Unnecessary Projects 101: Pinecone Flowers

Admit it! We all love Martha! I picked up the latest edition of Martha Stewart's Holiday issue the other day and found an interesting project using pinecones. Pinecone Flowers! We have a ton of pinecones laying around our studio from the last holiday season, so I thought I'd give the project a whirl. I carefully followed the instructions listed below (opting for the hot glue gun instead of the tacky glue) and with a little bit of patience this was my result.

{forgive the poor photography...photo was taken with my blackberry}


Here are some suggestions on how to incorporate these cute little blossoms in your wedding

1. They instantaneously spice up a nicely wrapped gift or favor box.
2. They make great hair flowers, corsages, and wristlets for the organic bride.
3: Add wonderful shape and texture to floral arrangements.
4: Can embellish place cards, invitations, table settings, ring bearer pillows, flower girl baskets, table numbers, candle holders, cake toppers....oh the possibilities are endless!

Here are Martha's How-to intructions below:

With floral clippers, remove the pincone's base. Starting at the cone's bottom, slip one blade of the clippers behind a scale; snip it off. Continue, working upward until all scales have been removed and only the stem remains. Fill a small bowl with scales. For the work surface, you'll need a cardboard box (at least 4 inches square) with a hinged lid. Snip 4 inches of floral wire; form a small hook on one end. From card stock, cut a disk a bit larger than the desired size of the bloom's center. Secure disk to box top by poking wire through both, letting hook rest in the center so the wire won't fall through. Using tacky glue, affix scales in a flower shape to disk; the hook will become covered with glue. For a fuller blossom, add another layer inside the first, using smaller scales, adding up to five layers for larger blooms. Use tacky glue to attach one or more cloves or tiny plant parts in the center; let dry, and remove bloom from box

Happy Holidays!

-Kendra

St. Regis Monarch

Christine and Austin got married underneath the main lawn pavilion at the St. Regis Monarch hotel on a cool September morning. We love the endless possibilities that the structure provides and Christine and Austin were open to our ideas.

Here was our initial idea of rigging a chandelier with panels of chiffon:
And here it is in fruition:


We were able to find some pretty cool chandelier options from Rrivre Works, one of the coolest prop places that I've visited. It was like a candy store seeing all of their wonderful backdrops, settings, furniture, etc. Since the morning started off gloomy, the lit chandelier really created a romantic ambiance for the ceremony.

Christine's color palette was cream, white and green with accents of champagne. Here is her bridal bouquet (using roses, lisianthus, stephanotis with crystal accents, cattleya orchids for ruffly texture, and crystal swags):


The ringbearer carried a custom brown, silk dupioni pillow with orchid accent:


A reception teaser:


The cake, created in-house by St. Regis' finest:


It was an honor working this wedding with an all star cast. Melody Walker saw to every detail and was so nice to work with. And, in America's Next Top Model's words, noted fashion photographer Dennis Santirinala was the man on the scene. I really like this shot of Christine:


Theresa Huang, as usual, created some fantastic looks throughout the day. She's really versatile and flexible - go talk to her for all your hair and make up needs!

Being in Dana Point, morning weddings at St. Regis always means loading up at 4:30am, leaving Pasadena by 5:40, and getting there around 6:45 or so. It's not such a bad drive when you get used to it. Nothing that coffee can't cure!

More to post soon!

Great Bridal Expo

We just wanted to thank everyone who stopped by our booth at the Great Bridal Expo last Saturday. We always like meeting brides and hearing about their vision for one of the biggest days of their lives. It also gives us a chance to hear from real people about their likes and dislikes, and what trends are picking up. Overall, we just like going somewhere and presenting flowers in a different way.

For this show, we displayed different color combinations to help brides decide on color schemes. We made different bouquets with distinct personalities and added our signature "frills and flourishes" to the stem. Whether it was a brooch or a pleated ribbon, we wanted to incorporate character to each bouquet. Each bride is different and the details should really show that. For our booth we used a partition to display the bouquets. We found this particular partition at a consignment store and stripped it of it's hardware (hopefully it wasn't an antique piece!). We then primed and painted it and secured pegboard to the back. To the center we affixed an antique mirror and added clean hardware to hang different accessories. Here are our results:

(picture courtesy of joshua yeh : jcy3@inside.artcenter.edu)

We can't complain about the perks of attending wedding shows. Cake studio was there and allowed us to sample (multiple times) their cakes. And what better than a chocolate chip cookie from the Westin Hotel. :)

I'd also like to announce the winner of our raffle - a free bridal bouquet worth up to $165. The winner is Meredith Moyer. We will be contacting you with more details!

And don't forget, for the brides who took pictures with our bouquets, we will be uploading snapshots in the next few days for you to download. Thanks for having fun at our booth! We hope to meet with you soon.