Not rose again ! Valentine Flower Bouquet - purple

During the St. Dorothea talk show I noticed this artificial flower bouquet, it's not especially different or interesting bouquet, however most consumers tend to choose an all roses bouquet at valentine, even though many more varieties and forms of flowers available at the market such as gerbera, carnation, gladiol, chrysant, anthurium etc. They're not only beautiful but also less in price and abundantly available throughout the year.

When valentine, flock of people buy roses only to declare their love. And due to this habit, each ahead of Valentine roses price jumps dramatically, and even then requires a struggle to get it at least you have to order it in advance. This will repeat annually.

Actually expressing love is not really necessarily with roses. The most important is your goodwill to your lover or beloved one. In addition it's not drain your pocket heavily, so, why should always fight with others only for roses? How about if starting this at upcoming Valentine?

From front view of the bouquet, it looks very simple and usual. Using purple ranunculus flowers and lavender which is suitable with pink baby roses, though the use of single face paper (the pink wavy one) seems unusual but combining with yellow and light purple tissue paper looks very matching. Finally a pink paper ribbon make it be special.

The look of the bouquet from above

NB : Pictures taken at St. Dorothea Talk Show 2011, Florist name unknown.

Wedding Flower Bouquet That Never Fails

Just look into Wedding Book no 49 today and found some gorgeous white theme wedding bouquet. White always been a safe choice, since it will certainly match with white wedding gown. However, an all white bouquet sometimes look rather boring, especially if only one kind of flowers is used, so the challenge is how to make them look not monotonous,

such as the all white peony bouquet pictured right above, using various peony size from buds to big blooms combined with contrast dark green leaves below to enhance the whiteness... or you can choose two colours, like the one pictured left above, keep in mind that very pale green really matched with white if put side by side. But my personal favourite is the one pictured left below with three kinds of flowers, however, this one needs more ability to make it and better be done by professional florist.

Another technique is to add accessories to the flower bouquet such as feathers or silver base as opposed to leaf colour. Or you can add pearls and swarovsky crystals like this salmon roses wedding bouquet.

I simply love the white anthurium as focal point with small strands of crystal beads circling it. If you want to see more bouquet inspiration, you can find them in this wedding book no 49.

Valentine Flower Bouquet - Fuschia

Gong Xi Fa Chai everyone!!!

Let us all pray for happiness, health and prosperity in this new year of the dragon... It's been a simple celebration for my small family since most of our relatives don't live in Bandung, but thanks to technology it's not a problem anymore. Yes, the angpao (most important!!!) is mostly bank transfered these days :) I personally promise to work harder than ever and will try my best to manage this blog and my online florist better this year!!!

So, in the spirit of turning a new leaf, I want to look ahead on the upcoming event that well connected with flowers... also with chocolate... and cheesy romance movies... yes, it's almost Valentine guys!!

Speaking about Valentine make me look back at a florists talk show I attended some time ago ( I will post about it soon) where some of the displayed flower arrangements really inspires me..

Among them was a rose flower bouquet wrapped around with fuschia coloured crepe paper which can be an inspiration if you're looking a valentine flower bouquet for your loved ones, or if you like to make your own bouquet a bit different and more versatile.

Up close, the flower arrangement itself is a simple common round shaped one consists of various coloured roses and baby breaths. What makes it different is that usualy we can see the stems shaped of the flowers, either revealed or concealed with wrapping. But in this valentine bouquet, the florist wrapped the crepe paper forming some kind of "skirt" around the stems. If you want to make this flower bouquet yourself, remember to use elastic crepe paper...

As seen from picture above, the adding of "skirt" actually add balance to the valentine flower bouquet shape, so if you give this kind of flower bouquet to your beloved, she can put it in a vase or simple glass and the flower bouquet will look nicely and become a decor item! Unlike common flower bouquet which stems are still visible and have to be unwrapped first before being put into a vase. However, also due to the "skirt" you have to be more careful while holding the bouquet, don't hold it too close to your body or you will crush the "skirt" and make it wrinkled.

