Oh Autumn. How I love you so. You with your cozy lattes, crisp leaves and amazing colours. Let me celebrate by making you a wreath. And then keeping it for myself and hanging it on my door.

I made a wreath.

me no likey.

no thanks.

blech.

Sigh. I didn’t like any of them. Nothing was working for me. I didn’t have enough of the large flowers to make a nice full wreath and all the imbalanced designs just weren’t doing it for me.

So I decided to back to Michaels and bought another pot of the larger ones. They were still on 50% off but I was able to use an additional 25% off coupon that week. Nice!

To attach them to the wreath frame I simply glue gunned each one on. Here is a little animated gif of it all coming together…

After I secured both the large and small flowers on, I was done!

Here are a few close ups. I love the colours. Autumn has the best colour palette!

And that’s it! Easy and festive.

My love affair with Autumn continues.

Have you made any wreaths lately? What is your favourite season? Are you obsessed with Autumn’s colour palette like I am?

Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian friends!

    

Back last Fall when I painted our fireplace mantel black I was not thinking about how I would decorate it come Summer. Not that I regret for one second making the switch but sometimes solving one problem creates a new challenge.

Decorating for Autumn and Winter (Christmas) was easy but come Spring I realized I would have a harder time making it look festive then I did back when it was white.

I didn’t blog about how I decorated it for Spring (Easter) but basically it was a woodsey egg theme. Here are a few shots I took before I dismanteled the ‘ol mantel.

But what to do with a BLACK MANTEL in summer?

After some reflection (ha, get it? See that big mirror above the mantel) I decided I needed to keep it simple, graphic, punchy and bright. I needed some large vibrant elements that could compete with the heaviness of the black paint colour.

Well hello pink hydrangeas. Thank you for stopping by.

Here it is from a greater distance so that you can see the full effect.

Chef Kev bought a new (to us) beer to try a month or so ago and I loved the simplicity of the bottles so much that I washed and kept them. I thought they’d come in handy for something and this was their first task.

I simply filled five of my new ‘vases’ with water and added a single hydrangea bloom to each.

Hydrangea stems are very stalky (think tree branch) so to prolong the life of this type of bloom, cut a slit up the stem to allow for better water absorbtion.

Isn’t the refection from the mirror neat? It makes it look like there are twice as many bottles and blooms.

And a few close-ups for you…

And one last shot of the room from a distance. You can see the painting I did of Chace. Aren’t the bright colours in his painting fun with the pink hydrangeas?

What do you think? Ever changed something in your house for the better only to find yourself with a new dilema? Anyone else decorated their mantel for the summer? Turned any beer bottles into impromptu vases recently?

This past weekend we entertained some guests from England (Chef Kev’s Aunt and her husband) and it inspired me to do a casual country bouquet as a centrepiece.

To start, I went to my local garden centre and picked out $20 worth of the blooms I wanted. No filler, no branches of leaves, no fuss, just straight pretty blooms. I don’t mind that (filler etc.) for certain arrangements but really wanted to create a contemporary take on the traditonal ‘english garden’ as a nod to our guests :). So no room for extra fluff here.

I chose (from left) a soft green viburnum, pink peonies, and white and pink dahlias.

Here’s a neat little design tip that may be of interest. I learned it when I was in design school (I’m a Graphic Designer) but find it comes in very helpful for pretty much anything visual…

Things look better in ‘threes’. And along that same thought, odd numbers.

For example, this bouquet looks like a collection of random blooms. But break it down and it is purposefully made up of a combination of the following ‘three’ and ‘odd numbered’ elements:
– 3 viburnums
– 3 peonies
– 5 dahlias (odd number)
= 11 blooms total (odd number)

Look a litle closer and you may also notice that those 11 blooms are made up of 3 colours – green, pink and white.

Now let’s get to arranging these little pretties!

First up I chose my vase. I picked a simple one that wasn’t too tall since it was being used as a centrepiece. It’s kind of important that the guests can talk to each other rather than a large bouquet that they can’t see past. Ha. This vase had a nice wide opening which fit in with the vision I had in mind.

I taped off a grid – done simply with regular scotch tape – as I did here. The grid offers some structure and support (so your flowers don’t flop over) and allows you to plan out placement a bit easier.

I cut each bloom before placing it in the vase. It’s a good idea to always cut (at an angle) above any spots where a new shoot or branch would come out. I was told once that fresh water can get up the stalk faster/easier by bypassing this ‘intersection.

I started placing my flowers in, beginning with the viburnum.

See how the flowers are trying to flop over? I placed all of my blooms in the middle four sections of the grid since they are large and wanted to ‘hang loose’. Keeping them towards the centre ensured that when they did naturally flop down, they ended up where I wanted them (grazing the edge of the vase) and not hanging down over the sides.

The dahlia’s went in next.

Again, I kept all of these in the centre four quadrants.

As I trimmed the peonies to add in, I noticed a few petals that had begun to turn. It’s okay to remove them, and actually a good idea. Even if a petal is on it’s way out, it’s taking vital water away from the rest of the bloom so don’t feel bad removing the offenders.

