Head Wreaths

So, it's been a while since I've posted but here's something new I tried. I opened an etsy shop to sell some of my floral arrangements and some jewelry I started making, but I got so busy with school that I had to temporarily close up shop.  For one of my projects, I made some floral head wreaths, made for little girls, like my adorable two-year-old niece!

                                                          Isn't she freaking adorable? :) 

I also made some that were larger, for adults, which my best friend modeled for me quite well. 

I have never made these before now, and they were super fun to make! 

Christmas Time is Here!

Well, actually it technically February but it was Christmas when I made this. We were given glass cubes and then we could choose our own flowers and colors for the design based on what was available. I chose the basic red, green and white, with hints of gold because, well, I love gold. It was a little difficult at first to get the stems crossing in a way to hold everything in place, but it worked out alright. The cube design was probably one of my favorites and I hope to be doing a lot of similar designs in the future. I've already done a few on my own for my own home, but hopefully I can do more in the future. It's a easy and beautiful, making it a great gift in any season.

Wedding Bouquets

Dun-Dun-Duh Duh...  

Aside from making my own wedding bouquet, we did a bridal session in floral design lab.  We were in groups, given our flowers before-hand, and after dividing up the flowers, I ended up getting red and pink roses and carnations, which ended up alright. It was fun to put together, but I actually found it a little difficult to do the step-by-step stem weaving between my fingers our TA was showing us. Ultimately, I ended up just bunching it all together, but hey, it still works. And you can't even tell when it's all wrapped up with ribbon and what-not. I hope to be doing a lot of weddings in my future as an independent florist, so...viola.

Tree Hugger

For starters, this title isn't totally accurate. I am not only a tree hugger, but a plant hugger. A shrub hugger. A flower hugger. A soil hugger. Pretty much anything that has to do with nature, God's beautifully created Earth, and anything that has to do with my career, I want to hug it. Heck, I probably even want to hug you!

But I used to not always be this way. Don't get me wrong, I've always wondered at the beauty at the world and have always loved being out in nature. I love camping and being in the woods, but I also gained a great appreciation for flowers and other residential/landscape plants, as my mother kept a very beautiful yard at our home.  But it never occurred to me that I could have a career working with things like this. I didn't really care about 'going green' (partially because my father was pretty strongly against it, partially because I was ignorant, and partially because I just didn't care). But when I came to college, I was taking my General Education classes and signed up for a class called Environmental Science. If I didn't know anything about being 'environmentally friendly' when I arrived at college, I certainly knew a big amount of something after my first term. I learned right then and there that I think very differently than my parents do when it comes to things like this, and I felt strongly about it! I wanted to change my life for the environment. After I took that class, I even thought about going into to law school of environmental law. But then I realized I would probably make a horrible lawyer...

I kept taking my GEs and the following semester I took two similar classes - The Cultural History of Medicinal Plant, and Living with Plants. Both awesome classes. When I finished medicinal plants, I decided I wanted to work with my professor on doing research on plants' medicinal qualities in China and Tonga. It was also in this class where I discovered my favorite tree - the Ginkgo biloba tree. Seriously, it's probably the coolest tree you will ever know about - but don't even get me started on that because I could really go on forever about it. Anyway, I soon realized that I actually didn't really want to do all the sciencey research stuff...and then I finished Living with Plants. This class was the ultimate push into my major - confirming to me what I wanted to do.  My professor for this class was truly inspired, in every sense of the word, and he just has a passion for what he does. He's passionate about the earth, the trees and plants, and he's passionate about taking care of it. Apparently passion rubs off because it was because of him that I got really into this stuff too. But I still knew I wasn't good at sciencey stuff so I looked into the major and saw that if I did Landscape Management instead of Environmental Science, then I could emphasize in landscape design.

Hey, that sounds cool! I can draw, and I love plants, so that sounds like a match made in heaven to me!

And boy was it! I love this major. I love my classes and I love how everyone in this major is here because they share the same passions. We're just like one big nature lovin', tree huggin', soil smellin' family!

 I actually don't know about the soil smelling but hey, I don't doubt it!

