Apr 10, 2010
Posted on Apr 10, 2010 in Inspiration, petals | 6 comments
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I’m pretty certain that I don’t want a fresh flower bouquet despite my ridiculous love for the flowers. (cue Golden Afternoon) I know crazy town. Anyhoo…
I collect vintage enamel flower pins and have for a long time. My collection started when I was around 13. My adopted grandma passed away and her memorial included champagne and her vast assortment of costume jewelry spread out on her bed for friends/family to remember her by. I couldn’t cash in on the champers, but I did score a few impressive and much beloved pieces of enamel that day.
Since then I’ve randomly added to my collection at various thrift stores, vintage boutiques, and flea markets. I love a good deal and almost never pay more than a few bucks for each piece. More recently I’ve ramped up my hunt to include online treasure troves like ebay and etsy, where you can often times score “lots” of the stuff for super cheap. Why the recent upsurge in enamel purchases you wonder?
Worldwide enamel domination of course. And I’m gonna make my bouquet outta these babies too! And it’s gonna be awesome! I understand if you need a visual:
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AND a few from my own collection:
These bouquets are joyful, bright, and the perfect mix of vintage-quirky-wonderful for me! I LOVE them and can’t wait to turn my pins into such amazing wedding day art. I look forward to displaying my beautiful bouquet for many years to come OR ripping it apart and reincorporating my beloved pins into my daily wardrobe OR ripping it apart and handing those bad boys out to my wedding guests. Kinda like a bouquet toss. On second thought my hand/eye coordination may not be up to snuff for such an involved activity that late in the wedding game. So scratch that.
Are you going for a non-traditional bouquet? Or something else entirely?
Nov 10, 2009
Posted on Nov 10, 2009 in DIY, Inspiration, petals | 4 comments
Lest you fear that I don’t have serious love for flowers of ALL stripes, I give you… The Tale of our Trip to The LA Flower Mart!
So one day last September, the obsessive planner/crazy-bride-to-be in me had a brilliant idea- we should go to the flower mart to scout the types of flowers that would be available next year! (Did I say brilliant? I may have meant cuckoo…) But I didn’t stop there! Nope! I figured we could even make a few arrangements to test drive the milk glass that was already taking over our kitchen island. Yay! So I quickly threw together a flower inspiration board to guide our journey:
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The following day, in honor of our wedding being less than one year away and both of us having a surprise day off today, we headed down to the LA Flower Mart to check out what’s available. It’s a pretty quick walk from our house, and thank god, because the day was seriously TOASTY. The kind of TOASTY that LA could use right. about. now. You hear that rain? Anyhoo.
It was nice and cool in the Flower Mart. We made a big loop and then headed back to the stalls we liked to grab flowers for our test centerpieces.
Here’s a few shots of us with all our loot:
We made it back home, downed some water, and started stripping leaves, and cutting the flowers down to create these:
**Note: if you’re allergic to pollen/flowers/all-that’s-pretty, suck back the claritin/zyrtec/benadryl BEFORE you start this project. These beauties caused a full scale allergy fiasco for F Stripes and we’ll (I’ll) definitely be doing the pre-wedding arranging elsewhere. (Hint. Hint. J Stripe)
Allergies aside, it was pretty easy and only took about an hour or so. And the best part? All those beautiful flowers only cost $40. Yup. Serious pretty, serious cheap.
Next time I want to incorporate succulents/billy buttons into the arrangements, but all-in-all I’m pretty happy with the way they turned out! Now because it was so much fun the first time around and because we live crazy close to the Flower Mart, I’m thinking of doing another test drive some day soon….
Any words of advice or are you leaving flowers up to a professional/enthusiastic friend or relative?
