Orchids & Deep Water Soloing

I unexpectedly had the day off today, so I thought I would use this morning to finally post about my trip in January to Thailand! (this is going to be a long one)
I arrived in Bangkok a day before Morgan, his brother Rob met me at the airport and we spent most of the day wandering around the markets. Obviously my favourite was the flower market. Streets lined with piles of flowers? Yes please!

 From what I could tell it seems that most of the flower sales are for funerals, or for people to put at the little altars they have at home.  It was interesting to see their "techniques". The wreath above (and most others) are for the most part not put in oasis (though I saw people with stacks of it, so it must be used) rather they wrap little bags of water around each stem and shove them into either styrofoam or the wicker forms you can see in the background above.

 I couldn't get over the price of orchids- these were only $2-3 for a bunch!

 Loved this- this entire truck & the one in front of it were all roses.

 Then we headed to the islands for snorkeling & climbing...

 Morgan doing some climbing.

 Haha. I can't remember if I was taking this picture of Rob or the man behind him...

 Morgan making "special connections" with the locals.

 Deep water soloing... (sorry mom)

 Saying goodbye at the airport- I think it was about 2am.

Succulents- BC Style

Oh hi. Wow it's been a while and I've been busy these past couple months (relaxing & working), with lots of pictures to show for it! I promised Thailand photos, and I will do a post on that, just waiting for the pics :) 
This past Saturday I was in the shop alone and was researching air plants- which I love! During my research I took a little rabbit trail and ended up finding this super cute succulent planters and decided to try my hand at them- they are so BC (especially Fernie!).

Baby First:

 My Favorite:

 The whole Family : )

 

They are so cute & yet wild, and maybe even manly...?  They'd be perfect on a desk, coffee table, bathroom counter OR wedding centerpiece! And the best part is they are ridiculously low maintenance (did I mention manly?). Right now they are the stars of our shop window, but hopefully they will find loving homes soon!

Little Christmas Family

Well this week has been crazy busy, but I just quickly wanted to share one of my favorite orders this Christmas season!
I was asked to create 4 medium sized and one "massive" Christmas arrangement. I decided I wanted them to coordinate but also be unique. I used a mercury glass hurricane for the four smaller and a larger colored hurricane vase for the massive. Here we go...

I'm expecting the next couple of days to be busy, busy, busy!  But I wanted to take a moment to wish you all a Merry Christmas!  I'm off to the land of sun and sand for a couple weeks at the beginning of January and then we will be an exhibitor at The Wedding Fair  in Calgary, AB on January 22nd. So if any of you Calgary Brides are interested in getting married in the Beautiful Town of Fernie come check us out, or even just stop by to say hi! I'll be sure to take lots of pictures at the show (and at the beach!). Merry Christmas & see you in the New Year!

DIY: Design it yourself ~ with The Green Petal!

Life in the shop has been crazy busy this past month as we are creeping up on Christmas and we had several DIY wreath & centerpiece decorating evenings- what a blast! Unfortunately my laptop has been out of order for the past couple months (hence no blog posts). So I finally I got smart and took a few pics on my iphone last night at the final DIY night of the year.

I had such a great time meeting so many lovely ladies from Fernie and giving them an opportunity to get creative!

The evening started with me giving a quick demo and sharing a few "tricks of the trade".

 Lwren's Nesting Golden Bird- super cute!

Anne's Earthy-Traditional!

 Sara stayed with the white/silver theme.

Great Job Christy!

I love how different they all turned out- 9 women and no two were even similar! Great work ladies, thanks for coming- looking forward to seeing you at a spring course! Enjoy your works of art over the holidays!

If you are bummed you missed out on these great evenings- "like" our Face Book Group to stay in the loop about our spring courses!

Just shorten it, and you'll totally be able to wear it again!

How many times have you heard those words? And all you can think is "um yeah, for halloween." . My favorite part of the movie 28 dresses is the last scene where she has all her friends wear their bridesmaid dresses to her wedding... sweet revenge : )       I've worn my share of bridesmaids dresses and I know my friends read this blog so I'm going to go ahead and say they all were super flattering and amazing ;)  No, I have been pretty lucky, but some of my friends have some pretty amazing "dresses" hanging in there closet... waiting to be shortened.

Who does this to a friend?

But I was pretty excited when I discovered this website today. NEWLY MAID SITE  You get to trade in your old bridesmaid dresses for credit towards a new dress that YOU get to pick and you WILL wear again! They then take your dress and either piece it to make new dresses or donate it to charity! Win- win- win situation (to quote the office).   Anyways take a look and let me know what you think!

Scott loves Dani

Just to give you an idea how much this couple loved flowers, this first picture is the arrangement he had waiting for her when they arrived at ILL the day before their wedding.

Scott and Dani made it clear from our first meeting how important the flowers were, and from what I hear from the wedding staff at Island Lake Lodge, there were flowers EVERWHERE!! So pretty. 

Dani carried a cascade (sorry the picture is sideways!) of yellow lilies, mini calla lilies, cymbidium orchids, oncidium orchids, and soft yellow stock. So fragrant & tropical!

I had a lot of fun working on these bridesmaids bouquets, I was given a lot of freedom and decided to try something a little different . Starting with a soft base of white hydrangea and football mums, I added a few yellow cymbidium orchids and then wrapped it all up with the oncidium orchids. Although if left to their natural ways the oncidium would stick straight up, I liked the idea of them "growing" like a vine, winding its way through the bouquet. 

The cute birdcage they had at their signing table.

And of course I forgot to get a close up of all the centerpieces! Here they are as a group, waiting to be delivered.  They were in 14' frosted glass vases and included: white hydrangea, yellow lilies, white football mums, yellow football mums, and green button mums.

Sunny Succulents

A heart that loves is always young. - Greek Proverb

Fall is in the Valley and I'm afraid it just may be here to stay... the upside to that is the warmth of my laptop is a lot more appealing, and I'll be focusing on the blog again : )  I was just browsing through my pictures and I realized how many weddings I have to show you- lots!  So lets get started, this wedding was not a big one, but it's definitely one of my favourites that I've done to date, it's a little bit o' sunshine. It has a lot of things I love in a bouquet: yellow, succulents, & LOTS of texture!

Workbench picture. 

Football mums, freesia, crespedia,solidago, and succulents. Yep, yep.

Cute, cute, cute.