BAD BAD BAD!!

Firstly,

I would like to apoligize for the lack of posts on here as I will admit Twitter has taken over my life. I have Tweeting Fever. I may turn into the blue bird soon. Anyways, tons of stuff has happened between then and now, 90% I cant remember etc as the past few weeks have been such a whir.

My sweetie garlands are now more popular than ever,with 50 or 60 approximately being sold. Phew! my hands are crippled,and my house resembles Willy Wonkas (without the small orange men in the corner).

Ive still got lots of floral contracts, and Ive just done another market with the handsome Fruit boys today. My stall was a a mixture of two Christmas' rolled into one-before and after copious amounts of sugar.Pictures up soon! Ive been asked to do the flowers for a masked ball in two weeks which Im REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO as its a 1930's/1940's theme- so glam! I saw the designs and layouts the other night at a planning meeting and it just looks amazing! Plus, its raising money for charity, so even better!

details about it can be found on www.fruitspace.co.uk

if you have facebook or twitter, dont forget to add me at www.twitter.com/ftpdflowers
or search "ftpd flowers" on facebook.

See you online!

xx

Ive been a bad blogger!

Hey,




Sorry for the delay between posts, Ive been sucked into Twitter world and briefly forgot all you handsome bloggers!





So, keeping up with news, the fab people at Fruit are holding their second market this Sunday (10th October) and yours truly will be there again,selling arrangements and other gifts such as heart shaped Pine cone wreaths,and sweetie wreaths-ideal for Christmas presents! Get yourself down and have a browse thru the stalls, or just have a drink and soak up the funky atmosphere :)

In other florist news, Ive been working away at various bridal packages for 2011 weddings,ideal for brides on a budget! More info on that coming soon!

last but not least, I want to say a MASSIVE well done,to my sister (and fellow blogger) for raising £130 from doing a bake sale today to raise funds for her Degree film show. Experts on here will be able to find her, shes Goldielocks and Cupid. Well done Olivia!! :D

Addisons Disease

Hello,

Just a quick note to say that Im mentioned in the Septemeber edition of Addisons Disease Self Help Group' newsletter, about raising funds for the charity in using my talents as a florist! In one day, I managed to raise £300 for the charity.

My mother was diagnosed with the disease two years ago,and ever since her diagnosis I am determind in making as much money as possible for the charity, as its not a Government funded charity. Even if it pays for the stamps for the charity, or publication costs for the newsletter, the money raised potentially could help save my mum's life as there is so much advice with their newsletters.

Please take five mins from your day to research this disease!!

xx

McQueens, how I love thee....

Hey,

So I thought I would share my love for my favorite florist,McQueens in good ol' London town.

I fell in love with this place ever since watching a documentary about the place a few years ago,and I love their personal style (mainly contemporary, but with traditonal hints within some of their designs).

Whos is everyones favorite florist? Tell me and share some pictures!!

xx

Twitter and Facebook

Hello!!

For all you Twitterers and Facebookers out there, you can now add Faith,Trust and Pixie Dust on Facebook (Search for ftpd flowers) or find me on Twitter www.twitter.com/FTPDFLOWERS

Add me and Tweet away :)

Hope to see you all on there!! xx

As We Forgive Them @ Fruit

Hey, I did some funky designs for the VIP night of the great play As We Forgive Them at Fruit the other night.

Flowers within a cabbage. I put this on the bar so it would be a talking point with people. (Sorry about the green stripe, a lot of my photos seem to do this when being uploaded!)

I wanted to incorporate fruit and veg into the designs, and this is what Ive came up with.The Lemon design smelt georgeous!!

A Sunflower tree with weaved leaves to give texture.I love this one.

A MASSIVE thankyou to Andrew Pearson, director of the play and one of the brains behind Fruit.

xx

New layout!

Hey, So Ive got a new layout...let me know what you think!! xx

Pretty Flowers :)

just saw this picture and I had to post it :)

Hope you're all having a good weekend :)

x

ideas aplenty!!

hello,



So, Ive been asked to decorate my favorite venue, Fruit in Humber Street next week for a special VIP night of a fabby play, As We Forgive Them.



