


Both from Etsy seller Timeless Totes