Araucana Blue

My more finicky ladies finally started laying last week. Look at this perfect egg! If only I could put eggs in my flower arrangements... no, that's gross. But they do look really lovely on my kitchen table.

Little Flower Skool

Last week I drove out to Esperance, NY, to the end of the world... ahem, to World's End Farm. And I did a bit of schlepping buckets and a bit of hauling wine, and a ton of talking to fascinating ladies from all over the world about flowers and flowerbiznass.



I was lucky to be asked to assist; I probably couldn't have afforded this workshop otherwise, though I think I should make a Floral Education line in my budget, going forward. The whole thing gave me a  hit of culture shock, in fact, that I'm still recovering from: that flowers could have photo shoots, with silks and fruits (why this hadn't occurred to me, given some of my favorite instagrams, I don't know), that anyone's wedding budget could include the kind of money for fleurs that our class examples did, that eating cheese in a field at sunset could make me so happy, that puppies exist, that anywhere in the world there could be the wall of flowers that had suddenly erupted here, or that any two people could know the names of so many kinds of roses.

The data bank that is Nicolette + Sarah is a rich trove, and it has leather fringe and smells like roses (like a particularly beautiful and strangely-named variety) and is super highly efficient. Supplies are organized and ample. Discussions are constructed but loose. Arrangements are like a choreographed dance, or as Nicolette says, like "a series of connected moments."

 

There was so much photographing, so many serious thinking faces. I tried to be a sponge. And tonight, as I make arrangements and corsages and boutonnieres for a last-days-of-summer wedding tomorrow, I can feel some of what I absorbed working its magic. But I can also respect the deft hands & eyes & floral decision-making skills of N + S as I watch myself fumble.

Practice, practice, practice.

 

 I hope I see all these new friends again soon.

Sneaks

This is going to be a really good week. Look how it started:

In case it's not apparent to you, this is a fake wedding. A Scandinavian-folk-geometry inspired unreal wedding. Look for real professional photos to emerge in the next month or so. Lessons learned: Collaboration is way more fun than solo work; Always measure your tables before you plan the layout; But be flexible; Proximity to coffee and sandwiches and friends who are just chilling is incredibly helpful while working; I need a tool belt.

ECSTATIC AGE

I live in a good city, where things like this happen.

 image from the luxlazarus instagram

And where I can contribute to them, like this:

(and by dancing)

And where my best friend gets out in his weirdness and plays the most beautiful set ever, 

with my most unique flower crown to date perched atop his head.

photo courtesy ECSTATIC AGE

 ...just happy to be a party of it all. 

Thanks to everybody who organized and everybody who came out!

And thanks to Patrick for this sweet photo of me photographing him, 

and thanks be for this radioactive-colored celosia: