Hi! Join me tonight at Warren Township Library for some Fresh Flower Fun.  I will be sharing four Designs for Mother’s Day,  from start to finish,  so YOU can learn to design your own bouquet!  You might be one of the four people to win a design tonight….The demonstration starts at 7pm, hope to see you there!

A pretty design to make yourself, is a cluster design.  This is done by using all the same flower, in this case, pink carnations, and cutting their stems so their bloom sits right at the rim of the container you are using.  I make this design with the carnations that have broken while conditioning or transporting large buckets of the flower.  I placed these in an antique low bowl given to me as a gift, and used it for my Easter Tablescape.  Easy and fun to make! Try one yourself : )  Mother’s Day is coming…

This is one of my favorite arrangements for Easter and spring!  It is so-o-o easy to create and lasts quite awhile for you.  I filled the bubble bowl only 1/4 full of water so the spray rose heads float lower than the tulip heads that are wrapped around inside the bowl.  Just make sure that the ends of the tulip stems are in water so they can drink.  Reeds can be added to this bowl too, to add interest to the very bottom of the bowl or around the upper part of the bowl.  The idea is to have your fresh flower heads at different levels….the roses on one level and the tulips in the center – at a different level.  The tulips can be all the same color – like pictured here, or all different colors.  Acrylic stones or jewels would be awesome on the very bottom of this bowl too.  You try this design and experiment with it and share some pictures with me! I’d love to see what you come up with.  Happy Easter!

A great idea for a wedding reception table is a collection of meaningful items displayed in an artful manner.  This is a picture of one such design created by Kristen Briggs, (The Bride of the Day),  and copied by my team at Meadow Woods Manor in Randolph, NJ.  Patti Conner joined us to recreate the tablescapes designed by our Bride, Kristen.  Each table was different and it was a cool look for her special day.  Thank you Kristen, for letting us take part in your day and MUCH happiness in the years ahead with Adam! 

Have you seen the cool purple cabbages and the huge regular ones in our markets now?  I am going to a St. Patty’s party on Saturday and asked if I can bring a tablescape.  The answer was “YES!”  So I went to the fresh market and looked around for something to use and came up with these cabbages.  I hollowed out a hole – big enough to place a piece of soaked oasis into – then added fresh flowers.  Imagine these lining the center of YOUR  table.  So easy to make and not expensive to fill. I added some toothpicks in the back on the base to help stop them from rolling.  Don’t forget to peel some leaves back before carving.  I used orange spray roses, lime green and  yellow button mums, fancy mini carnations, wax flower, and some boxwood from my yard.  I can’t wait to share this fun design with my friends tomorrow! What are YOU going to make at your house?  Go ahead! DARE TO DESIGN tonight! 

HAPPY ST. PATRICK’S DAY!  This is one of my favorite arrangements to make for this fun holiday.  Shoe shapes for fresh flowers are VERY hot right now and the Oasis Inc. Company has even come out with a quick base shape of a hi-heel to help Designer’s out and make the design process go easier.  I was given this ceramic shoe as a gift years ago and it is always fun for me to make new arrangements in it each time I ‘play’ with it. This year is no exception.  I love the mix of flowers here.  The green spider mums, the yellow chrysanthemums, orange spray roses, orange lily, and the fancy mini carnations. Most of these blooms are long lasting flowers so I’ll be able to enjoy this design for days!  Do you have a design in mind for your St. Paddy’s Day table?  Only 2 days left : )

It’s another sure sign of Spring coming when Pussy Willows are seen for sale in bunches all around our food stores!  Your local flower shop might have examples of different kinds  of pussy willows too so check that out. I was so surprised to find out there were black ones and curly ones…so cool.  If you want to try for rooting your pussy willow, cut the ends and place in water.  If you want the fuzzy bloom to STAY fuzzy and not go to seed, ( turn yellow-ish with pollen ), don’t place in water.  On a recent trip to NYC I saw HUGE pots just filled with pussy willow outside a big hotel and I just had to stop and look at how beautiful and simple that was! Guess what is going in my ‘porch pot’ next week?  The great thing is they hold up pretty well and you just need to place their stems in dirt to hold them in place! So easy and yet a cheerful way to welcome spring at YOUR doorstep!

These bright yellow blooms will help you get through the last couple weeks of winter.  I cut them so their heads just clear the top of the vessel they’re in.  Leave the stems a little longer to add height to your arrangement.  You can place these little designs all around your house.  I filled a blue teapot, a teal colored Ball jar and an antique vase I love.  Add a raffia bow or knot and place somewhere to cheer you or share with a friend who has the winter blues.  Hey! I just peeked at my garden for the first time all winter and I saw the tips of my hyacinths coming through!  A sure sign the weather is getting warmer – even if that does mean 40 degrees instead of 30.  Hang in there – only 17 days til the official start of spring.

I had to say goodbye to my favorite owl of the season yesterday!  The group at Buckingham Place in Princeton,  voted on the snow owl instead of the red cardinals, to go in a large fresh flower piece I was designing for them.  ’He’ looked so cute mixed in with fresh white pine, red freedom roses, variegated spray roses, white football mums and burgundy mini carnations. Fresh cinnamon sticks, faux picks with pinecones and berries, snowed , as well as white birch branches finished off this wintery Arrangement. Sorry about the poor photo. It’s impossible to see the ‘L’ shaped design in my quick-ness of on the spot IPhone camera shooting : (    Thank you Barbara Hobson for inviting me to share with your very active and fun group! … is it possible to have separation anxiety from a faux owl…those eyes just kill me…

Uh-oh! I better add some white birch branches to my Valentine’s Fresh Flower Demo at Buckingham Place, in Princeton, NJ today. I woke up to this view from my deck.  I have beautiful pink variegated spray roses and freedom roses as well as pink and white alstormieria lily and white hydrangeas!  What a nice, sunny, snowy day to let people know you love them!  Why not show them with flowers?