Rutgers: Power of Giving Flowers Study

Rutgers: Power of Giving Flowers Study

Interesting research about giving and receiving flowers……

Explore Floral Design 2014 Begins Monday January 20, 2014 till March 24, 2014

Explore Floral Design 2014		Maximum 6 students Mondays 9-5pm  1 hour lunch January 20,27, February 3,10,17,24, March3,10,17,24th 2014

Overview This 10 day Exploration Floral Design class will teach the basic principals of floral design, and so much more.  Each day will have a morning lecture and afternoon of hands on designing.  Students will participate in the processing and handling of fresh flowers each day for the lab session.   The students will be trained to execute all basic forms of design to apply for a floral designer position.  This is a required class for job placement.  The class offers business information on pricing for profit, we recommend additional business classes for retail Flower Shop operations.  The students will have a final exam on materials covered during lectures.  And every class day will be more fun than you can imagine and the amount of flowers to work with and industry information is fantastic! FLOWERS are beautiful creations, the curiosity and enthusiasm for information on FLOWERS is contagious.  Take yourself somewhere new….to the Flower Classroom.    Learn to be a FLOWER expert. This class enables you to become a FLOWER expert! Objectives ·       Introduction to design ·       American Floral Trends Forecast ·       Color terms and theory ·        Processing and handling of fresh flowers ·       Flower & Foliage identification ·       Blooming and Green Plants for interiors ·       Hands on design of basic forms of design ·       Techniques in design ·       Wedding Bouquets ·       Flowers to wear ·       Sympathy Tributes ·       Every day designs ·       Plan a Party ·       Pricing of floral products ·       Salesmanship with FLOWERS ·       Handling Customer complaints Activities Each student will have materials provided to execute all designs.  The classroom also has additional books, supplies and flowers for purchase.  This allows students to practice additional designs at home. We will cover the Principles, Elements & Techniques of Design ·       Balance, Emphasis, Harmony, Proportion, Rhythm & Unity ·       Color, Form, Line, Space & Texture ·       Bailing, Banding, Binding, Bunching, Clustering, Detailing, Facing, Framing, Grouping, Hand Tying, Kubari, Lacing, Layering, Mirroring, Pave, Pillowing, Sequencing, Sheltering, Stacking, Terracing, Tufting, Veiling, Wrapping & Zoning. Floral Design Tools The Flower Classroom provides a Notebook of Floral information, Color Wheel and a California Flower Selection guide.  Students should bring something for note taking and a hand held calculator.  The classroom has assorted tools available to use, new floral tools are available in the classroom to purchase.  Any other tools necessary for the class will be available. Evaluation A certificate of completion of this class will be available with a passing grade on the final exam. Students that have enrolled and passed the Explore Floral Design and wish to enroll in the Advanced Floral design class that follows will be given a ½ off discount on that class price when combining these 2 classes. Christina Burton-Fox   AIFD   instructor FLOWERS are beautiful creations.  The curiosity and enthusiasm for information about flowers is contagious.  Enroll in the Flower Classroom for the most up to date information….when the ordinary won’t do…take yourself somewhere new!

Materials Fresh flowers and foliage’s and the containers will be provided for all the designs.  These designs are yours to take with you at the end of each class day.  You will not take apart your designs to execute the next floral design. Flower selection will be seasonal.  The classroom will have a wide selection of flowers to choose from for design execution.  You will have permanent materials and all wire, tape, glue, etc. will be provided. Additional materials, fresh flowers & foliage’s can be purchased for continued practice outside of the classroom. Styles of Design ·      Botanical ·      Circular Mass ·      Formal Linear ·      Line-Mass ·      Triangular ·      Vegetative Class Registration 70 hours classroom time Registration & Class Materials for a       10-day class.                    $1,564.50 This amount is due in full to reserve your design table.  Payment can be made with any major credit card or with Pay Pal. PayPal link for payment of Class https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=6GVU2NZZXKQH6 Cancelation of your space in the class is allowed up to 14 days before class for a full refund.  After that a credit will be applied for classes in the future. Hotels & Restaurants are located in the Kansas City downtown area.  A short commute to the Classroom.  Call for more information.  913-708-2988

Holiday Designs….. for Evergreen at Lake of the Ozarks Osage Beach Missouri

If you are in the Osage Beach, Missouri area (Lake of the Ozarks) please stop by this wonderful Home Decor Store.

I had the opportunity to work for Jason, Rachel & Steve Taylor for a few days this past week to create holiday designs for the upcoming Christmas Open House November 1, 2nd & 3rd.

