Citron + Cream = Chic

I just love it when people ask me for white and green flowers. They are so crisp and clean together...that and they were my wedding colors! lol, I guess I am a little biased but can you blame me?

This was a baptism we worked for a blessed little boy a while back.
I am catching up so as you might now, my posts are a bit out of order,
but better late than never right?
We set up at Intramuros which is truly a hidden gem out in South San Francisco.
It was big and spacious and I loved the indoor garden feel of the veranda where this family had the reception.
I just adore the napkins hanging off the table like that.
The tables were set up with small cube centerpiece like the ones out in Berkeley we did last year.
check it out here: Lavender Wedding

They were all just a little bit different in placements to make them interesting from table to table, and we surrounded the cube with rose petals.

These are my favorite green roses. The Super Green rose is just a ruffly, true green flower.

The cupcake tower was too cute! I loved the iridescent sprinkles on them that I could not capture with my camera. mmmmm...red velvet.....

The favors were caramel apples and these super cute lucky bamboo favors in a vase.

*PERFECT* for the venue. Bravo J, that gal has great taste! ; P

Baby Boy Baptism

Logi Pogi had a baptism and wow-there was a LOT of people there to celebrate! :)

The biggest baby shower I have ever seen and done the flowers for was earlier this year for this baby boy so when C&A called me to make floral arrangements for the baptism I said of course!

My goodness, it was like a mini wedding! Hehe, that little boy is so loved...

We started with the front appetizer table. Would you look at that humongous cupcake??
It's like the size of the base of my vase!
Isn't it cute? I have always wanted to bake a cupcake that big....

The outside cocktail tables were lined with simple small arrangements.
I love the polar star roses! They look like garden roses don't they?

The head table was lined with simple small arrangements at the edge of the table.

The centerpiece were composed of four vases in varying glass vases.
They were all finished with blue ribbon around the neck of the vase.
The flowers were all white and blue. I realized that I took didn't have pictures of the tall centerpiece with the blue bella donna's in them so you will have to take my word for it. :/

Everyone loved the clean look of the white snap dragon in a tall vase.

My favorite part were the cupcake favors that were placed at each table. SUPER CUTE.
They were chocolate and vanilla cupcakes with chocolate and vanilla icing and a fondant cross.
The cupcakes were placed into clear boxes with Paper Source stickers that had the baby's name and date.


Last but not least was the cake from Mazzetti's in Pacifica. Hands down the BEST raisin bran muffin in the world, Sunset magazine has been trying for years to the recipe but the owner says no way. My husband and I sat down to sample their wedding cakes when we were shopping for ours but ultimately we went with Nikki's cakes over at A Tale of Two Truffles.
So they asked me to decorate the cake with a specific design and then when I got there the cake was not as described, so we had no choice but to improvise.
Before: A simple white cake with navy blue ribbon.

After: cluster of white and blue hydrangea.

That was it! A nice luncheon for the baby of the hour on his special day.
My God Bless you always Logi!

Pretty in Pink Baptism-Christening

The Christening was today and as I was setting up the floral arrangements I had to take a picture of the cutest little stuffed doll on the face of the earth! Check her out:

I love this little angel! She was placed on the gift table.

This lady was placed on the cake table.

These were placed near the bar.


Now here is a great tip:

Placing a floral arrangement in front of a mirror does wonders for the room.
It opens it up, gives it depth and makes the arrangement appear bigger than it is.
Like magic. :)
I was pleased to see the rest of the decor was pink and white and cream so I think I chose right with my colors....I think I will name them Blush and Champagne. Or should I just stick to good ol' Pink and Ivory? Anyhow, they were happy with the floral arrangements so that made me happy!

Baptism Floral Arrangements (the WORK)

Ya know.....I had a little how shall I say it? "moment" in class this week.
So this woman is in our class, and I overhear her telling the teacher that she is only signing up to figure out why her florist is charging her so much for her wedding flowers. Why is it so expensive?

Good question right?
I walked by the desk right as she was asking our instructor this and my outside voice turned on by itself and said "labor" as I walked back. I was thinking about how sore my fingers were from wiring all the orchids in this wedding, about lugging my sleepy butt to the flower market at 4am to pick flowers, packing everything in a car to taken to the site, about how many times I have burned myself hot gluing ribbon to handles or boutonnières and really about how much time is spent the days before the event.
Yes, this was all in a matter of the 1.3 seconds before I could rein in my outside voice, hehe.

But really, now that I am in this industry, all I can say is I'm lucky I love it! Why else would I spend so much time pouring through weddings blogs, sites, photographer blogs and site, and wedding books galore? Hours driving to and then walking around the flower market, hours stemming, cleaning, cutting processing flowers, and finally designing the days before. The nights before an event I average 3 hours of sleep. It's nuts, then I work to load up, deliver and set up, sometimes breakdown only to come back to my studio to clean up the mess I have made and put all my supplies away.

Why do this?

Only because I adore it, I love being around flowers, I love seeing my flowers come to life and I love the look on a brides face when I hand her the bouquet.
I truly love weddings! That's why I do it. Right now as a freelance floral designer it's a lot of work. I am doing most things WELL BELOW retail costs....but you know what? I love it. I know that I will some day be able to live off of my work and I feel like I am working towards sharing my gift with the world.
So people if you are wondering, yes it's expensive, some more than others, but it's a service and the person on the other end is working their butts off to make sure your flowers look flawless and that you are happy! It's a lot of work :)

OK, vent session over.....

Lets start from the beginning. Check out my flowers drinking water

I put my cream Alstromerias in this tall container just to give me an idea of how high the flowers would sit.
I'm kinda diggin it.

From this shot it looks like a brides maids bouquet for a brown wedding doesn't it?

I started to think that maybe lining these down the center of a long table at a wedding would look really gorgeous.

Here are the two arrangements that I made for tomorrow's baby shower.

This one will go on the cake table or gift table.

This one will go on the bar.

And NO that is not babies breath...it's rice flower....I was just thinking in the pictures it LOOKS kinda like babies breath...or it it just me?

baptism+communion+birthday=fun

I have a party that I am doing the arrangements and decor for in May. It's a party in which everything is rolled up into one big affair instead of celebrating three different events at different times. I think it's better that way and since its Spring and they are two sacraments it can be done in light colors and pastels and I am pretty excited to see what we can do with it.

Pomanders a la Martha Stewart are making an appearance.
They are easy to make, make an impact, and are super inexpensive.

{greengelato}

{msl}

Alternating from the beams will be these balloon flowers

{msl}
Directions on how to make are here


I bought these cute little white pots.


I think I am going to make little miniature pomanders with carnations and tie a cute ribbon around the belly.

{JKM Ribbon and trims}

First though I am going to make some with silk flowers to see how many flowers it takes and if it's going to be more economical that way.

I am going to make her a collage of her kids pictures to put around the hall to give it a personal touch and I am thinking we will have two tables. One with the communion/Baptism cake. The other a princess theme for her daughters birthday so when they look back at pictures they will have a first birthday picture.

She already got the favors but how fun would these be for favors?
I just love Bakerella!

You can get instructions here.

They seem pretty simple to make and mark my words, you will soon see a post about how they tuned out for me. :)