Recent Trip to Florida

I had the good fortune to travel to an enchanting island off the west coast of Florida early in October. The weather was perfect, the water temperature was perfect, the sunsets were perfect, and the shelling was, well, perfect. Shells are abundant and as long as there is not living creature inside, they can be removed. Would you believe that even after collecting bagfulls of shells, I still wanted to keep looking? It was as though a blissful, sweet addiction took hold and you find yourself always stooped over wanting to find just one more and then, just one more, and so on and so on and so on.

Not to be totally on the greedy side, there is a purpose for the shells. They appear in the picture frames, boxes, and wreaths that I sell at craft shows. With the bounty I came home with this time, I can use them liberally which is totally luxurious and wonderful.

Floral Arrangements for Wedding

This is a sampling of the floral arrangements I created for my daughter's wedding the end of August, 2010. There were over 25 total arrangements plus the bridal bouquet, corsages, and boutonnieres. There were also floating flowers in the 2 water features, 3 potted containers barricading the driveway which I had potted early in the summer (white geraniums, white pansies, and golden groundcover (forget the name right now-helichrysum?). I was making the corsages in my hotel room until 2am on W-Day. Yikes! There was a bit of a feather theme being woven through the decorations so my daughter wanted feathers in her bouquet which blended with her fascinator in her hair. She also wore the 2 crow feathers my late husband and I wore in our hair at our wedding 10 years ago. Transporting all of them took 2 SUV's with the air conditioning on full blast to keep them from wilting on the 1 1/2 hour drive to site. The amazing piece was between my daughter and my stash, we had all the containers, French flower vases, pedestals, galvanized cones we needed.

Floral Fireworks for my Daughter's Wedding

Here are some of the gorgeous flowers I had the joy to work with in putting together over 24 arrangements, one bridal bouquet, 7 corsages, 9 boutonnieres for my daughter's wedding the end of August. The colors were brown, white and citrus, with an emphasis on lime green and orange. Brown was picked up with manzanita branches and the white came mostly from dahlias & paniculata hydrangeas. The oranges came from rudbeckias, dahlias & crocosmia. Lime green came from limelight hydrangeas, bells of ireland, golden lonicera, golden cotinus, and monterrey cyprus, The next posting will show the finished products. Transporting them in two SUV's was a challenge. But my brilliant designer son figured out how to bungie-cord plastic crates and square buckets together to hold the vases. I worked late into the night under the tent but it sure was fun. Flowers were picked from 4 gardens in the area plus more from an area wholesale floral warehouse.

Food for My Daughter's Wedding

The following posts will be dedicated to my daughter's recent wedding (end of August). I was honored to make her cake (created essentially for the slicing photo -they had a cupcake tower along with a dessert bar), the floral arrangements (about 24), her bouquet, corsages, and boutonnieres. I thought you could learn a few tricks from my experience with the chocolate and the pastry shells.

The kids wanted to serve my fresh homemade ginger ale so I purchased over 4# of ginger, peeled and sliced all of it. The ginger gets simmered in sugar water then is cooled and mixed with club soda. Delicious! You can find various recipes for this on-line. This time (instead of sending the ginger to the compost) I tried tossing the cooked slices with granulated sugar then air dried them. You then have candied ginger , which I love to eat and no longer have to buy!

A trick I discovered with making tiny pastry rounds was to use a muddler to gently push the dough rounds into the tiny cupcake holder. They were to be filled with lemon and lime curd for creamy citrus-y tarts. The wedding colors were citrus (orange and lime) and brown so the tarts looked great on the dessert bar.

About the Wedding Cake-to keep with the organic branch and bird theme, I made chocolate leaves and twigs to decorate it. My artistic son gave me a great sketch of a branch which I placed a sheet of wax paper over and with melted chocolate, outlined the branch with a small frosting tip. The chocolate was runnier than I would have liked so they turned out looking more like antlers than twigs. So the remedy was to carefully shave the ends into more of a point. For the leaves, I tried rose leaves first but found them way too soft and were not easily peeled from chocolate. Then I tried salal (some florists refer to it as lemon leaves) and that worked. You paint a thick layer on the vein side (underside) and let harden. Then carefully peel off. As the day was very warm and they needed to be transported over 1 1/2 hours to their home (garden wedding), I placed the container the leaves/twigs were in on frozen ice bags, then covered it with newspaper & towels and then put it on the front passenger floor and cranked up the air conditioning. My feet froze but they made it to their destination! There I frosted the 4 layers then carefully peeled off the twigs and placed them onto the cake. The leaves were at the base.
For an amateur I must say it looked pretty good.

