Few weeks back

.....these happened

I'm quite different

I have to admit I'm rather awful at keeping this blog up. Sometimes I just feel my Instagram account and Facebook page is sufficient. But then when I need to just pen something down I realize it's best I do it here.

At this point here with these pinks, I'm still lack of challenge in the creative side when it comes to orders. Mostly clients will want the general or the usual. I find it hard to tell them that I don't do the general nor the usual and I always want to create new designs and new compositions. How do you really tell a client that without sounded like a total snob? I wouldn't want to tick them off and let them think I'm hard to deal with but I'm merely just wanting to create something different, beautiful and unexpected for them. I also find it "long-winded" of me to explain to them my style and creative approach via text on Whatsapp! Common...who wants to read all that in such a small screen? But I try my best.

Happy Moms everywhere

Happy Mothers Day! Click below to enjoy

Milky Chance - Stolen Dance

Vintage vibes

I'm terrible sorry for the lack of posts lately. I'm just done with some crazies and now I have a little more time to myself. 

I think I'm feeling a tad bit zesty lately...I don't know if that's even a right description of my color choices but I seem to get drawn to the brights as of late like lemon, orange, lime, anything citrusy. I am also a tad drawn to vintage colors of an old 1970's photo, a little faded with a punch of bright color which does not seem to wear off even after 20 years but the whites becomes yellow. Nostalgia perhaps.

Playing with moss

I know it doesn't really show from here that I made a little patch of "flat ground" covered in moss. It looks really cute when viewed in person. It's my first attempt and I'm quite happy with it. Another thing I'm happy about is how my lady's slipper orchid finally made it's debut and 3rd thing I'm pleased with is my my long awaited use for the Spanish moss I've been growing. TEN POINTS for me. Below on the left is a close up of my flat ground, all moist and ready for a snail to hang out at. Still not very visible from photos. :/

I need some air

This mid-week has been a little rough. To start with, I sent my car for servicing as it was due and I highlighted that my brakes are not working too well since couple weeks back. It's been 2 days and I'm without a car and on top of that they finally found out after 48hrs that my ABS is not working. "Great." Then to make things worse, my neighbor has conveniently "forgotten" yet again to inform us that she is to change the fencing both our town houses are sharing. Like how she "forgotten" to inform us when they were renovating the front and tore down the dividing fence in February.

Not only those workers trespassed into my compound but they ruined my Mexican creeper plant which I've been so diligently growing and caring for for the last few months. Ripped from their growing spots and left dangling in a mess with broken branches. I was fuming! If I was a dragon I would have burned them all alive with one puff!! So I fessed up a scene and told them off...but nothing could save my flowers.

By night time I calmed down. My Mr. passed me the lace I ordered online for my wedding gown which I purchased from Etsy. That site is addictive and dangerous to the wallet but my lace is the deal of the decade and I couldn't be more pleased with the price I paid for it. Ok ranting is over but please check out the number below I made for a ROM with and airplant!

Sorry doesn't cut it unless it's with flowers

Have you ever written a personal note on behalf of someone? I suppose you have not unless you are a PA to a boss who can't lift his own finger or you are a florist or.. I can't think of any other profession but you get the idea. I've written quite many well wishes and other greetings to go along with my flowers and I'm glad that I still dodged the really sad ones like...death. It feels strange still to write something on behalf of someone else and I often have many thoughts in my head as I pen it down. "Does this look like his/her writing?"
"Don't be absurd, it's obvious it came from the florist."
"Is this what they really want to say on the card?
"Oh grammar mistake, I have to fix it."
"Oh no..what did you do this time!"
"Does this look professional?"
"It's just a dumb boy, get over it!"

I made this white fluff of a "I'm sorry" arrangement below, it's my first sorry note so I didn't know how to feel. As I was writing it I tried to feel as sorry as I can for all the bad things I did in my life...you know...so when he reads it he could FEEL it..I guess it looked pretty real. Who am I trying to kid, I didn't feel sorry. AT ALL. Maybe if I dripped couple of drops of water to fake the tears...

A classic in the making?

Like every little mini business set-up, when you keep going it grows and things sorta progress naturally after like a hundred set backs. From the various arrangements I made, the all-rose-only with or without whatever foliage seems to be the most popular as an affordable option to the budget savvy client. Is it just me or it's starting to look like a possible Flores Studio Classic rose bouquet? I'm seriously considering this idea. Here's another in the most romantic shade of pink I made yesterday.

Boxed

My talented stylist friend from Singapore needed flowers for his friends for the opening of their awesome place at Paramount Gardens. Desmond who I met via Instagram couple years back is sorta like a twin I never had. I remember how when we first met up we were carrying the same Celine bi color clutch except his is in a more manly color and mine was a bright pink and orange! That...my readers was not a coincidence.