So, my mind went into overdrive of how I could incorporate fruit and veg into floral designs and I made this today:










Flowers in a cabbage! Brilliant!!




What do you think?

xx

Bright wedding :)

Hey,

So, Ive been working on a wedding this weekend for a client. The bride admitted she wasnt going down the traditional route and wanted a bright,tropical colour scheme to match her (fab) deep purple wedding dress.

She also wanted floral items for the client's little girl,the two mums and reception flowers at The Deep, the world's only Submarium (seriously, any out-of- town readers reading this need to vist this place as its just stunning), so I was only too happy to oblige. The client trusted me completely so only saw the design on the morning of the wedding,and she loved it. She even sent me a lovely text when I was very ill,saying not to bother with her flowers as my health was more important! Likewise, I sent her texts of ideas of illegal acts of what we could do to the dressmakers shop,who messed her around with her and her daughters' dresses.



Anyways, enough jabbering, heres some photos:





The hairpiece for the Client's daughter.





















The wrist corsage for the Groom's mum.















A birds eye view of the bridal arrangement.
































A close- up of the bridal arrangement.









The wrist corsage for the bride's mum.



















The wand for the client's daughter.













Me and the bridal arrangement.

The venue with the bowls set up on the table.

The reception arrangements before they were lit and placed on the tables.

Lit. Just how pretty are these? The light reflecting onto the tablecloths looked like jellyfish.

Let me know what you think!!

xx

"We can live like Jack and Sally if we want..."

Hey,

So, I've just done a very lovely Gothic bridal posy made out of Scabious and wired double-ended Fern. Very simple, but its really visually stunning and a block focal flower is a MAJOR wedding flower trend.

White skeleton leaves with the Fern collar would make it look ever cooler,and enhance the Gothic feel of the arrangement. I try to go to Whitby Goth Weekend at least once out of its twice-yearly show,and the intricate details within the Gothic world is amazing,such as the clothing, accessories and their lifestyles. Theres nothing better than having a drink in the Spa and people watch- its amazing who you meet.

Hell, even Im pale enough to pass as a part-time Goth!!!!

She's alive!!!!!

Hey all,

Just a quick post to say that Im alive and well after a short illness. We think it was food poisoning, as I didnt eat for three days and was throwing up at any hint of food nearby. I was sofa bound, totally weak and whiny. I was driving myself mad, let alone my family,so Im glad Im better.

What Ive learnt while I was ill was that This Morning is addictive, and you find yourself hanging on for the real life story "e.g my hair fell out but I fell in love with the wigmaker" featured on the show, you want to smack Noel Edmonds on Deal or No Deal but you fall asleep during the show and wake up when Hollyoaks is on. You can also live on Ribena, and salad cream never bodes well.Ever.

Now that Im back on track, Ive got a wedding this weekend,which is going to be fab and lovely. Ill post the pics of that up here when its done.

Hope everyone is well too!!

xx

Tutti Fruity

Hey,

Just want to update you all on how the weekend at Fruit went! Its taken a while as I had a massive slump on the Monday, and then problems uploading the photos were rectified by my friend Andy today...so here we go!!!

There was lots of prep to do beforehand, but my use of to-do lists helped to complete a lot of the tasks. There was lots of 1am and 2am finishes, but it was worth it on the market days. The delivery of the flowers came on the Friday, which was the get-up -and- go thing I needed to tell me that the time to do this was here! I had done a dummy run the night before to see how I wanted the stall setting up, so I could be quick as possible- we only had two hours before the doors offically opened up for the public.

Setting up took longer than I thought it would do, but I got a prime spot near the door so I was the first person people saw when they walked in thru the door- I put the tree near there, so it caught people's attention (more on that later!!)

On the first night, I sold pretty much all of my Lavender Hearts which was amazing and such a buzz when they sold. My flower stock pretty much dwindled soon too, as people were buying bouqets and individual stems of flowers from me.

On the last day, my "scruffy bunches" were selling the most, they were cheap and cheerful but add up seven or so of those sold then it was a fair amount of money made!