In went the peonies and I was done!

Peonies open really fast so even though I made this the day before our guests came, that ‘ball’ of a peony was open wide and gorgeous by the time we had dinner they day after I arranged this.

Viburnum detail…

getting up in this dahlia’s face…

And some face-time with my favourite flower – the peony.

This arrangement was simple, fun to make and (in my opinon) beautiful!

Entertained any overseas guests lately? Used it as a (good) excuse to buy flowers? I did. Guilty. But in a good way.

Cheerio. Chip Chip.

I hope you all had a fabulous holiday and are gearing up for some fun for tomorrow night –  New Year’s Eve! We’re off for a quiet(ish) night of drinks and games at a friend’s and looking forward to ringing in 2012!

With Christmas having just passed, I’d like to share a few of the touches that made our Christmas day dinner extra special. We hosted this year and Chef Kev took care of our amazing meal while I got busy making sure the house was festive and beautiful.

Here is the table centrepiece that I designed… and how I did it!

First I started with a bunch of grocery store bouquets. I really like designing my own arrangements and find these bouquets fit the ‘bill’ as they are cheaper then nursery or florist cut flowers. Plus by doing the arrangement myself I get to do something fun and creative!

The best part about this year was that my little ‘punch card’ at the supermarket was full (where they punch your card every time you buy some flowers and when your card is full you get some free) so this whole arrangement cost me $6! $26 if I didn’t have a full punch card.

My table setting was going to feature red and white so I wanted to reflect that in my arrangement. I came home with some red carnations, white dahlias, baby’s breath and some green tiger grass.

Then I chose my vase style (low and long for this project) and added my floral preserve. I like keeping my centrepieces low so that when dining it doesn’t distract from, or impede seeing and conversing with my guests!

Next I added in some cranberries since they are so Christmasey and look so pretty ;)… plus they actually do have an added benefit when designing your arrangement. The cranberries hold your flowers in place so there is no need for foam, frogs or a tape grid (sounds like a bad 80’s band name – “the foam frogs and tape grids”) but I digress…

The other day we had my parents and sister over for my mom’s birthday (Happy Birthday Mom!) and while out grabbing some groceries I thought I’d pick up a few fresh flowers. I love making flower arrangements so generally look for whatever is relatively inexpensive and seasonal – I can often be heard saying “no need to wrap them, they’re just for me”. Then I come home and make a nice little arrangement for the occasion!

However, there were some pretty slim pickins’ the othe day and nothing was striking a chord. I thought I may get a few gerberas but at $2.49 a pop I’d have to get quite a few for any impact. And then low and behold I spotted one of the ready-made bouquets for $12 that contained eight of them! I did some quick math and headed to the check out… but not before I grabbed some baby’s breath too. YES, baby’s breath! Why? Becuase I love a challenge.

I can hear you all saying “baby’s breath? Are we talking about the same baby’s breath seen in 1980’s corsages along side a pink taffetta grad dress and mall bangs in a Sears portrait?” And to that I say “Yes. Yes we are.” You see, I had a vision – a vision to make you all baby’s breath believers. Convert you, if you will.

Forgive me that I don’t have a picture of the bouquet ‘before’ but I’m sure you can all envision your basic generic grocery store bouquet comprised of a few different blooms and a truckload of filler. And if you can’t then I beg you to forgive me anyway. Hey, I’m a new blogger, I forget to take ‘before pics’. Cut a girl some slack.

To begin I took a vase that I had on hand and filled it with floral preserve (the little packet your bouquet comes with) and water. Any vase will do but for this arrangement I pictured something low and ‘full’.

Then I made grid using regular satin scotch tape. The grid helps you plan out your arrangement as well as help hold your flowers up!

begin assembling (starting with your ‘main’ flower)…

Start to fill in your arrangement using complimentary blooms. If you don’t have an eye for this sort of thing then the ‘pre-arranged’ bouquets are great because they already come with complimentary blooms and colours. You can see here is where I started adding my BABY’S BREATH for bulk. I liked that it was so light and airy yet helped fill out the arrangement. Plus did I mention that I like a challenge…

The bouquet came with one LARGE frond that was very pretty but would not work with this type of arrangement so check out what I did…

Step one: Snip

Step two: gather together by pushing up from bottom along stem and then tape:

step three: stuff:

I got four bunches out of the one frond. Not bad!

Next, take some of the filler leaves (you won’t use them all most likely as these generic bouquets usually come with SO much) and add to the edges:

Another neat trick to making your bouquet look custom and designey (yup – a made up word for you) is to use a non-flower element. I had this little shimmery stick from Christmas that matched my palette so in it went!

Add some ribbon around the vase:

And you’re done! Not bad for less than $15!

Here are a few close ups:

Are you beginning to become a baby’s breath believer?

AND just to show you I’m not fakin’ it for fun, here’s another arrangement I did in the same vase back at Christmas.

Do you think you’ll give Baby a chance? As Patrick once said: “No one puts baby in the corner”. Happy flower arranging!