Floral Design

I have always loved flowers- always. As a kid every year when the lilacs bloomed I would steel away during the night to a hedge row of them up the street and fill brown paper bags with their blossoms to fill my room. I picked flowers from my mothers garden, road sides and at night from other peoples gardens- I try to remember this when some blooms go missing from my garden.

I was a plant and soil science major in college when I took my first floral design class. This was back in the late 1980's and 90's - the designs were mostly hideous.

Can you feel the movement in this piece? Can you!

I like how I used moss to fill in the holes here.

I promise I have not mix yellow daisies with pink carnations since the early 90's.  I started after college designing flowers for friends weddings as a wedding gift and for a short while worked in a florist shop but I sick of putting mums in coffee cups so that didn't last long.

They looked like this

I started my business 7 years ago, I keep it simple by just focusing on wedding flowers while trying to use local materials when possible. I am a scavenger at heart so I love finding ball jars and milk vases at yard sales. I strip birch bark off my firewood and wrap containers with it. I use stones I've found, wild flowers and lots from my own garden as well as local farms. Basically I still do what I loved doing as a kid only I no longer pilferage from peoples gardens at night and I've made a business out of it.

I plan to have a post a month with simple floral design instructions for the home. I will start next week with how to arrange your Valentine's Day flowers.  Let me know if there is anything in particular you guys want a tutorial for!