Lucy and Joe's Wedding May 2011

Table decorations with gyp, thistle,and dill and Joes butterflies

This weekend has been the wedding of Lucy Dugdale and Joe Butler, I know Lucy through her job at Eden Rivers Trust and was delighted when she asked me to do their flowers, they wanted a naural look with whites and greens and Lucy particulary likes grasses so fountain grass featured in all the bouquets and buttonholes , Lucy also had a special request for some lilly ofv the valley in her bouquet luckily it was perfect at the time so I was able to add a few sprigs to it. Joe also playeda large part in creating the look, it was obvious how creative he is with is job working with his dad a Croglin Toys (www.croglindesigns.co.uk) and he spent many hours engraving the hurricane lamps used in the table decorations and lazer cut lots of butterflies also as well as masses of heart 'bunting' and all the table signs named after Cumbrian rivers! So all the results together looked great, have a look at the photos

Lucy's bouquet, roses, snapdragon and jasmine

                                            

Royal Wedding and Eden Valley Hospice Fundraiser

At last Ive managed to take a weeks holiday so have sat down to update my blog about the last week, last wednesday afternoon whilst driving up Heltondale to Dalefoot Composts to stock up to improve the awfull soil on my allotment, I received a phone call from a lady called Linda from Carlisle way. She asked if Id be available to do a demo on thurday night in House of Fraser with a Royal Wedding theme in aid of Eden Valley Hospice, so I said yes not quite sure what to do of how Id do it as I was a work all of the next 2 days! Well it did all come together with lots of hurried phone calls to the Flower Bank, and Lee helping collect the flowers and babysit. On the night I created a celebratory heart on a foam base covered with ivy and herbs and groups of red gerberas, white spray roses and blue thistle, then a handtied posy that I hoped Kate would have something similar to on the day, with white snapdragons, fountain grass, bluebells (from my friend Dawns garden, she also came along to help on the night along with my mam) and catmint (the nearest thing I could think of to connect the bouquet to Catherine) which turned out georgeous and not too different to what she carried on the day! After that I was going to make a buttonhole with Lilly of the Valley which I thought should feature somewhere on the big day as its in season right now, smells lovely and is just beautiful, this all sounded good and Dawn wired me the lilly of the valley and some thistle then I couldnt find my buttonhole tape anywhere! so we tried normal florists tape that obviously didnt work so the buttonholes were abandoned- such as shame as I do know how to make buttonholes properly but it didnt look like it! Despite the hiccup we all had a great evening and the cupcakes were the best ones Ive ever tasted!

Moving on to the 'big day' it was brilliant Gran, me and Bill and Ted (sometimes) watched it whist enjoying our RW style cupcakes I was so pleased to see lilly of the valley featuring very prominately (my predictions were right) and the field maple trees down the aisle were brilliant so effective but simple, I loved looking at the outfits Tara Palmer-Tompkinson, blue outfit was prefect and so was her sister Santa's, Davis Beckham was looking very hot!! anVictoria seemed to be waering her token scowl!! So Ill now be looking forward to brides wanting small pretty bouquets and trees in church!!

Pictures from Mark and Zoes wedding

Here are the pictures that should of been on the previous blog, but wouldnt upload so here goes!

new ideas at The Flower Bank

Today had agreat day out at the Flower Bank (my local wholesaler), who were running a wedding workshop, I had no idea what to expext but what a great day we had, the morining started withcoffee and homeade biscuits- very tasty, and were introduced to Helen Jamison  and Richard Haslam bothe very experiened flosrists full of new ideas and advice they demonstrated some beautiful design includind a shower bouquet with a aluminium wire base to which orchids were added using cold glue which was new to me! We had a lovely lunch (lasagne and mini meringues and eclairs) youll notice that food features highly in this blog and may in others!while we all digested lunch we watch more demos featuring a wrist corsage, fasinator and boquet holders made with cardboard! we all the had ago ourselves and Ive added some pictures of those I made, it was a great day and its great to see how many great florists there are locally and also the north of England and South Scotland! Now follows a busy week with the wedding of Zoe and Mark watch this space for photos!

Wedding Plans and a busy January

Well so much for me thinking January was going to be a quiet month! We had a last minute holiday at Centre Parcs, which was great the lodge was very trendy with new interiors designed by Tara Bernhard (picture of Ted enjoying himself) far exceeded my expectations!! Since returning Ive had a few enquiries for weddings so hopfully I should have a busy year coming up, with the theme seemimg to be lots of foliage this year will be interesting to see what influence the Royal Wedding has on trends, talking about trends everyone seems to be watching 'Big Fat Gypsy Weddings', so I wonder if Ill have any brides fancying a OTT style bouquet!! We also been busy at home with insulating the house (better late than never!) planning a revamp in the kitchen with the units hopefully in Downpipe Grey by Farrow and Ball as we now have a new shop in Penrith- White and Green, that stocks their paints along with Emma Bridgewater crockery and Frankie Cranfields beautifull paintings!!  Im also having a new top made for my sideboard to display my large selection of vintage coffee pots, and other items that are scattered around the house!! Ive also purchased some lovely old dining chairs from Impact Housing which Im still undecided wether to keep them or resell them!!

Happy New Year

Hello and Happy New Year, January is here and Ive now got time to update my blog december was a extremly busy month and I was kept busy right up until Christmas eve, the weather provided a challenge most of the month and all wreath making got moved into the house!! as everything outside got compleatly frozen up our downstairs bathroom was full of mossed bases, raffia and pheasent feathers (which the dogs kept eating!) and I even ended up keeping all my other sundies in the kitchen cupboards(it was too cold to keep popping out to the shed!) also getting holly and greenary and delivaries proved difficult too Dad was a very usefull taxi to The Flower Bank and to Greystoke Castle, he was really glad he had new snow tyres on the pick up, despite this the countryside looked beautifull and it inspired me to create a new style wreath- a mossed heart base, with ivy with a touch of silver or gold and either cones or birch bark very winter wonderland.

Christmas 2010

Hello, here a few pictures of a very busy December, the wreaths we for sale at 'wrapped'@Greystoke Castle, the day started with very heavy snow in Penrith, but all went ahead luckily dad transported me in the pick up!Despite the snow I had a sucessful day and really enjoyed it!

This was the hanging holly balls with fresh chillies and raffia outside the Yanwath Gate Inn, and this one below is various arrangements and door hangings waiting to be delivered!