Here are some photos:

My tree which I love, pink with glitter.....

what more could a girl want????

My stall!

A massive thankyou to:

Dave,Dean and Andrew @ Fruit,

My parents,

My sister,

My family who came to vist me,

Jake for keeping me sane on the Sunday

Andy for keeping my sane on the Friday

The other stallholders

GB Flowers

Jenny and Steve (you two know why!!)

Aunt B (you know why too!!)

Violette and Angel

Sam and Dean

and all of you who read this.

Mwah mwah.

xx

late nights, frights and body blights.....

Hey all,

just a quick post before I hit the hay for the night. As the previous post mentioned, Ive currently been working flat out for the new Fruit devlopment this weekend. Its got to the point when Im actually enjoying late night gambling shows on channel Five and there has only been two new posts on Facebook from people since I checked it last when I went to bed. My entire body hurts, Im pretty sure my face is scaring small children at this point and my hands are two bloody stumps.

I did have a small crisis of confidence the other day but my fab and georgeous mother helped me out and now Im keen as ever to make a success of this weekend. I am really looking forward to it and its another step into making me a successful florist. I have developed a firm contact with a florist wholesaler (who wouldnt even take my calls two years ago) created beautiful things to sell at the stall, had my own promotion production line going and networking with all the right people to make this a success.This is me. I want to make a living out of this.

If anyone reads this from Fruit before I have to chance to put a post up here telling you all about the weekend, thankyou for letting me have a space to show my creativity. Hope I havent got on your nerves too much.

xx

Its the final countdown....

Hello!

I have been just so busy with things recently I have fully neglected the blog to keep you all updated on whats going on. It was only since my Dad mentioned he had a look the other day (which was nice knowing he had a look at it) that I havent posted in a while.

Like I said in the previous post, I have been ill and recently have been travelling around so I have been living on limited internet connection as and when I could get it, plus Ive always had a continual "To Do" list running!!

Anyways, theres lots of exciting things that have happened while Ive been offline. I met some lovely people who have created a new development called Fruit,which is a contemporary space that can be used for markets, meetings, gigs, drama shows or just a place to relax. The same people co-incindentally run my favorite nightclub, so chatting to them was always going to be a pleasant experience! Fruit is having their first market A WEEK TODAY and Ive secured a stall to showcase my talents. Its very exciting and something to look forward to, even when youre finishing off leaflets at 2am to advertise it...Right now Im creating Lavender and Rosemary hearts for sale at just a snip at a fiver each. The hearts are limited to the point where my hands will be permantely crippled from making them, and heres a taster pic of them!

The market runs Friday to Sunday, Friday from 4-9pm and Saturday/Sunday 10am-4pm. Come along and have a wander, have a drink,and come and show your support.

Another thing thats coming up is Hull Pride tomorrow. I went last year to hand out flyers and Gerberas, and had such a great time. I managed to nab so much free stuff including almost-almost- a free T.V. The atmosphere is so great whether your gay, straight, bixsexual or unknown and it just shows that the only difference between me and my gay friends is who we choose to love. It doesnt warrant a loss of rights or respect. This year, Im going armed with lots of flyers, and a open mind looking for inspiration- you never know who you might meet.

oooh, Ive just seen on t.v Chelsea Clinton (daughter of ex Prez. Bill Clinton) is getting married this weekend.....and is spending £350,000 smackers on flowers......I dont need many of those contracts do I??

XX

Where were we?

Sorry for the recent absence, I have been ill and had other things to complete/ on my mind.

However, the time spent offline hasnt been wasted, so here are a few photos of what Ive done recently.

This was for a new client,and was a new wrapping technique I learnt- it looks so much more professional and finished off correctly. >>

This was a cocktail design I did. Very simple, only using three gerberas and different foliage. The finished result looks very effective.

This is a table arrangement purely made of Sweet Williams. I think this looks really nice, as the amount of flowers used here makes a impact.

A simple country arrangement picked from the garden.

"You've got to pick a pocket or two!!"