Moving on to the real story here, Desmond wanted a big arrangement to make up for not being able to attend the opening. Now...I can't make my twin something I don't consider to be big so I ended up getting the Mr. to make me a box with my custom measurements! Yes it was brilliant... until it sorta came out a little bigger than I expected. It measured correctly but I guess I went a little overboard and only had myself to blame. But you know what they say, you learn through experience. I've learned to take the measurements down 1 notch. It would have been easier on my little arms when I was carrying it too. :/

Rich hues

Rich hues to channel more fortune in to my life. HAHA!

It's the weekend!

It's always so good to have coffee with the Mister on weekends and arguing...I mean discussing about the new house we're moving in to. I'm so stoked! Did I mention I will have my little nook of a space to make my flowers? Yes it's gonna be my little studio.

By the way it never fails that the 2nd cup of latte always has better coffee art than the 1st and my Mister the gentleman that he is always will always always let me have that cup first. I usually wait till the 2nd cup comes then swap with him. Why can't the 1st latte have the better art? Why?

Jo Malone Press Presentation

It's always fun to make flower crowns.. but not when you have to make them for 3 days at a larger quantity. My poor fingers. But I'm pleased to add Jo Malone of London in to my portfolio :D

House warming

Fate has brought me back to the housing community with the map! HA! Funny how I keep coming back to this place, it's my 3rd time but it's not ordered by any of the past clients. Luckily this one went to a home which was way easier to find...piece of cake!

From Oregon with love

This bouquet was ordered from Oregon, Portland and was the last order I took before the CNY festive break. I couldn't say no when I'm given full creative freedom. :D

Valentine's day madness

I did a Valentine's day wedding for the first time. It's not the best day to have a wedding or the best month even as prices of flowers are up 3 times more than usual. So if you are reading this and if you are not yet married, please take note.

I made 2 bouquets the day before as the 1st one was just unlucky as 1 of the hydrangeas wilted on me and to make things worse, someone was not careful with it when I placed it in the refrigerator of the groom's house the night before (Chinese tradition where the groom brings the bride her bouquet in the morning) and when they slammed the door, they slammed 1 part of my precious Phalaenopsis orchid off. Stress levels rising by this point as I was exhausted from making the flowers on the wedding car.

Went home, redid another one went to bed by 1am. By 4:30am I was up, I had to get ready, load all the stuff in to my little car and head to the hotel to make more flowers for the night. I slaved all day and barely ate to make 35 arrangements for guest tables, 6 large arrangements for the walkway, registration table, photo table, bride & grooms chair and 4 more boutonnieres for the family and the flowers for the stage decor. 35 arrangements doesn't seem like many but time was robbed prepping the raw flowers before we could start with the arrangement. So plenty of lessons to be learned from just 1 night. Here's just some of the photos from the night taken by my crappy iPhone. I'm still waiting for the good ones by the photographer. Enjoy. :)

Final hour

Some advise for floral orders during a festive season. Order ahead and never at the very last day of the final hour before everything closes. I grabbed what's left that's good for this very last nano second order for a friend. I'm sorry it wasn't as big as you wanted but everything was sold out.

Pour Le Dentiste

I was asked to make a masculine gift by the wife of a dentist. I really don't know how to translate that so I suggested maybe a rustic looking crate gift basket with some flowers. She was cool with it so I proceeded with making this. I should have made an appointment to scale my teeth on the day I delivered it coz I'm kinda a lil overdue. :/ Oh well.

For a sexy lady

The title says it all. Don't need to guess who either, name's on the card. 

Pink

Growing up I was never that fond of pink colored things. Dark blue was my favorite as a kid but always found myself loving other colors too. I wouldn't say pink was my least favorite color but I was just never that girly. Growing up I learned about Pantone in art school and I thought that was pure genius but it got me even more indecisive when I have to choose colors for my projects. These days I just let the flowers speak to me when a client gives me complete freedom to do whatever the hell I want! So no more choosing colors from a chart, less headache. Plus you just gotta take what's available and deal with it.

Just me, myself and the Merc

This is the first time I did a wedding car all on my own. Was I nervous? Yes a little as I only figured out the technical part in my head but have yet to quite prove that it works in practice. As usual I will start prepping the small bouts and corsages the day before then sticking it into the fridge. Made the bouquet the next day and once I was done with that I rushed off to the couples place to face the car. I was left there alone in the car park of their apartment and I quickly unload my stuff and got to work. I rather enjoyed the alone time I had with the car because it was cooperative! It didn't complain and my technical part of the work seems to be working out great. Once that garland was secured I was racing against time to stick all the leaves and flowers in. It was getting dark, I was tired but thank God I packed myself a bottle of water. As I don't live in an apartment it didn't occur to me that the lights would come on when the sun sets. I felt a little silly when it came on, I guess I didn't have the darkness to worry about after all.