In this podcast episode, we are chatting with Mandy from The Potted Pansy about texture and keeping things raw in design. Mandy is sharing where her inspiration began and how her travels have shown her the beauty in the imperfections of nature. We are chatting about Mandy’s favorite ingredients and about her process in choosing which flowers/elements are used for each event.
One of the biggest things to consider is marketing your business and how to get your name out there! When you’re a new floral pro, it can be challenging to jump into marketing via social media and publishing, but something simple you can do to introduce yourself to the wedding industry is to network with other vendors in your community. Vendors can include event venues, photographers, planners, caterers, DJs, and even other florists. Again, this may seem like a daunting task, but hopefully these few tips will help make this step a bit easier to accomplish.
We’ve all seen the trend of flower crowns, flower jewelry, and flower accessories bloom into the market. And for good reason, too. How cool is it to accessorize your look with fresh floral creations? Floral accessories are great for bridesmaids to accessorize or perhaps for that untraditional bride looking for a little wow-factor. Mothers love a bracelet cuff adorned with floral rather than a traditional wrist corsage! But how do we design jewelry using fresh flowers?
Our friend Fuschia of Fuschia Moss Floral Design is here to help show us how to make a chuppah. See how we used a bale of Southern smilax and late summer forsythia foliage to create a base and a very small amount of Oasis and chicken wire to provide support and nourishment for the flowers.
Team Flower member Abby Rice shares her story on how they added florals to their event planning business, while sharing tips on how you can do the same.
Leaving a well-established and promising career to process hundreds of roses and design wedding flowers may not “make sense” to some, but I’m a fan of a life that doesn’t color inside the lines. You are, too, I imagine. Here are some tips from Team Flower member Kalin Sheick.
Watch as Kelly puts together a boutonniere and explains the various methods of wiring needed. She also shares tips about using ranunculus, color combinations and more. Learn how to become a florist and take floral design classes online with Team Flower. Here you can even learn tips on flower gardening for beginners. We'll show you how to do flower arrangements in flower arranging videos.
Transcript:
-So I have-- and I keep a little reference here whenever I buy new wire-- but this is a 20 gauge. Helps me remember what it is that I want so I can refer back to it. And I just cut off some small sections here. I'm going to fold that in half like a bobby pin.
I'm going to take my ranunculus, and I'm going to pull off anything that is undesirable-- be a petal that got crushed or is facing the wrong way. And I'm just going to snip that off. And some people will just use the stem of their ranunculus for the boutonniere. They wouldn't wire it, and that's another option, another thing that you can do. I prefer the wire because I can have more control over how if faces.
Now this is the stem tape that I mentioned earlier. Whenever I'm choosing-- it comes in several different colors-- but whenever I'm choosing which to use, I consider the flower that I'm using and I try to match as closely as I can with the stem color of the flower. This makes it look most natural. So get as close as you can up to the neck of the flower.
And I am just carrying that tape, stretching it out as I and twisting and finishing that off. Now see, I'm taking that and I'm just going to tilt the face of the flower forward. So now I have a wilder flower and a flower that is cooperating with what I want to do with it. And I have some olive here I'm going to lay in as a backdrop for it. Sometimes I put two pieces of back and maybe one down in here, which I think too that the lapel goes off to the right-hand side. So having a little flourish on the right side it's always nice.
And I'm going to add some berries for texture. And feel free-- like this berry that's a really dark red. It is pulling out some of the color in that ranunculus, but it's just not exactly where I want it to be. So I'm just going to clip that off. And then I trim a few of these piece off here that are lower. And that gives me some berries that can go high.
Then there's a few ways you can finish this off. I'm just going to show you how to use stem tape to finish it off today. But you can use a thin tape and wrap it the same way that we wrapped our bouquet if you like. Or I just tie simple knots to cover my tape. so for a fancier wedding that might be best. But when you wrap with stem tape I just clip off these thicker branches on a little bit of an angle here.
And some people take that little wire that we had and they'll make a little curler or flourish with it. I don't do that very often. But yeah, I pretty much always dress them up with some ribbon.
So practice a few ways to experiment check out a few different ways that you could do that. The oasis tape- you just wrap it around, wrap it back around like we did with the bouquet and these lower stems here are exposed and let's put that there. So now you have a cute little boutonniere that you can photograph. And you make a little tray of wine or you could make a tray of three or five is what I like to do. Now we're going to turn that boutonniere into a flower crown.
In this episode of the Team Flower Podcast, Josie and Taylor of Good Seed Floral join us. The pair is chatting about their roles in their business and how they make their “long distance business relationship” work.
Team Flower Member Kathleen and Sloan own a high-volume retail floral business as well as manage a separate wedding and events brand. They’ve been thinking a lot recently about what has made this partnership and this business so successful. It’s impossible to pinpoint just one thing, but Kathleen offers a few pearls of wisdom for anyone on this journey—or for those who are contemplating the idea.
To create an elevated centerpiece, there are a few first steps you need to take to ensure your foundation is stable and reliable. Once this is set up, you can navigate through the mechanics to create sustainability and design principles to make your design come to life.
In this snippet from the Team Flower Foundations class, Kelly walks you through her studio setup and how she organizes everything for maximum efficiency and minimum workload. Many people don’t realize that working in the floral industry can require a lot of manual labor. From picking up and moving buckets of water to processing flowers to delivery, these are all tasks that can take a toll on our bodies!
Every year, American Grown Flowers hosts a multitude of Field to Vase dinners across the United States. These events are held at beautiful farms that place seasonal, local, and sustainable American-grown flowers at the center of each table and serve locally grown food, beer and wine prepared by a farm-to-table chef. The focus of the dinner tour is on the flowers, the farms, and the guests, which makes for quite a magical experience!
Rebranding for florists can be hard, especially since our work is so visual! Here are 7 tips to help you work through rebranding your floral business.
The cradle bouquet (also known as the pageant bouquet) is often overlooked by designers. This bouquet shape is perfect for gracefully draping over one arm. It is similar to a cascade, but it moves out and away from the body rather than in front. It's pleasant and easy to hold, surprisingly lightweight, and perfect for a bride who likes to keep her flowers close.
Becky shows the process to create different circular flower installations for your next event. She outlines how to plan to use the structures, support and integrate them. From a hanging piece to a ceremony backdrop, you’ll learn tips for your next installations.
Kelly Wood shares how she converted two acres around her house to a microfarm to augment her floral design business and add beauty and refuge for wildlife. It eventually turned into a commercial cut flower and foliage farm supplying floral designers in her area.
In this centerpiece time-lapse video, Kelly quickly pulls together a centerpiece for your inspiration! Learn how to become a florist and take floral design classes online with Team Flower. Here you can even learn tips on flower gardening for beginners. We'll show you how to do flower arrangements in flower arranging videos.
You don’t need to be a graphic designer to create a professional-looking proposal for floral design clients. Learn the key to creating a great floral plan, one you can quickly adapt to each new client by changing a few simple things.
On this episode of the Team Flower Podcast, Max Gill of Max Gill Design shares his philosophy behind his designs, finding inspiration in the natural process of nature. We are drawing parallels between people and flowers and how to embrace challenges and allow them to shape us. Max is discussing how his journey is teaching him to trust and how impactful his floral community has been in his life. He's giving a few tips on how to combat jealousy and competition as well as how to embrace your personal style.
In this episode of the Team Flower Podcast Gabriela shares her floral design process and her gardening philosophy. You'll learn about her favorite flowers, including dahlias, phlox and petunias. Learn how she protects her flowers from heavy Mexico rains and thrives in her event work in an unpredictable market.
