Bouquet Arrangement

Fresh Flowers make my heart flutter..literally. They have to be one of God's greatest creations. I try and find every excuse to buy them. Most of my reasons don't justified the cost spent and sometimes I have no reason at all but that doesn't seem to keep me from an occasional stop at the flower mart or the flower section at Trader Joes. Some chickas get regular pedicures-I buy flowers. I also like to think I'm taking the pressure off of Mr. Frugal, unless he's giving flowers to make up that is. Nothing says "I really screwed up" like a simple bunch of daisy's from Albertsons.

While working at Winston Flowers in Boston I learned this simple and quick technique to making bouquet arrangements.

The first step is to clean and prepare all the flowers by removing all the stems leaves and thorns. This is critical because you will only have one free hand to work with.

Next, make a small bunch of several flowers to create your center.

Thoughtfully bring in one flower at a time holding the stem with your thumb. Your grip should hold the flowers securely but should be loose. This is important and will make any adjustments needed at the end a whole lot easier. You should look compact but not squished.

With each one or two flowers brought into the arrangement twist the arrangement to ensure balance.

When making an bouquet you want your eye to flow through the entire arrangement with small rest spots. This can be achieved by grouping two or three of the same flower together and spacing your flowers or colors evenly.

The last step is optional depending on your final look but it's to add your sturdy foliage around the base of your arrangement. Lemon leaf (Salal) adds a good support for the bouquet.

*Important* I don't have a picture but once your arrangement is complete you need to wrap it with floral tape to hold is securely into place. This can be the trickiest step. Once your bouquet is secure cut the stems at the same length and add to your container.

Ragg Silk Bouquet

Months back I bought this ball of scrappy silk at a local yarn shop. I feel in love with the colorful ball for several reasons. One it's made from recycled silk and the colors are hard to resist. This little ball of mess would have been pretty just nestled in a yarn basket. I also couldn't wait to unravel the carnival of layers. But the main reason I threw down 22 bucks for this ball of silk was that Mango Moon works with the Nepali Women's Empowerment Group. What can I say, I'm a sucker for disadvantaged hard working women.

Not knowing what I was going to do with this little ball I decided to unwind it and see if it would speak to me.

At first the tangled pile of silk scrapes revealed nothing but chaos (much like my life...interesting), so I decided to cut up the chaos and find some order. I cut out my favorite strips and began making rosettes. I must have been thinking flower arrangement and not scarf.

These little beauties are easy and there are a lot of variations on how to make them. I chose to glue them rather than use my sewing machine.

After making a bunch of rosettes I decided to make a necklace bouquet. I began arranging them much like I would a flower arrangement.

I then glued the arrangement to a piece of felt and added a beaded chain to complete the necklace.

Make Me New-Dress to Skirt #2

When I saw this dress I was crazy for the print, but when I put it on it was like most dresses, just a bit too short for my g-line and my comfort level. I bought it anyway and decided to make it into a skirt.

Dresses like this are easy to transform into a skirt. Think about where you want your new waist band to be and make the necessary adjustments.

Don't take out the zipper completely. Just take it out enough to make your first cut.

Try is on at this point to check the fit. Most likely you will have to manipulate the "new" waist band for a better fit. I liked how it fit at the skirt seam but it flared at the top.

So I took out the side and middle seams and adjusted them to fit snugly.

I had to taper my seam line to get the perfect fit.

Once your fit is good you can finish it off by folding the edge over and top stitching the right side.

The final step is to re attach the zipper. I like to do it by hand.

Thankgiving Tablescape '09

It was my year to host Thanksgiving and the most important part (after the feast of course) is the tablescape. For me this is the most fun part of the festive day. It means I can go to flower mart and creatively come up with something wonderful and hopefully worthy of a magazine cover or at the very least to impress my guests. I'm not sure I did either but Lulu (one of my favorite sister-in-laws) and I had fun in the making.

We needed a table large enough to fit 1o adults and 2 almost adults, which I didn't have but thanks to my husband's tennis table purchase I had a surface worthy of our scape. I was able to make it work beautifully, expect that fact that the guest would have to maneuver their legs through the support bars that ran along either side- just a small in convince. Next I needed a table cloth large enough to fit my large table. I found these very modern shower curtains (real fabric, no plastic here people) at Target and wah lah instant table cloth.

Lulu and I got up early, around 7 am and headed to the flower mart. (Which is by the way one of my most favorite places following only shortly behind Anthropologie and Trader Joe's.) We unfortunately didn't get there early enough for that busy day because most of delicious flowers were gone. We still managed to pick out a few bunches as well as the lovely orange flowers found at Von's grocery store. FYI- Von's has a decent flower department. I love that they sell a bunch of 'just greens', which can be so helpful we making an actual arrangement. Come on Costco get it together.

I found this awesome manzanita branch which I knew would be perfect to hang my lanterns from. About 20 tacks was all it took to insure that puppy was staying put for dinner.

And there you have it my Thanksgiving Table Scape '09.