I AM GRATEFUL

I  am GRATEFUL for my family of course!!                   

              

              

but most of all these two beautiful little girls. Sure didn't know this kind of love existed until they did.          

  LOVE LOVE LOVE THEM!!! 

I am GRATEFUL in my life to be able to gather with my girls and create centerpieces for our Thanksgiving table.

I am GRATEFUL to be able to share with others my designs and to show off my up and coming designer, seen here posing with her Thanksgiving Centerpiece!!

I am GRATEFUL for my job. Creating beautiful design for others, whether they are happy occasions or sad occasions. It gives me great pleasure to design with flowers. Flowers bring happiness, love and warmth to any occasion. You know you are gonna smile when someone surprise you with a bright bouquet. You will feel love when your special someone brings you flowers for that special day. You will feel the thoughtfulness and warmth of receiving flowers during a very difficult time in your life or when you are not feeling well. I just LOVE LOVE LOVE FLOWERS!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

Perceived Value of Your Arrangement

I have $75.00 dollars to create an arrangement. Given no other instruction, but to please make it pretty. OK great lets begin. 

Lets start this with these 2 vases shown below. The tall glass vase is an inexpensive everyday vase, maybe 10" tall. The vase next to it is a specialty vase, aprox 5" tall and 3x the price. Using my budget I will create a design for both of these vases.

                                             
 I have selected my flowers for the taller vase

The flowers will be scaled down to fit the vase in a pleasing design. ALL of these flower will be used.                                                                                                                                                                              Below is the finished product. Pretty!! The over all height of this design is 25"give or take an inch.

                                                       

Floral Birthday Cake

Recently my mom celebrated her birthday, so I decided that I would make her a cake. Not just any cake but a floral decorated cake. Here are the beginnings to this design. I had already baked and frosted an angel food cake that mom told me that she had wanted.

First I chopped up 1/2 of the almond bark into smaller chunks for easier melting.

                             

Microwave for 90 secs at first then 15 secs there after till melted

                           
All of my ingredients for this recipe, along with the melted bark.

  

                                                                             
 I cut leaves off of the stems and coated the backs with the melted bark

 Next I cut and coated the Lisianthus buds, setting them aside to dry.

 

 The Lisianthus blooms were next, being careful to cover the backs of the blooms with the bark, so the flowers would not come in contact with the cake.

 

 Now I cut apart l green hydrangea into smaller florets. Some I dipped into the bark, and then I puddled some melted bark onto the wax paper, then placed the florets into it, making a small mound.

After all my material was coated with the melted bark, it was just a matter of waiting for it to completely dry and form the protective hard shell on the back of each bloom and leaf so the floral and fauna would not come in contact with the cake.

Finally all my material is ready to be placed onto the cake.

 Now the fun begins! My frosting had hardened over night in the fridge, so I was able to place, then rearrange the flowers and leaves into a pretty design that pleased me. Trust me, I did this many times!! 

More arranging and rearranging, when I found the perfect placement, I used some of the left over melted bark to secure it to the top of the cake.

Here is the finished product!

Happy Birhday Mom!!! <3

So I bet you are wondering, what happened to those raspberries?? 

Well I ate them!!

My Halloween Pumpkin

After our Pumpkin Patch Adventure with my granddaughter. Her selections for carving shown here.

I wanted to be creative with my pumpkin this year, not just the usual carving of 2 triangular eyes, a triangular nose and the wide open toothless smile. So this year I painted my pumpkin!! And then I carved the triangular eyes and nose, with the wide open toothless smile. I also used an led light inside so as not to burn up the additional items that I wanted to add. Using a medium sized round iglu and 3 long stakes, an Iglue on stilts if you will,  I was able to construct a water supply for my flowers and also hold up the pumpkin lid perfectly. Adding my flowers all around, placed the lid on top, turning on the light. I stepped backed and admired my handiwork.

Pretty darn cute!!! I took the decorated pumpkin up to our family pizza place and let the trick or treaters enjoy the display for the night. The next day 4 year old Addy (a budding floral designer herself) was visiting. I asked her how she liked my pumpkin. I was expecting her to be WOWED; she just loves to play with all the flowers, make her own designs and give them to her mother or anyone else who would have them. Her response was.."I'm not saying I didn't like it, but you are not supposed to paint it, or put flowers in it."  I said, "I was just trying to make it pretty". She said, patting me on the arm gently, "I know, Grandma, but you are supposed to put a face in it." I told her that I did carve out the face and I had a light!! Trying to explain to me in a very soft tone so that I would understand she said,  "It's a Jack o lantern!!." and waggling her fingers at me, "its supposed to be Spoooooky!!" So I guess for next year, I will be doing Spoooooky!! and then I will do another pretty fall themed pumpkin, just for me.