Order up!

A special request for a “Brazilian VIP”…

A gift for a dinner party host..

pin cussion flowers in the vases...

A request for something cheerful…

mmm...persimmons

For a San Francisco Office…

Centerpieces for a community dining room…

A is for Apple and Autumn

Boo

Autumn is upon us and that means the holidays are quickly approaching.  At the studio, this means decorating many homes and businesses for the festivities.  We completed our first installation this week.  The home is one of our regular clients.  It is a spectacular mansion, designed by the reknowned Julia Morgan, the female architect most famous for designing the Hearst Castle and hundreds of other buildings.  William Randolph Hearst, however, was her most prestigious and regular patrons.  This particular home is perched on one of San Francisco’s spectacular hills.

For the installation the client asked us to decorate the entranceway of the home with some fun Halloween elements which could be removed at the end of October to leave behind a feast of autumn.  The lead designer and company hung webbing, spiders and a gorgeous rose-hip wreath on the door while I created the cornucopia arrangements.  The result is fun and, now that Halloween is over, we’ll take away the silly stuff and leave behind a lovely installation of fall’s bounty.

Halloween Fairies…

I received a call at the studio on Friday at 5 pm from a woman asking if we could make 2 floral crowns for her daughters by 1 pm Saturday.  They were going to be fairies for Halloween.  Now, floral crowns can be quite labor intensive as you have to wire each individual flower in order to weave it into a crown.  The studio closes at 6 pm.  And every Saturday I must complete 24+ very large arrangements for our weekly accounts + handle any walk-in customers/phone orders + manage retail sales of home accessories.  I nearly collapsed at the thought of 2 floral crowns.  But the woman sounded desperate and was open to any floral idea for dressing up her kids’ hair.  After discussing options with another designer, I decided to take on the challenge.

On my way home from work I picked up some inexpensive mums from another shop (since we weren’t going to the flower market in the morning).  I also purchased some inexpensive plastic head bands.  In the morning I wrapped each headband in ribbon:

And then set about decorating the headbands with flowers:

And voila!

Two, quick-and easy, floral headbands fitting for a fairy!

Milestones of the Day…

For a new baby girl…

For a 40th birthday party…

For a law office (weekly account)…

For a San Francisco waterfront restaurant (weekly account)…

Autumnal centerpiece…

 

For a San Francisco Restaurant…

Wednesday

A few funky ones from today…

Broken Record

I’m a broken record– more flowers!  My mother came to visit a couple weeks ago and she and my honey attended one of my theatre performances.  While sitting in the audience she whispered, “oh,  I wish I had brought flowers for her!”.  He casually replied, “Christen lives in a WORLD of flowers.  She is up to her ears in flowers.”  While I personally would ALWAYs welcome more flowers, I guess he was right.  I will not complain.  So here are some more shots from work.

 

 

blackberries and figs

artichokes, succulents, and lemons

sunflowers, dahlias, and lilies

 

 

MARQUEE

For those of you in San Francisco, my next performance will be on July 18th and 24th as part of the Bay Area Playwrights Festival.  I’m diving into a challenging, intelligent, and hysterical play by a wonderful playwright.  It’s the second time I’ve had the pleasure of working on this piece and I can’t wait to get started.  All info follows:

Julia Jarcho (bio): American Treasure
Director: Julia Jarcho
Dramaturg: Maryanne Olson
A real History Detective gets a hot tip from a young vagabond with a harrowing past, while the Hauntus keeps singing her sad song… This play is a genre bending comic thriller, mixing the American Western and Film Noir to dissect a classic American good guy/bad guy legend and our mythic relationship to American Indians.
Sat., July 18, 8 p.m. and Sat., July 25, 12 p.m.: Buy Tickets!

FLEUR*TING

So sorry to have disappeared for– yikes– more than a month. I don’t know where to begin. Since there is way too much to post, I’ll just try to get some things up in little spurts.  I’ve been quite busy at work so I’ll start with a few of my recent creations there.  Here are 3 of the 8 arrangements I made today.  These are all round, low, and sweet.  Stay tuned for some taller, 1 sided treats.  As always, thanks for stopping by!

IN SEASON

To ward off the post cheesecake sugar itches, here is a simple, light and delicious summer salad recipe. We received gorgeous heirloom tomatoes, a cucumber, and gypsy peppers with our weekly CSA delivery and I couldn’t resist mixing ‘em all together.

2 large hierloom tomatoes

1 cucumber

1-2 gypsy peppers (or any sweet pepper or none at all– optional)

a bunch of fresh herbs, chopped (I used mint and thyme from our garden)

olive oil

balsamic vinegar

salt and pepper to taste

Chop up the tomatoes, cucumber, and pepper to bite sized portions of your choosing. Chop the herbs. Mix all ingredients together with a couple splashes of oil and vinegar. Salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy!