Let Them Eat Cake

Listen to me:
Tracy at The Buttercream Studios is a *&&^*@#% Rock Star. period.
WOW. wow. woooow.

Enough about me, and what I think of her...let's look at the facts. Go to her site and look at her cakes and tell me they are not *gorgifical*{real word, trust me I'm a florist.} I am a self proclaimed flower snob and her orchids and hydrangeas are unreal...go look! Check out the couture cakes. Not only is she talented, but she's super sweet. I <3 her.
She also competed in the Food Network challenge that's airing later this year so be sure to check her out ;)

Pink San Francisco City Hall {part three}

Our bride served one sliver of each flavor to all the guest so that they too could enjoy each and every delectable bite of this humongous cake.

Here are the pictures of he beautiful cake she made for my pink wedding wedding.
With no flash and no lighting it was gorgeous.

But when the gold and pink lights hit it, it was spectacular!

Everything was hand made and hand painted...just look at the detail.

The night before I was running behind and couldn't get to her studio so my sister went out there for me with flowers and she came back with a tray of cake. Before she said "hello" she said open this NOW so I can eat it. I let her have one bite of each {because I am greedy} and she too was in love. I managed to save some for my husband and at 2am this was my dinner.

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!

Raspberry and Navy Blue {Part Three: Reception number 2 }

Part One
Part Two

Hello there! Here is the last post on my Raspberry and Navy Blue Wedding.

So what happened to my car? Who knows, but it didn't start and thank goodness a good Samaritan from the church where we were setting up heard that awful clicking that happens when a car doesn't start and came over to give me jump. He told me it was my alternator and I thought-no, it sounded the same as when I got stuck waiting for my Lavender Bride, and thankfully when he gave the car a jump start, my car started! Turns out I didn't have to sell orchids to make it to the next reception, hehe, but can you imagine your florist getting STRANDED on your wedding day with your flowers?????

knock on wood I have a wedding this Saturday.: ( Jinx! just kidding universe....

We finally made it to the Hillsborough Racquet Club in Hillsborough California where we would be setting up a second reception for the friends and family of the bride and groom. We had a combination of high and low centerpiece. I used local seasonal flowers for the low centerpieces which included the gorgeous hot pink dahlias, some magenta phalaenopsis, super green roses hot lady roses, some fuchia stock, some lime and fuschia cockscomb, a bit of the hot pink vanda orchids and few pieces of myrtle. They sat low on the tables in a ti leaf wrapped glass cylinder vase to match the taller centerpiece.


Now I don't know where you live, but in the San Francisco flower market there was a shortage of cut Phalaenopsis Orchid stems. Normally they are everywhere and they are readily available, but the week of this particular wedding there was a shortage and NO ONE was able to fill orders for the magenta phals. My own guy who's always has them called me Monday(5 days before the wedding) and apologized that for the first time in years he was not able to fill it. They said the greenhouses were out and that I might have to buy plants at 12-16 per stem. Umm...$15 x's 20 stems =$300 x's 7 centerpeices wholesale???
No way.
Sure enough I walked around in circles and asked everyone and finally brokered(read:begged) a deal with a guy in the market that had 9 bunches left and promised to get me 15 more in the next few days. I trusted him and showed up in two days to these lovely ladies.

Not uniform in color but hey, they were all mine! He explained that he had the most difficult time filling this order and when they finally came in he had a hard time saying no to people who were willing to pay him TRIPLE what I had paid him.
All because the greenhouses were depleted.
So we made it but let me tell you it was scary...

The taller centerpiece were tall 30 inch cylinder vases that were filled with dendrobium orchids submerged in water and bunches of phalaenopsis stems in pinks, magenta's, and a variegated pink and fuchsia.

These were spread around the room and in that white room they really popped!
I wish I had better photos but I have not been able to get my camera to properly work for me and my photoshop is also compressing my pictures down. Sorry!

This was a 16 foot garland that was draped along the edge of the HUMONGOUS fireplace.

Outside of the venue there were these cool horse heads that greet you as you walk up the stairs to the reception area so we decorated this area with two simple hand held bouquets that we secured to the horse mouth using the navy blue satin ribbon.

The stairs were lined up with simple cylinder vases with gorgeous dahlia heads in deep burgundy, magenta, fuchsia, and hot pink.


Ok I saved the best for last.
The dessert table that made me stop in my tracks and say to the gals setting up
Goddamn that's a great spread!
The cake? So cute I wanted to scream. Something told me this might go over well so instead I snapped pictures to share. Check out the orchids on this cake! I gave them a few blossoms of the dendrobiums, the vandas, and the phalaenopsis and they did there thang!

The cake stand and decor werein the wedding colors of Raspberry and Navy Blue of course and would ya look at the tiers on that cupcake holder? The polka dot ribbon, the cheesecake pops, the f*&^ing caramel apple bites????stop it! I was so jealous.