A great store full of unique home decor items, permanant botanicals by the stem or fully designed for the table, door, etc….  Every item is at special pricing…great prices you won't see anywhere else!!

It's a short drive from Kansas City…a perfect outing for the day or weekend….check them out on Facebook and the website link below….a few of the designs are posted on the Facebook page.

 Best of the Lake Lifestyles 2013

http://evergreenmfg.net

Evergreen

6711 Highway 54 Expressway  Osage Beach, Missouri

Monday thru Saturday    9-6

Open Seasonally, April 1st thru December 31st

Contact: evergreenatthelake@gmail.com

573-346-2286

Flower Classroom & Florists Review tip of the week

October 28, 2013                 Florists Review Tip of the week

Design with ease

Adding a couple of inexpensive resources to your design table could make a big difference in the speed and ease with which your designers work.

A sturdy lazy Susan is a great tool for 360-degree designing, allowing one to easily access all angles of an arrangement without moving around.

Another tool for designing all-around arrangements is a mirror. This can either be mounted on the wall opposite the design table, or a small tabletop mirror can be used. Place the mirror opposite the designer; she or he will be able to view both the back and front of the arrangement with just a quick glance.

Flower Classroom Tip of the week

Besides resources…keep you design table top clean from extra flower debris….this will enable you to look at your designs at all angles.

Keep your tools sharpened!!  A good clean 45% cut on your stems with a sharp knife or scissors will allow the stems to DRINK& DRINK……Flowers LOVE fresh clean floral preservative water.

October 21, 2013

Florists Review Tip of the Week

Treat young visitors – and their parents

Halloween is a great time to scare up some extra shop traffic. Many costumed kids and their parents will be attending a wide range of festivities on Thursday the 31st and even the weekend before the holiday.

Consider offering a treat of some sort for any children visiting the store in costume – a colorful carnation or chrysanthemum tied with orange and black ribbon is a welcome change to the onslaught of candy, though sweet treats are always a hit as well.

For the parents, surprise them with a discount coupon or bloom of their own to encourage repeat visits. Or, ask them to add their names and emails to your list and be entered in a drawing for a small prize.

With 10 days out, there's still time to offer a quick holiday promotion. Use your Facebook, Twitter and e-mail lists to spread the word.

California Cut Flower News

California Cut Flower  Newsletter

The Sylvia Cup

  

The Sylvia Cup is the nation's longest-running floral industry design competition hosted by the Society of American Florists. Now in its 46th year, SAF is celebrating its newest cup holder ... drum roll, please... Joyce Mason-Monheim, AIFD, AZMF, PFCI of Designer Destination in Tucson, AZ. 

All of the featured floral designs for the competition were displayed on "CA Grown" table cloths, and adorned with blooms from California, to authenticate the origin of the American grown flowers used in all of the amazing floral designs. 

To see more images from the 2013 Sylvia Cup Competition, visit SAF's Flickr page: http://bit.ly/15RmLHg

Using Twitter as a Secret Weapon

 A recent article on Mashable reported that 97% of the top 100 brands had a Twitter presence, giving it equal footing with Facebook. It went on to say that "close to 100%" of the Fortune 500 analyze Twitter's data to look for consumer trends. Why is this interesting? Well, as a platform, Twitter makes it easy to find out what people are saying about your brand or product. Even more, it allows you to directly engage with those consumers in building your brand. The data you find can be used to help streamline a strategy based on consumer opinion.

For flowers, we work closely with all flower farms and florist to continue building the California Grown brand. The efforts help educate consumers about where their flowers come from, so they can demand California flowers because they are the "local" choice for flowers. And Twitter has been a valuable social media tool for the CCFC in those efforts - in fact, the CCFC even participates in a "Twitter Team," built with flower farmers and flower fans to help spread the word.

   

If you'd like to contribute to flower fodder, be sure to use the hashtags, so we can follow the conversations and track the trends:

#AmericanGrown

#CaGrown

#OriginMatters 

It's helpful to know who our fans are, especially the ones who are ultra-passionate about spreading the word about California Grown flowers.  Be inspired by the American Grown movement for flowers and follow @caflowers on Twitter.  For regular updates between issues of "Field Notes," subscribe to CCFC's blog "Field Position," by CCFC's CEO/Ambassador Kasey Cronquist. 

And don't forget to "Like" us on Facebook!

Sustainability Certification Project Secures Funding

California's flower farmers' focus on sustainability earns them a $224k grant.