Hopefully you find this post helpful in finding the perfect valentine flowers for your beloved. More post on valentine flowers soon...

NB : These flower bouquet pictures taken at St. Dorothea's talk show 2011 in Bandung.

Florist name unknown, if you know please inform me.

Flowers for decor: A touch of oriental in your home...

Finally tomorrow is Chinese New Year !!!

Actually I want to do some serious decorating this year but have to postpone it because of the severe flu ...sigh... well in the meantime I'll be satisfied with this few oriental decor which involves... flowers of course...

Eventhough houses nowadays are usually built in modern or minimalist style (at least in Indonesia) and can be looked rather weird when oriental touch was added such as lampion or other chinese ornament. Actually some flowers can enhance the oriental feeling without making it tacky.

Such as peony, this flower actually comes in lots of shades, from pale pink to fuschia...

Look, how pretty the flower is painted on the teapot...

And one flower that definitely looks oriental... lotus!! Yes, just simple lotus in a glass will add a touch of oriental in your home...

Picture source: rayli home magazine

Inspiring Thing: Wedding Car - Pink Theme

Still remember my previous post? This wedding car could be paired with that hot pink wedding flowers. And if right now you are looking for a wedding car, this would be an inspiring idea. I don't know who the decorator is but I think it looks nice.

The car was decorated with flowers on the front and on the far left and right windshield and in each door openings adorned with pink ribbon. The rear of the car was plain, not decorated of anything.

An oval-shaped flower arrangement was placed in front of the car. They used two-tone of pink colour, that are hot pink and soft pink and a bit of white colour. And so are the far left and right windshield.

Note: These wedding car pictures taken on 14 Jan 2012. Car Rental & florist unknown.

Wedding Flower Bouquet: Orange 002

This is an orange round shape wedding flower bouquet. Round shape bouquet is suitable for a petite bride because it can make her look more sexy, bigger than she looks.

Here's the orange round shape wedding flower bouquet look. The colour is very soft. It looks elegant. And the making was so simple. It just needed 11 orange colour roses, some star asparagus leaf, schefflera (5 fingers) and a little bit baby's breath.

And here it is what it looks from the back side. Perfect, isn't it? interested? Then have a try. It's easy anyway.

Wedding Flower Bouquet: Red 001

This is another cascade shape wedding flower bouquet. Actually it's still multi colour but dominantly in red. As I told you before it's a special request from the bride and we tried to fulfill her wish though the general wedding theme was orange. No problem!! So, here's the look.

The materials used were roses (red, white), pink gerbera, hortensia, snow (white), baby's breath and the foliage was ruscus, squirrel tail leaves, leather leaves and star asparagus leaves.

The candle flower looked simple and it's easy to make, wasn't it? It only needed two red roses and a bit of white snow, baby's breath and star asparagus leaves. Surely everyone can do it easily. Have a nice try.

Step by Step Tutorial: An Orange Theme Wedding Flower Bouquet

As promised, I will give you a very easy tutorial on making an orange theme wedding flower bouquet. Aside from very easy to make, it doesn't use too many flower types and these flowers are relatively easy to be found ......... at flower market or flower shop anywhere but if you need a lot you can order at the supplier or agent /pool, even at nursery in Lembang or Cihideung.

To make this bouquet, we will need 4 aliandra roses and 3 orange coloured gerberas, 1 green hortensia and some 5 fingers leaves (schefflera), don't forget of course a bouquet holder with oasis attached on it.

Hold the bouquet holder upright, proceed with :

1 : put some 5 fingers leaves on the oasis to form a round base

2 : put 3 gerberas on top of the leaves to form a triangle shape

3 : put a rose right in the middle of the 3 gerberas

4 : put another 3 roses to form a triangle in opposite direction from the first triangle

5 : last, snip hortensia into several florets and fill the gaps

And we're done ! Here's the front and side view of the wedding bouquet, the steps are quite easy right ? The form is simple but not as common as the round shape all roses bouquet...