The next posting will be the fantastic flowers I had the joy to work with.

Venetian Costume Ball

Here are photos of the costume I created for a Venetian costume ball I attended last February in Seattle. I was able to use the teal velveteen gown I made in high school (I was inspired by the movie, Camelot, which I saw 5 times). After studying the Italian costumes, I concluded that the ladies did not show cleavage so I folded purple organdy 4 times, gathered it with basting stitches, and held it together with a ribbon to make a "ruff." The glittered mask was embellished and the hat was definitely OVER THE TOP! Because the gown was teal, I had to use peacock feathers as the basis for the hat.

I found the skirt recently at a local consignment shop. I immediately knew it would be the one for the next ball. The fabric is sheer (will need an underskirt) with stripes of sage green, orange, rust, and the"dots" are actually splotches of gold threads spaced all over the skirt. So now I must design the top. The colors are so rich an luscious-velvet seems the only way to go...
I am open for suggestions for the top....any ideas? Help! The ball is Feb 2011.

I'm so excited-my cast was removed last week ! Now I feel that I have to move twice as fast to make up for lost time. I missed being away from blogging, but typing was just too laborious & time consuming.

Here is a photo of some decorations I made recently for a friend's baby shower. The hostess wanted black, white, and pink for the colors. The topiary was made with tissue paper flowers pinned into a styrofoam ball and the clay pot was spray-painted black. The 3-tiered boxes were covered with coordinating papers. Normally I can effortlessly whip out a gorgeous bow, but with an arm in a cast, I felt totally clutzy and like a beginner again. It was a good lesson in humility.

Shabby Chic & Some Things Pink Boutique Sale at The Rabbit Hole

Here are photos of my recent sale at The Rabbit Hole (my name for the finished space in my garage which is home for on-going flea-markets). Part of the space was draped with black, white, & pink sheets, mini-white lights were strung across the ceiling along with pink paper lanterns, & a large painting I got for free served as a background. Antique linens/quilts draped the tables. A lamp shade wire form was covered with lights & trimmed with a pink boa. Even the corseted dress form was decked out with a pink boa. Pink lemonade, pink sprinkled cookies & pink cupcakes were served. In spite of my arm still in a cast from being broken about a month ago, the show definitely went on and lots of fun was had by all. And I am already making plans for the big holiday show in the fall!

Shabby Chic Sale

As promised earlier, here are more items that will be for sale at my upcoming Shabby Chic & Some Things Pink Sale. I am planning on decorating with boas, mini-lights, pink flowers, pink feathers, and more. Check out the cool French baquette cart-great holder for paper rolls, fabric, and even bread? I re-did the floor lamp next to it. Votives can go into the purple cut-glass tea cups & the upper glass fixture can hold a candle or small vase for flowers. Cool. In the first picture there are 2 candle sticks that I glued glass fixtures to the top. They make great elevated "vases" or candle holders.

There will be vintage aprons & clothes, bird cages, mirrors, dessert pedestal stands, dishes, luminarias using teacups/saucers, lanterns, and more.
I'll post before & after photos of the garage that will be transformed. It will be the best that ole' unfinished space has ever looked!

Broken Wing

Hi
Just a note to say that I will be taking a break (pardon the pun) from posting (but not for too long-can't keep a gal down).
A few days ago I broke my arm. The down-side is a serious curtailment of my usual high-energy, productive days. The up-side is a heightened appreciation of what some people deal with permanently, gratitude that the breaks will heal & that it is my non-dominant hand. It will be a good lesson in patience & humility, and this will give an opportunity for this strong-willed, independent lady to graciously accept help.
Isn't life simply amazing?

Belles at the Fernwood Ball

I wanted to share some of the glorious flowers I have a chance to dance with in my garden.
The red poppy was discovered at the garden center where I worked-she stopped me in my tracks and I knew she had to be in my garden-even though it doesn't get as much sun as she would like. The red is brilliant and inspires me to have a scarlet , vampy petticoat someday. I think the name is "Belle of Liverpool." The white clematis is another beauty-blooms are almost 8" across and her name is "Duchess of Edinbourgh." (I think). Don't you just love the names? The foxglove are
incredible this year-some stand over 5' tall and given that they naturalize, it is an added bonus.
The lime green foliage with purple flowers is a hardy geranium and happily blooms all summer. The screaming "chartrocity" of the color is a great foil against the purple. I will be thinning out the yellow poppies but only after their luscious petals are finished twirling.