With input from our farms every step of the way, the Commission's vision,  dedication and efforts to lead the industry were instrumental in securing two grants from the California Department of Food & Agriculture. In the first, $224k has been earmarked to advance the development of the CCFC's sustainability certification project, designed to provide California's flower farms with a certification program that recognizes the unique sustainability position our farms have in the U.S. floral industry. 

Additionally, the California Flower Growers Co-op received $126,456 to help fund their efforts to develop an online marketplace for selling California Grown flowers.  The grant includes funds for promoting and marketing the Co-op's new platform.  The newly formed Co-op will now begin work to review proposals to develop out the concept that is designed to help provide more California Grown Flowers to more people everywhere.  Co-op membership is open to California flower farms that would like to be a part of developing this important asset.  

Helping Spread The Word

Debra Prinzing speaking about her passion for locally grown flowers during a "Field to Vase" event in Portland, OR.

Some new resources have become available to help you learn more about California's flower power, and to help educate and spread the word about the importance of locally grown flowers: 

Slow Flowers Podcast with Debra Prinzing: American Grown Flowers from a California Point of View

Listen in on the Slow Flowers Podcast while Debra interviews Kasey Cronquist and learn about the opportunities ahead for California flower farms.

J Schwanke's uBloom.com Resource Guide 

The uBloom Professional Resource Guide is a list of more than 50 products, suppliers and growers of flowers and foliage. The guide is a free resource to help you grow your business.

J Schwanke atop a tractor in a field of California Grown stock during a farm tour of Ocean View Flowers in Lompoc, CA.

One Extraordinary Flower Fan Rose to the Top

Earlier this year, the California Cut Flower Commission embarked on a mission to find the nation's biggest flower fanatic - and we are pleased to announce the grand prize winner of the search ...

The Winner of the Farm-to-Float Contest

is Rochelle Greayer

Creator of The Gardenist on Apartment Therapy, chief and Founder of Studio G, a website that provides ideas and inspiration for gardeners, and editor and co-founder of Leaf Magazine, Rochelle impressed the judges with her social media presence, her deep personal passion for flowers and her desire to help share the California flower farmers' story with her network. Rochelle loves and appreciates local sourcing of flowers and will help broadcast a behind-the-scenes look at float building during the final stages of "Deco Week," including providing a side-line view of the floats as they take their place in the biggest flower parade in Pasadena on New Year's Day 2014.

The Top 10 entrants who also rose to the top received bouquets from San  Francisco-based FarmGirl Flowers and they are generating rave reviews: Red, White and Grew by Pamela Price; photos by Alicia Schwede of Flirty Fleurs; and, video by Bren Haas of BG Garden.

If you're a flower fan, but have yet to join the conversation, "Like" us at California Grown Flowers on Facebook.  

Tip of the week...a blowout of your blooms

Florists Review tip of the week....

October 14, 2013

A blowout for your blooms 

Sometimes you just need those roses open right now – perhaps for party work or when shooting photos for your shop.

You can help speed up Mother Nature by blowing into the blooms to force the petals to open wider. Slowly and carefully spreading the petals of roses and carnations wider with your hands can be effective, too.

Try these techniques out some slow afternoon before using them in a high-pressure situation to be sure they work for you. And keep in mind that opening flowers faster than natural will generally reduce vase life, so this technique works best when the flowers are being displayed just for a short time.

Have these roses at room temperature this is important when trying to reflex & open them.

Flower Classroom Thank you...

Thank you to all my friends & family for being part of the Fall Open Studios at the Hobbs Building!  I met so many flower enthusiasts!!

Thank you!!

Christina Burton-Fox    AIFD

AIFD 2013 SAVAGE BOTANICALS

This program was truly amazing!  These ladies were so inspiring....it was all about the Passion of Design

Mayesh's Blog   

AIFD 2013: Savage Botanicals

OCT11

Written by: Sabrina 
10/11/2013 6:31 AM  

What do you get when you ask 10 Arizona designers to create haute couture dresses, inspired by Alexander McQueen designs and made entirely of repurposed dresses and permanent botanicals? Words cannot describe what they created.

Joyce Mason-Monhiem AIFD CFD PFCI presented a session called Savage Botanicals this at Passion AIFD National Symposium 2013 in Las Vegas. She was inspired by the edgy designs of Lee Alexander McQueen, who passed away tragically in 2010.

Lee McQueen was known for his unique take on fashion. His designs have been worn by the who’s who of the celebrity world. Joyce and her designers took 10 dress designs and interpreted them using a variety of materials, from zip ties to nuts and bolts. All of the dresses emphasize textural contrast, form and color.

Nature

First up we have what I would only imagine a forest goddess would look like.