Also you can see that soft orange and soft green are really match as a combination, but if you don't want orange theme, simply change the colour. Gerberas and roses come in lots of shades such as pink, white, yellow, red, etc so this wedding bouquet is very versatile, just change the color and voila! different theme achived..

I hope this tutorial will help you in case you want to make your own wedding bouquet.

As for the candle flower, the steps are even simpler.

First prepare a candle stand and fill it with oasis, then proceed with the following :

1 : attach the candle onto the oasis and secure it with wire

2 : attach the 'asparagus bintang' around the oasis as a base

3 : put 1 gerbera right at the middle

4 : put 2 white roses below the gerbera on each side

5 : snip a part of the hortensia and attach it on the backside

finished !!

And here are both the wedding flower bouquet and candle together.

Note:

As we use hortensia which was snipped into several florets, so don't forget to put it into a bucket full of water for some time then take it out about half hours before use. Then it will look fresher.

Wedding Flower Bouquet: Multi colour 001

This wedding bouquet had cascade shape but smaller in size. Cascade shape bouquet usually have flowers or leaves that dangling down. This shape is perfect for tall bride or for one who has big hips as it can hide such problem so the bride will look slimmer on the big day. That's the advantages of cascade shape flower bouquet but vice versa, it usually needs more flowers than the round shape bouquet. In addition you must also prepare the long foliage which be able to hung down beautifully such as ivy, squirrel tail leaf, kristusdoren, etc., in this case we use fern. The other foliage we used was scheffera (5 fingers) and croton (puring) while the flowers were roses (white, pink and orange), white euro, hortensia and babybreath.

From the side view it looked like half circle. Because the flowers available were not much while we had to make 4 bouquets, so we decided to make 2 pieces of small cascade shape bouquets and 2 round shape. As you know the bigger the shape of the bouquet the more flowers it needs.

It's what it looked like from the front.

It's the material needed.

Wedding Decor This Week: Wedding Flowers orange theme

Tired..tired..tired...I've been planning to blog about this wedding flower decoration yesterday right after the decor finished but ended up sleeping instead heh.. heh.. 4 bride and groom will be married in this weekend in St. Peter Cathedral...Wheeww!!! been up since morning and start decorating at 8 am and there was only 5 of us (including our coordinator Mrs. Diana) yesterday... the morning had been rather cold and gloomy, but my heart started skipping and my mood instantly brightening when these babies waiting up for me...

Yeah, their bright colours and tantalizing smell definitely a mood booster, alright... the theme today is yellow-orange but still in soft tone, that's why we used aliandra roses and light yellow gerbera combined with universe roses, abalan roses, white casablanca, white snapdragon, euro, pink gerbera and hortentia except for the second wedding which asked for a bit of red for bouquet and candle for Mother Mary.

This is the whole view..

Here's the front view of the wedding flower centerpiece in front of the altar, a bit of kristusdoren hanging on either sides and in front, while the white snapdragon placed straight up as well protruding at the left and right tip. White Casablanca was placed at the center at the front as a focal point of view. And the orange and pink roses placed a little bit in group while a few of white roses was spread. Hortensia and song of India were placed to fill the empty space. And if you look carefully, this flower arrangement was formed like the letter of 'm', the initial word of married, or looks similar to bird being swooped down. Very surprising, isn't it? Just kidding...

And this is a close up view on the wedding flower centerpiece. You can see the orange nuance but the colour's not so bold as to detract attention from the bride and groom...

The standing flowers beside the Jesus and Mary statues...

The one attached on the wedding aisle chairs and on the candles...

The one in front of the psalmist altar...

A simple yellow-golden theme Bible, cross and rosary bamboo tray...a bit too simple to my taste but it's well coordinated with the flower theme, I've seen lots of mismatched theme between the wedding flower with the ring pillow and Bible tray before.

Well, I'm off now to do more resting and preparing next post on wedding bouquet inspiration, yes, I do noticed that we haven't done any post on wedding bouquet yet but that will be rectified soon !! there will even be a step by step on a simple bouquet for you who wants to make your own bouquet, so be patient, ok? Meanwhile, I'll leave you with a bit teaser on the bouquets...