So that's how I got started in landscape design. From there, it kind of just transitioned over to a love of floral design. I love flowers I mean come on, who doesn't?  and this snowball really got rollin' when I did my own flowers for my wedding. I used silk flowers because I wanted to be able to keep my bouquet. I was going to use real ones for the centerpieces but it just got so expensive that we just stuck to silk flowers all the way through. So this is what I did for my flowers for our wonderfully perfect July wedding. Oh, and did I mention that my husband is an incredible graphic designer? We're just full of design!

like the addition of the cake there? I don't mind sharing it because it was literally exactly what I wanted

Now my plan is to do an internship with a flower company to get experience, but ultimately, I want to have my own consulting/design business (independently) and do flower arrangements for other people! When I have the chance to settle in a home I will be in for a while, I'm going to have my own studio/design room with all my supplies and even a greenhouse or two. The future looks bright. :) 

Oh, I guess it also says I do interior design - I'm actually in an introduction course right now, but it's been pretty easy for me. I'm not as professionally educated as I am in the other two subjects, but hey, maybe it just comes naturally with the design mind. Again, I would never call myself a professional on the subject, but I think I have a good enough eye and know the basics enough to at least provide some advice on a room or two. 

So there you have it! Now you probably more about me and where I'm coming from than you ever wanted to! Unless you already know me, then you just got lucky enough to hear the story again :) To end with the words of one of my favorite bumper stickers from Bartlett Tree Company:

Trees are the Answer 

A Fragrant-not-Frightening Halloween

BOO!

Gottcha. Actually this week's design was more about adding color and beauty to a typical holiday accessory - a pumpkin, not a ghost. We brought hollowed-out pumpkins to class to use as our containers for our designs. After asking permission ahead of time, I was able to bring in two pumpkins for two designs so I could make one for my best friend who had just had surgery and was immobile. 

* Shout out to my crazy red head Natalie! * 

These designs are very similar but have some different colors between the two of them. I had to just use what was left over for the second one so I didn't quite get all the colors I wanted, but I made it work. Cuz I'm awesome like that. 

I thought these were fun designs to do because it gave a new feel to Halloween and it's a great way to make seasonal centerpieces or gifts - not just for Halloween but for the entire Fall season.  Fall is my second favorite season, but I love the colors about as much as I love the colors of summer, so this was quite enjoyable. If you're local and want something like this for your next Thanksgiving dinner centerpiece, I would love to make you one! I hope you enjoy these as much as I do. 

Double trouble, boil and bubble.
I don't know if that's how it actually goes, but sounds good to me!

Boutonnieres

I don't know what it is about the word boutonniere but I just love saying it. Maybe it's because it's a French word et j'adore France beaucoup. Beaucoup beaucoup beaucoup.

Beaucoup.



Anyways...I decided I wanted to explore my love for floral design by taking the only course available at the University. Really? Only one floral course?? Personally, I think we should have a whole emphasis within my major just for florists because, let's be honest, the world would be so dull without flowers and without people who know how to arrange them into beautiful bouquets or  centerpieces.

Either way, I loved this course. It's probably my favorite class I've ever taken while in college. I really just want to retake it every semester so I can not only master the basics (which I really didn't seem to find that difficult), but each semester does something different and special for the seasons and holidays. I took the class during Fall semester, so that meant Halloween and Christmas, which was still pretty exciting.

Our first lab introduced us to the art of making boutonnieres.  In each lab, we are given specific flowers to choose from, but in this particular lab, we didn't really have a say in what colors we wanted, so don't be offended if the colors aren't your favorite here. We were also required to learn the genus and specific epithet for each flower too, which is pretty easy to do since I have to do that for pretty much every other class I take, but some found it really difficult. Either way, here are the boutonnieres I made in lab.

Blue carnation with salal leaf using pierce wiring

Rose with baby's breath and leather leaf fern using pierce wiring

calla lily with bear grass and wire 

We did a couple other ones but I liked these the best so they're what I have pictures of. I think the rose turned out nice but the color just isn't my favorite. I really like the calla lily with bear grass, though. Classic. Making these sure do make you feel fancy and sophisticated. 

Assignment 6

This is almost the same as assignment 5. The first page is the design process - it was displayed in our textbook with the needed information, but we were to put it together in our own style. The second page is the concept plan from assignment 5 with adjusted design plans and with color. 

The Design Process

Concept Plan with adjusted design concepts and color

The design process was fun to put together, and it was fun to add color to the concept plan.