It was a blast!  I snapped up all kinds of pink, peach, burgundy and magenta flowers, not sure exactly how they would all gel, and there is some great stuff still sitting in my cart- like astrantia- that I didn’t end up using, because it didn’t work texturally with the other stuff in the end.  I had fun with the mostly analogous colors, and I am in love with those simple, sleek hot coral-y pink tulips – I think they’re my favorite thing I bought!

Pics of the arrangements, followed by some detail shots from the event are below:

OK, this is the kind of New Year’s resolution that a person could really stick to!

And you know what goes really well with cupcakes???

Here are the arrangements in their cupcake shop habitat:

And the post party wreckage ; )

Happy V day to all!

Her post went up yesterday, and it centers around tips and tricks for floral design amateurs who want to create a polished looking arrangement for their home, or a friends.  Hope it is helpful to someone!

You can check it out here:

The verdict? I think these could make lots of sense for a high volume shop that does daily orders / deliveries.  On one hand, they are $1.30 – $2.00 each, which seems a little high to me, but on the other hand, they (like tape grids) do allow you to use fewer stems, which saves money.  And in a high volume shop, where time is money, these would also save some time over a tape grid.   I think they’d also be good for someone doing DIY flowers for a wedding or event who wanted to make things as simple as possible.   They’re one size, though you can use them on a bigger container because the tabs are long enough to be adjustable- with a bigger container the area that anchors the stems would be in the middle and then you’d use the space around it for additional stems.   It was simple to use, and worked well.  For my day to day, I think I’d stick to tape grids, but if I find myself doing a big quantity of cylinder centerpieces for an event, I would definitely turn to these to simplify my workflow (making 15 tape grids in a row can get really tedious, really fast!)

Here are some pics of the grid and arrangement in progress:

But when I walked inside and this was the first thing I saw, I knew it was going to be a great class!

Meg and Annie’s goal with these classes is to fill a niche that is sort of empty in LA – regular floral design classes for people who range from semi-serious hobbyists to budding professionals.   I think these classes did indeed do a great job of filling that niche – the arrangement we made was a really specific technique, not too basic, but also not above any of our heads.   Most of the students were wedding planners who wanted to have some floral design skills to offer, brides or friends preparing for an upcoming DIY wedding, or people like me who are just starting to do small weddings and events on their own.

Here is Meg walking us through all of the flowers we’ll be using in our arrangement- which were

Our piles ; ) I love that each included a mimosa:

We all started by trimming and securing our foam:

And then we added the outermost shape of the arrangement with sprigs of variegated pittosporum, added our single chocolate artichoke, and greened it up with smaller pieces of pittosporum:

Then we added our “money flowers” – the roses and mums, and began to surround them with the accents and fillers.

Almost done! We added the geranium leaves second to last to let them poke out really whimsically and naturally:

In every floral design class I’ve ever taken I’ve learned one really handy little trick – and in this class, it was that you can use rose stems to support softer stems in foam, rather than buying the wood picks for the purpose.  Saves money and isn’t wasteful:

Meg’s lovely (almost) finished arrangement!

And Megan’s really finished arrangement – once the anemones had been added:

And one of my favorite student arrangements – ours were all a little different, and they all turned out great!

Here are some cool detail shots of my finished arrangement – love these closeups!

And a longer view of my finished arrangement – I loved how it turned out! It’s so nice to take a floral design class and wind up with pictures that you would/could actually use in a portfolio, and it’s really rare.  Even in the classes where I’ve learned a lot of technique, the flowers are usually so run of the mill that I don’t want to use the pictures for much of anything…not so with these classes, another huge bonus!

Anyhow, Annie and Meg are teaching these on a monthly basis, and the next is March 25 – there is a noon class and a 4:00 pm class that day and I’m excited to play with succulents! More info is here – hope to see some of you in that class as well!

The event was at Cecconi’s in West Hollywood, in their fantabulous Butterfly Room, which features a massive orange heart installation from Damien Hirst’s “Butterfly” series (p.s. I stole that description from Victoria’s post – I actually didn’t know the origin of the massive orange heart before I read her blog this morning ; )

Seriously, how cool is this room?!

Some of the cages up close:

The guests all wrote wishes and advice for Victoria and her fiance on orange and gold butterflies, and affixed them to the cages- so sweet!