Step by Step Tutorial: How to Make Sparkling Christmas Garland

Just in case you want to make the sparkling garland in my previous post, here's the step by step tutorial.

For this garland arrangement, you will need :

1 artificial evergreen garland (60 cm diameter)

approx 10 yards of wired gold ribbon with 12 cm width

1 small trumpet

1 merry christmas sign

lots of christmas ornament such as bulbs, stars, miniatures etc. ( just used what you usually hang on your christmas tree)

First, set the garland on the wall, this will make the decorating process easier. Next make some loop from ribbon ( detail picture on the right) and attach it to the upper right side of the garland. Next attach the small trumpet, make sure it align with the ribbon and not placed upside down. Then put the merry christmas sign on top, right next to the ribbon.

Next collect all the gold colour bulbs, stars and bells. Attach each one with transparent plastic wire then arrange one another to form a hanging group of bulbs and bells. After that, simply attach the hanging bulbs at the bottom of the garland.

Lastly, attach other christmas miniatures such as angels, santa, stars, bulbs, choose especially the shiny ones, we want glamour here...

Done !! And here's the finished one looks like...Have fun trying :)

Wedding Decor This Week : Simple hot pink

At noon after the last mass on January 8th, there was a wedding ceremony in St. Peter Cathedral.

This one is another inspiration for your church wedding flowers, in hot pink theme. So if you love pinky, you can consider this one for your wedding. Seen from the front, as usual there's one floral arrangement in front of the altar as a long big centerpiece, 2 on both sides, one in front of the psalmist and the others attached to the chairs (2 for the bride n groom chairs, each 4 on the right n left of the visitors' chairs).

Up close on the centerpiece, mostly roses were used with no small flowers protruding on top but a few carnations hanging at the bottom. To break the monotony, lots of light green spiders were used as filler in between white and pink colors. The foliage used was philodendron, monstera, ruscus and song of India.

The floral arrangement in front of the psalmist's altar (left picture) boasted the hortensia as the

main focal point. The flowers used were quite the same as in the centerpiece except that the green spider was changed to baloon flower and white chrysant. While the ones attached to the chairs used 3 pink gerberas as focal points. This makes the arrangements look fuller and you can see the lovely colour gradation from the up close gerberas. Besides pink gerbera, they used chrysant, puma and kermit.

And these are how the floral arrangements placed as the background look. Hortensia, white chrisants, green spider, fuhsia fiji, pink spray carnation were used to form triangle shape.

some of the flowers used..... very fresh and look gorgeous

In general the combination of the colour is nice, and for those who like simplicity and symmetrical shape, this would suit you.

Church decor : Team Margriet

New Custom Project : Sparkling Garland

Okay, I know it might sound weird but my new custom project is for the St. Elizabeth's Christmas party. You might think "Really ?" Christmas party in MID-JANUARY ? isn't it a far past Christmas already?

Well, personally I think it's more convenient. This way, during the 25th December we can have Christmas event for the family and don't have to worry which Christmas party to attend. Not to mention a lot of the church goers, activists and visitors spend new year vacation abroad and only arrived after new year. So this mid-January Christmas party although a bit late but very convenient and lots of us can attend. Also, this Christmas party lead me to get a chance to make..

This Sparkling Garland !!!! What ? You can't see the garland ?

How about now, is it clear enough? Round Garland with big golden bows as accent, and miniatures, bulbs and other ornaments not just sparkling on the garland but I let some of them hanging underneath too.. If you have any comment on the garland, just leave your comment below okay ?

A more detail picture on the sparkling ornaments, with some of the miniatures donated by grandpa Yan like this cute little baby Santa on the right picture..

And what's a party without games, yes there were games for children and adults like while the buffet were being prepared...

After that, the hungry troops munched all the yummy buffet and snacks...

And all that started with a happy ended happily too. All of us were photographed together...See you on my next project!