Isle of Wight

After a hectic Christmas at work and a hectic time in life, it was time for me and my other half to get away for some breathing space. Luckily for us, we’ve got a few relatives who live on the Isle of Wight, a mere four and half hour drive away, as well as a quick trip on the old Red Funnel boats – a treat in itself of sorts. So, with bags packed, tea poured and petrol in the tank, we made our way down to what essentially is a second home.

The isle itself is at its core, a very British holiday. Pretty much every year since I was born my family have ventured down there to build sandcastles, collect shells, hunt for dinosaurs and see who would risk a swim in The Solent first.

Armed with a camera that has been sat on a shelf in the front room for far too long, I aimed to document the I. O. W during winter. Manual mode on a camera is the devil but I’ve promised myself, much to the dismay of my other half, to learn how to shoot fully manual and take absolute creative control. So, if someone can help me with the exposure triangle, that would be great!

 

October Weddings

We are well and truly into Autumn now at Swallows and Damsons which is the best time for warm and homely tones. Colour palettes of deep reds, cliché burnt oranges and dusky pinks; perfect for creating a wild, romantic feel.

The bouquet and buttonholes here were for Katy and James’ wedding at The Chimney House, Sheffield. The bouquet, which included the aforementioned palette, also includes a trailing velvet ribbon. Which adds to that all-incumbent romantic feel that weddings at this time of year graces us with.

Bouquet ingredients:

Buttonholes:

This was such a lovely wedding to work on and I’m very excited for the next few Autumn weddings that are coming up, we have some big ones on the way! New post up soon.

Mid-Season Moments

I think April has to be one of my favourite months in the flower shop: Valentine’s Day is long gone; Mother’s day is becoming a distant memory and so many beautiful spring flowers are making their debut. On the other hand, wedding season is slowly beginning to build up, but we’ll forget about that for now.

On a normal shop day, I might have 10 back-to-back bouquets on order and even though I have to put them together quickly, I always feel like each one is a my own piece of artwork that I’ve delicately crafted. I’ve spent an incalculable amount of time trying to work out which way is best to wrap a bouquet to frame the flowers, how best to tuck the cellophane around the stems to create a water bottom that doesn’t leak. Even considering how tight or loose I’m holding the flowers so that it looks natural and relaxed. And let’s not forget trying to spiral my stems for a perfect free standing bouquet!

Sometimes work can get so crazy. It’s nice to take a moment to just really appreciate the amazing flowers and colour palettes I get to work with day in, day out. Above is a bouquet I made with seasonal flowers including; anemones, paper whites, hellebores, cappachino roses, oxypatalum, astrantia, ranunculus, clematis, and of course foliage – eucalyptus, as standard. Sometimes you’ve just got to appreciate the small moments in floristry – as is true in life. Spring has sprung and winter has thawed, time to enjoy these brief, fleeting and wholesome moments of the job.

 

 

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Florist on Fleek

Dreaming about warmer climates this week has got me scouring the web in search for a T-shirt worthy of my bouquet guns- pow, pow. Here are my top four contenders in budget order- cheapest first obviously, being from Yorkshire.

Photos by Beasleys Casual Clothing

These hand screen printed T-shirts are from a shop in my home town, Hull. Beasley’s always have an amazing range of T-shirts designed by local artists and designers, this one particularly caught my eye as it is a cross section of a flower from a 1960’s biology book. Beasley’s has become, over the years, synonymous with Hull’s indie scene, there isn’t a true hipster without one. Especially, down at Hull’s venues such as Fruit and Adelphi Club- where Pulp and Oasis have been on stage.  It is a steal at £14, you can check more of their products out on their instagram page. In fact, my bias towards the place implores that you do!

Photos by Good Day Club

Similar to Beasley’s, Good Day Club, based in Brighton, are a creative platform that screen print a range of illustrative clothing. The combination of hands holding entwined roses in this design, along with the simplicity of the line work creates a striking image that is worthy of a florist uniform. Once again, the minimalism in the print so far are not only appealing to the florist side of me, but the illustrator too. This design, coming in at £25 is always worth checking out.

Photos by Fjura

In my previous post I mentioned Fjura and no surprise they’ve made it in to this one too!  I discovered Fjura (Simone Gooch) only a few months and I’m totally smitten with her floral designs. Fjura have brought out a few different T-shirt designs and I’m in love with this one. It’s a printed image of one of Fjura’s designs on 100% organic cotton material. It would just be amazing to walk around wearing a T-shirt you could look down at to inspire you throughout your day.  Fjura have a couple of T-shirt designs at £40 each on a big cartel webshop, but you can see some of their varied floral designs once again at the link above.

Photos by Slime Co.

My final find is this very dark humoured hoody by Slime Co. Slime Co is a creative clothing company based in New York run by designer Simon Abranowicz and Drew Shoup. I thoroughly enjoy this quirky illustration of life growing out of a cigarette packet, exclaiming ‘indecision kills’, very clever. With it being a hoody it would probably be more appropriate at the florist in Sheffield at the moment, as we are ankle deep in snow! This piece is about £40 and you can find it amongst some other pretty cool designs on their website above.

Vert & Vase Floral Blog

Sat at my desk with my usual end-of-work hot water bottle strapped to my stomach and one under both feet, it feels like the perfect evening to unleash Vert & Vase floral blog upon the world.

I would love to be able to say that flowers have been the forefront of all my fondest memories; that I chased through fields of flowers as a young girl, picking bunches of flowers from brimming gardens. Going the whole nine yards pressing flowers and gently placing them in pristine scrap books for keep sakes….

When in actual fact my parents garden resembled a Cormac McCarthy dystopian nightmare, one in which the thistles and dandelions out grew any of the flora. My dad, a greenskeeper, liked to keep his garden manageable by just letting nature run its course.

Although I did enjoy picking rose petals at Primary School, in an attempt to make perfume in Panda Pop bottles, my appreciation of flowers came later for me in life. Oh I did manage to grow a sunflower once, I think there might have been a cash price and a Blue Peter badge involved for the tallest one, I sadly did not win.

With this blog I just want to talk about all things floral.