Wow. What a mad week! Quite glad to see the end of it to be honest.

Anyways, this time of year is fab for florists as gardens are blooming so country- garden style bouqets are always on the agenda. I went to my friends house to have a imprompt hairdying/housewarming/on- the- floor Come Dine With Me experience and eyed up two MASSIVE ferns they had in their front garden. I got some flowers together and made them a beautiful arrangement for their front room.

Last night, I took a load of roses from the garden and just kept adding things I found in the garden, so everything from mini foxgloves to lavender went in there! Heres a photo:

So pretty.

But heres the problem, Im finding myself walking past peoples gardens thinking "ooh, thats nice, maybe I could just take a few stems and it can go with this and this".

But amazingly, Ive found out this is called stealing and said owner of garden isnt too happy when finding someone edging towards some pretty plants and flowers in their garden. Cant imagine why!!!

One Hour (and a bit more) Photo

So, clearing out my stuff the other day I came across a old memory card that had been long forgotten in a drawer. As it was loading up, I was thinking what photos could be on it- pictures of the dog, pictures of the ex, random pictures, drunken pictures and pictures no one could explain.

True, pictures of the dog and drunken pictures cropped up, but it turned out to be mainly very early floristry photos displaying work I would now gasp and shun from daylight as techincally they are awful. There is also evidence of me not knowing how to take a photo as some of the light- be it natural or artifical- is awful and then I obviously went through a "arty" faze where I presumed taking an arty photograph required me lying on the floor- pointless.

So, here are a few with descriptive titles:

"The gappy but impending (g)loom of Lily buds"

"The on- the -floor job"

(Part of the exculsive Freesias giving birth to Roses collection)

"The difficult second child of the Freesias giving birth collection"

I have no idea who this person is, where this was taken, and how he got that cut on his head. Although I am sure I didnt cause it, the evidence shows I was there when it happened and I can only apoligse for snapping away when it was obviously a serious situation!!

zombie.zombie.zombie.zombie nation.

Currently reading a great zombie book at the moment called Plauge of the Dead by Z.A Recht which has slighty taken over my life at the moment! I do love it when a book does that!






Anyway, it got me thinking- how could I create zombie themed flowers? Ive got fantastic little extras such as mini metal skulls on hoops (orginally for jewelry) which would look great within it. I could start with a lime green Chrysanthemum bloom, they are quite wierd to look at, much like a zombie and maybe add red colours to keep it lively and accessorise with a chainsaw for protection from the darling creatures of course.

If Zombies ever did attack, you'll find me somewhere surrounded by water with a bat to knock their heads off (it is the only way to finish one off you know) and most likely listening to Queen full blast in a appricative nod to Shaun Pegg.

Ill update you if my zombie flower plans awaken (see what I did there? Awaken? No? nevermind.....)

xx

Twice as nice

Opening a wrap of roses today, I came across two out of the eight stems were double roses- the shape of two roses within one stem of a rose. Ive never seen anything like this in shop bought roses before, so I thought I would share it with you all!

Really unusual I think!!

Didn't stop me from making a small arrangement of roses and hard ruscus, ideal for a bridesmaid or to decorate the mantlepiece.

Baby Pickle

No flower based post today, as Ive been doing a lot of the paperwork side of the floristry industry today so nothing visual to show. Im currently watching the Mel Gibson film Signs at the moment, and I had forgotten IT SCARES THE LIFE OUT OF ME when watching it, so Im going to share with you some pics and info about my baby, Violette Pickles,whos long- lost cousin seems to be in the film.

We got Violette by chance- I had a rare day off and we were flicking through the paper and we noticed that the local animal welfare centre was advertising German Sheperd pups. We decided to have a wander down and have a look, and when we got there she was in the playpen with her (bulkier) brother and two labrador pups. Turns out they were bred for the Christmas market but werent sold, hence why they were dumped. We were watching the german shepard pups play, and when Violette saw me, she bounded over and just wanted to play. She also started crying when she couldnt reach a biscuit that was near the cut-off point of the fence. I was unsure at first whether I would bond with her as I had a bad experience with a previous dog,so was wary. That quickly dissolved when she fell asleep on my lap on the way home and drooled all over my very expensive leather jacket- and I didnt care.

