A Rose by any other Name...

Recently, to further my own knowledge and to also get others to interact a little more with the floral world, I've started posting a "Flower of the Day" and it's meaning on my business facebook page. It's really helped me to better understand the meanings of each flower that exists...not that people really pay attention to these meanings in floral arrangements these days.

Aside from that, I have two events coming up that need flowers on a budget! One event is for my dear little niece's birthday party. The details were posted in my last blog. I also, helped to change the invitations that were purchased to create the favor tags which look similar to this:

In between the flowers that I've been working on for the various events, I've also been working on my wedding plans! You can read more about that in my wedding blog. Since we are doing a lot of it DIY style, you may find some inspiration/ideas there!

Thanks,

erin

Downtime & Networking

So, currently I am without a full-time job. Due to the economy I have not been able to invest fully into my floral business. So, I have always relied on a full-time job to pay bills and to live off of. Through this down economy though, finding a full-time job has proved to be quite difficult...I'm almost to the point of pulling the fact that I have a bachelors off of my resume to at least be considered for an administrative job.

Fortunately however, with the down time I have naturally had a lot of time on my hands to concentrate more on promoting my business! This so far has basically included finding facebook friends, updating my website and looking into taking more design classes to enhance my skills. I have also been feverishly researching other floral designers to ensure that I'm in constant knowledge and ensuring that I'm harnessing any new techniques!

I am very excited for August as well! My niece's 2nd birthday party is coming up and my sister is doing a minnie mouse theme. My niece absolutely loves minnie mouse and we are excited to be putting a hot pink and zebra print spin on it all! For the centerpieces we are going to be creating minnie heads out of Styrofoam with the base surrounded by fresh cut flowers. So, I will soon be working on figuring out which flowers to use (probably gerbs and roses mainly).

In addition, I have my last Gallo Wines event for the year! This last event will be at the Hollywood Bowl again, and that night will be John Williams and the music of the movies. Now, as most of you know I LOVE movies probably as much as I love flowers! I'm still not sure what color scheme Gallo wants to go with...but I'm hoping something adventurous and creative!

Knowing my luck, I'll get a full-time job just before both of these events...which means the pressure of balancing time will be on!

Hope you are all having a great summer and be sure to stop and enjoy the flowers!

Cheaper Flowers?

It's been about a year since I had last gone to the Los Angeles flower mart. Why have I avoided for so long you might ask? Simply because, I have had a full-time day job and it has just been easier to go with the local wholesaler rather than drive to LA and back and then to my job. Why am I able to go now you might ask? That would be because in this economy, I no longer have a full-time job. So, driving to LA isn't quite as daunting as it was previously.

I ventured to LA in hopes of finding some really great quality flowers at a really good price...unfortunately, this time around I must say I was quite disappointed with the selection. Although I found some "decent" deals on roses, naturally there was a reason that they were such a good deal because the next day most of them were trash. All-in-all, I did manage to save about $70-$100 compared to what I would have spent if I had gone to my local wholesaler or had the corporate wholesaler deliver them to my house.

You can tell that the economy has really taken a toll on the floral industry. One reason being, while I was at the flower mart, I noticed that there was hardly anyone there shopping. Normally it's busy and bustling! Also, as I mentioned the "deals" weren't really anywhere to be found.

One plus, I finally picked up my vendor badge! Although, being that I've only been up there 2 time in over a year...I'll probably only get to use the badge once maybe twice before it expires!

I have another Gallo Wines event coming up next month, hopefully I can find some better quality and priced flowers then!

Off to the Mart

I will be heading to the LA Flower Mart this week for the next Gallo Event. I haven't been there in about a year, so I am looking forward to going. However, I am not looking forward to sitting in traffic, looking for parking and then searching madly for the flowers I need. Although, I guess I need to get over that and get used to the idea of actually going there more often. I know that there are much better prices there and I am sure that once you are more familiar with where everything is it is a much more pleasant experience.

I've only been to the LA Flower Mart two times...the first time was very overwhelming! I didn't know where to begin and where to end. I also feel as though you never really "know" if you're getting a good deal unless you go around asking all the prices and then come back through and buy. Most of the time, I don't think people really have that kind of time. Fortunately, now that I do not have a full-time job, I have all the time in the world! So, I will enjoy taking the time to familiarize myself and search for the "deals".

Happy hunting to me during my floral search. Fortunately, I have a great palette for inspiration. The next Gallo Event that is at the Hollywood Bowl is a night that Beatles music will be played. So, we decided to use the "Love" album artwork as the inspiration. All the reds, yellows and oranges will be easy to find in an array of textures and sizes!

YAY! Another Corporate Event!

I was contacted again by Gallo Wines to make the floral arrangements for the Hollywood Bowl Corporate sales dinner again. I've been asked to do two of them this year; one in July and one in August!

Both concerts are personal favorites of mine! The first one is a "Beatles Celebration" and the second one is John Williams and the Music of the Movies.

I think for the Beatles, it would be fun to do some vibrant reds and yellows; something that "explodes" with love and positivity! The Beatles were always about Love not War, and to be able to show that passion through flowers will be so inspiring!

The movie scores will be better determined (I think) once I know what movie scores they'll be playing! My second passion is the movies, I love watching them, going to them, and the entire process it takes in creating one!

Check back soon to see photo's from the July 9th dinner :-)

Been A While!

So, it's actually been a while since my last blog. The reason being...I've been busy! I am newly engaged, and have recently moved as well as started a new full-time job. In between all of that, I was given the opportunity to provide floral design for a wedding as well as floral design and decor for a baby shower. On top of all that, I haven't had internet at the new house, which naturally puts a damper on my posting abilities.

The wedding that I did flowers for...well let's just say I learned a lot! The quality of the flowers did not end up being up to my standard of excellence. I'm still not sure if I had gotten the flowers too early, if I just didn't keep them in a cool enough place or if I just used the wrong kind of greenery. The flowers were not "horrible" and came out beautifully in pictures, however I was pretty disappointed in myself that the quality did not last the way it was supposed to. So, now I need to research a little more or maybe take some other classes to really pin point this issue to prevent it from happening again.

The baby shower on the other hand turned out pretty well! I created some of those tissue pom poms (navy blue and lime green) and hung them from the ceiling (Pictures to come...) and then used jade green roses, curly willow, lime green pom poms, white gerbs and white wax flower in several different types of arrangements (again...pictures to come soon).

Anyways, pictures to come soon!

Countdown has begun!

So, my first time doing flowers for a wedding on my own is coming up! About 2 more weeks, and I'll be in the mad dash of working my full-time job, getting/processing/arranging the flowers and delivering them. On top of all that, we are currently moving so I am hoping to be fully unpacked by the time the flower race begins! If not, well then I guess I'll just be clearing out some space to arrange and store everything!

Luckily the centerpieces are the easiest I think I've ever seen: 20" black eiffel tower vases filled with baby's breath. The bouquets are simple hand-ties wrapped in ribbon. So, the only thing there is that I still need to do is to go buy all the ribbon to be used.

Sometimes life can slam you with busy-ness all at once! I went from being unemployed for about 5 months, to now starting a new job, getting engaged, moving to a new house in a new city, I'm working on this wedding, an upcoming babyshower, and now planning my own wedding. Life is so great and God has blessed me so much...I just hope that I have the strength and patience to get through it all!