But no time to relax just yet we had to make it back to the other reception to move stuff around.

Except the car wouldn't start again. :(
I was so stressed I jumped into one of the other SUV's we brought with one of my assistants and I left two other members of my crew to deal with whatever was going on with my Pacifica...(nodding head)all bad.
But luckily I was able to reach the DOC by phone, she moved some stuff for us and we got there in time to snag one picture of the wedding party and double check the centerpieces in the main reception room.

As we were leaving the reception, the rest of my crew was pulling up and were literally jumping out of the car to attack the centerpieces, but we told them that everything was already done and it was time to go. :) They sure are awesome. Allison, Mary and Debbie~you rock! :D

So my couple went on their honeymoon and I wish them the best of luck! The wedding(s) were beautiful! I wish you much love and success in your marriage, thank you for letting me be a part of it.

{They lived happily ever after...}

Colored Foam

{Both here}

Say what?
Okay so you are probably familiar with the green foam right? This is what everyone uses in floral arrangements unless it's a fresh water vase. But yesterday I got to play with some colored foam. Powdered foam no less.

{powder foam here}


So at first I was like ehh...maybe if I make big cosmos the size of a tall arrangement for like a casino night or Sex in the City party but c'mon, how many request do you get for that???
I saw a display of this at a lecture I attended last year but still I thought, no thanks buddy.
I pass.

Well.....that was till I saw Maribel's Wasabi.
What the heck does that mean you are asking?
Take a look.

I told her she was after my own heart, they were so cute!
That wasabi is actually foam and the sushi are made of leaves with fresh flowers in them. the drinks are also filled with colored foam and then were topped with fresh flowers.
GURRRLLLL.
That is what I said outloud.
I may have to borrow that is what I said to myself : P J/K!

These are Holly's. One is like a big a** Margarita and the other is like a cool rununcula sorbet, right? So yes, these are made out of foam and real fresh cut flowers. Yellow Rununcuals and pink carmelia's(sp?).

This one is Ruby's. She cracked me up with her Ikebana spin on the whole floral foam. I find it amusing because she purposely combined the two knowing Soho would have a cow with the foam because it's not exactly Ikebana material.
I almost peed my pants when she named her arrangement
"Pink Panties".

Here are my two:
Tropic thunder


and Steel Magnolias. Hahaha!
We didn't have to name them , we just got silly and thought up names.

We were totallly having fun with these and going overboard with ribbon and bedazzling them!:P

This last picture is like an assembly line of various cocktails that my favorite two sisters made, Monica and Maria. Doesn't that yellow margarita with an orange tulip and lily grass look like you could drink it? They are totally toxic but man they look like a mango smoothie of some sort, don't they?

Ok, this one is very sweet. It's a cake made out of fresh cut flowers!


Look at how cute it is. Like a little petit four that would be perfect as a table setting for a wedding. Everyone gets their own dessert. There were other great designs, that I just forgot to snap up.

They are slowly growing on me.

Will I make them?
Probably not.....but if someone asked me tooo..............

Mexican/Latin Themed Party/Wedding

Why so many slashes? I don't know, hehe,
I couldn't decide what to name my post.
Nevertheless I was emailed a question about cake toppers and of course that started my quest to find pictures and examples of cakes and how yes, dammit, skeletons can be cute!

Both from the fabulous blog
In The Now Wedding and Events out of SoCal.
Beautiful events and the the owner Amanda has great taste and gorgeous pictures on her blog. Yes, I blogstalk her on a daily..........

Ok, so I am cutting and pasting now....little crazy...not perfect but I loved this bright table cloth and thought it would be great for an outdoor or backyard Mexican/Fiesta themed wedding or party, maybe for the cocktail tables. The floral arrangement is scaled rather large, but mainly its just for the colors and it can also work with one cluster of the same colored flowers.


Table from here and floral from forum.gardenweb.com

These Mexican Wedding toppers are so darn cute!
{here}

"Together forever even in death"
{brides.com}

{weddingjeannie}

MexicanSugarskull.com

Favors anyone? These are freaking adorable and would totally go with the fiesta theme.
Fill em up with almonds or jellybellies or if you really want to be authentic fill them up with Mexican candies like marzapan candy.

I absolutley adore these from Brides.com.
So bold in color and so easy to make.


You must check out Mexican Sugar Skull for a ton of supplies and ideas for a Mexican style wedding or party. They have everything you could possibly need from stamps to make invitations to picados like I showed on a previous post, bridemaid bags, ties for your groomsmen, cake toppers, recipes.....I could go on and on. Pretty much the bulk of what you need is there, check them out!

All pictures from Mexicansugarskull.com