Two years on, shes the best thing in my life and she is so clever- if she knows Ive had a bad day, she jumps up and puts her head on my shoulder just like a hug. she is the ony dog I know that actually sings-yes sings- in response to something and she smiles when she sees you. she gets called Batfink by me and any telling off usually lasts for about 20 seconds too. I love her to bits, and I knew she was my baby when she cut her paw badly a few months ago and had to have it stitched- it was the first time she had been away from me and put in a cage the vet- one thing she is terrfied of. I slept downstairs on the sofa to be with her incase she ripped her bandages in the middle of the night and when her painkillers began to wear off, she came to me and gave me her paw as she knew her mum could sort it out for her.

she is currently barking in her sleep so Im having to shout different foods at her- this usually gets her to wake up!!

xx

Theres no mistake, I smell that smell, its that time of year again....

Ive had a wedding consultation today for a August wedding.The theme and flowers chosen for it are really good,great to sink my teeth into.The client's daughter, who is two, spent the time with the fabric sample of the dress over her head and singing along to the CBeebies channel which was sweet. Now is the time to do the calculations for the wedding, which is always a headache! Sometimes I wish you could do the consultation and wedding in one day and leave out the paperwork.

Anyways, like I promised, heres some photos of some stuff I made yesterday.I bought a load of scented stocks, and put them with some single carnations, roses and asparagus fern so it became a informal countryside-style wedding bouquet. Note the antique brooch on the ribbon- it can give the arrangement a personal effect,especially if the brooch/other jewelry piece has sentimental value to you.

Do you want the truth or something beautiful?

Ive had a lot of things on my mind recently, and I seem to be taking out my frustrations on making flower arrangements. I made 20-odd buttonholes the other day for a business conference to spread the word about Faith,Trust and Pixie Dust and they seemed to go down a storm. As floristry is a visual profession, I thought a way to stand out from the crowd would be to create buttonhole business cards in a twee wooden basket- much better than a single boring business card. Unfortunatly, I didnt take any photos of them (which I regret now as they turned out to be works of individual art) but heres a photo of one Ive made about an hour ago which was a similar design for the conference.

I also made this really funky buttonhole the other night when I couldnt sleep- and I think you can tell that my thought pattens are all over the place at stupid O' Clock in the morning as if you look closely the heart is actually made out of brightly coloured paper clips.I think it works well with the bright gerbera, and my mum pointed out all black paperclips with a red gerbera would look cool, especially for a Goth wedding. Take a look!

Ill put up some more stuff Ive made today soon, but Im off to find a late night snack and watch my dog run in her sleep!!

xx

Butterflies.

One year ago, a beautiful baby girl was born called Annie Rose. She fell asleep two days later.Even though she was with the client's family for a short amount of time, she brought joy and happiness upon them.The family asked me to create an arrangement for Annie's first birthday, and said that they would love a butterfly as whenever they think of her, they think of butterflies.

Having consultations about what they specifically wanted was difficult as it is still very raw for them to discuss,and I'll be honest in saying I cried for two days solid when Annie fell asleep, and still get upset when talking about her. Therefore I created something that I knew Annie would have liked- a 3D butterfly.

Unlike the 2D Oasis foam shaped into a butterfly, I created the wings from scratch using chicken wire and packed it with Oasis. Therefore, the angle of the wings was completely my choice- either having them upright as if the butterfly had just landed or at a wider angle as if the butterfly was there to stay. The wings were mainly gypsophila, with added carnation buds and diamante pins in various patterns and designs on both sides of the wings, and the body was roses and carnations. It took me a long time to do, but I was determined every single aspect of it would be perfect for the client's family.

When it was delivered, the family loved it and couldnt thank me enough- I had hit the nail on the head with the design. "It has blown me away.It is a work of art and Im staggered at how spectacular it is.I never in my wildest dreams imagined it would look good as it does" She wrote in a email to me afterwards.