Cafe au Lait Workshop Recap

In October, we hosted a workshop that was all about Cafe au Lait dahlias, the absolute queen of late summer and early fall arrangements. We started in the Cutting Garden talking about growing and harvesting tips, then moved into the studio for lots of time arranging with these beauties.

Jess Hunter was there to photograph all the magic, and as usual, she blew me away with her images.

Here's the cafe patch in the garden, blooming like crazy!

And the group out in the garden learning about growing these beauties:

And the group inside, starting to learn about arranging with cafes:

I start all of our workshops by demonstrating techniques for arranging, then set everyone loose to create their own work of floral art. During this time, I float around the room answering questions, helping everyone with their arrangements, and making sure everyone is getting what they need from the experience. Keeping the workshops to a six person maximum ensures there is a lot of time for this personal attention, which I think is so crucial to learning.

It was amazing to see everyone's arrangements come together! They were all so beautiful, unique, and artful...

It was such a wonderful day!

I'll be announcing our spring workshops in the next few weeks- if you're interested in attending, send me an email (kelly@botaniqueflowers.com) and I'll put you on our workshops list!

Hope to meet you soon!

Centerpiece Workshop(s) Recap!

Earlier this year, we hosted two Centerpiece Design Workshops at the studio. They were both fantastic, with great groups of ladies designing some gorgeous arrangements! Lora Grady was there for both workshops, capturing all the action, and taking photos of everyone's finished arrangements. I am so excited to share Lora's photos of the workshops with you! I was incredibly proud of everyone who attended the workshops- the ladies ranged from people pursuing floral design as a hobby to burgeoning floral designers starting their own businesses to relatively seasoned designers. I think you'll agree that all the attendees did amazing work! It was a real treat to see everyone's creativity. Here are a few highlights from the first workshop, in May:

 

 

 

 

For the second workshop in June, we had a whole different set of flowers to choose from. Check out some of the gorgeous arrangements made in this workshop!

Krisanna Reiff made some beautiful calligraphy tags for everyone's notebooks, and the garden was filled with foxglove and poppies (many of which you can see in the arrangements).

And of course, we did a group shot in front of the Cutting Garden!

Both workshops were amazing and inspiring!

We have another workshop scheduled for Oct. 4th, and there are still a few spots left! We cap our workshops at six people to ensure lots of personal attention- it makes for a really fun, educational experience. Our next one will center around Cafe au Lait dahlias. You can read all about it and register at this link: http://botanique.bigcartel.com/

Jess Hunter will be there to take photos of everyone's work, and she is incredible! You can check out her website here: http://www.jesshunterphotography.com

Hope to see you there!

From the Garden....

Looks like we're starting a little series here, posting an arrangement that is 100% Seattle-grown, from the Botanique Cutting Garden about once a month. We'll try to keep up the trend! This one is a little berry-toned number, with Koko Loko roses, dahlias, bronze amaranth, queen anne's lace, scabiosa, and just the slightest hint of physocarpus.

From the Garden

Every single stem in this arrangement came from the Botanique Cutting Garden. It is so exciting to be able to arrange like that, straight from the garden. 'Lichfield Angel' garden roses, two different kinds of cosmos, nasturtium flowers and vines, foxglove, orlaya, variegated sanguisorba foliage, strawberry foliage, raspberry foliage..... did I miss anything?

Here's to a summer of bloomin' gardens and beautiful arrangements!