Symbiosis Serenity was designed by Ikuko Hashimoto AIFD.

It is as if the dress was created by lifting the forest floor. The bottom of the dress is created using 80 bushes of artificial Water Lettuce leaves. As the leaves build up to the bodice the dress and headpiece transform into a mass of different mosses accents with delicate flowers.

Next we have Essence of Warrior which was inspired by design called Highland Rape.

Sharon Kanton AIFD decided to make the model the heroine of the catwalk. This isEssence of Warrior.

I really like working with Hypericum Berries but I could not imagine creating the entire bodice of them. Approximately 8,000 berries were hand-sewn. The berry becomes a form of armor. Accents of red give the dress a regal look. The chiffon was even singed with fire to create the sense that the model had seen battle and was victorious.

Fall is my favorite time of year and this was one of my favorite designs. You could just feel the change of temperature when this dress came out. This is Autumnal Ruination designed by Melanie Burnett AIFD.

The bouquet was filled with fresh orange roses and surrounded by broken eggshells reminiscent of the shells left behind when nests are abandoned.

Industrial

For the industrial portion of the program Patti Klawans AIFD created Harnessing Culture.

Zip ties have never been so couture. Over 13,000 cable ties were used to create of the bottom of the dress and train. While the hat was covered in 288 gerbera heads. The large pearl bouquet finished the winter look.

For an even more industrial look Ann Peckman AIFD created Mechanical Meringue.

The purse was hubcaps hinged together. When the purse was opened a colorful fresh floral composition was revealed. 1,100 nuts and bolts were used, along with 225 feet of 1” silver flat wire, to decorate the length of the dress as well as create the crown.

The dress created by Katherine Dacies AIFD looks like lace but do not let your eyes fool you. The design movement is created entirely out of colored flat wire.

When the model turns we see that the back of the dress appears as if the dress is floating. The yellow mass of color is created using silk Cymbidium petals. Each petal is hand sewn to the dress. Over 1,400 feet of color flat wire was used.

Breathing

If you like butterflies you would have wanted to jump right onto the stage with the dress Diane Gonzalez AIFD created called Insecta Awakening.

Monarch butterflies adorn the bodice as if they are about to migrate. 1,800 pieces of Midillino was used to create the headpiece as well as the skirt. The dress moved as the model walked. The butterflies seem to all be taking flight. 675 Monarch butterflies were used. Talk about a migration.

The waterfall effect was to die for. What an awesome concept and design.

Claire Orloff AIFD took a dark approach when she created Ravenna’s Sensitivity. With over 100 pieces of 19” Black Ostrich feathers are used to create a dress that looks like is being blown by the ravens taking flight.

She is carrying a large bouquet of forsythia. The ravens are tangled in a a mess of wire and brown ribbon. The bodice is not made of suede as it appears. Magnolialeaves give the bodice a suede texture.

Next we have Surrendered Vertex which was designed by Cathy Grim AIFD. The elegant bridal feel is accented with a horn crown and lace.

The lace effect for the skirt is created with 44 packages of artificial gray Spanish Moss. The staff she carries is made up of any mal horns and silk flowers and trailing greens.

Last but not least one of Alexander McQueen’s most famous designs is interpreted by Gail Chronister AIFD.

Hortensia Addition was the grand finale of the show. The lavender and blue hues of the dress were created using Design Master spray on white hydrangea.

The model carried a bouquet of lavender roses wrapped in wide leaf ribbon.

What a fantastic finale to a mind blowing show. These ladies are all beyond talented. I cannot wait to see what will blow my mind next year at Transition AIFD Symposium Chicago 2014.

Till next time!

About The Author

Sabrina Mesa - (Tucson, Arizona)

Hola! My goal for this blog is to help navigate the winding waters of the floral industry. We will have a lot of fun along the way of course.  We will cover everything from recaps of shows across the world, tips and tricks, trends and of course those questions we all have but are too embarrassed to ask our sales rep. Have no fear Sabrina the Explorer is here!...with backpack, map and all *wink*

The Final Countdown via Blooms World....exciting trends in floral design Street ART

Klaus Wagener via BLOOM's World

The final countdown! With a due date of October 31st coming up! Blooms World would love to hear how you are expressing yourself. Be a part of the Bloom's Team most current and exciting trend in design.
http://www.blooms-world.com/streetart-initiative.htm

BLOOM's World

www.blooms-world.com

BLOOM’s collects and publishes submitted Floral StreetArt projects on www.floralstreetart.com and via social media channels of BLOOM’s.Send us your pictures and – if possible – video clips of your Floral StreetArt to streetart@blooms.deAlso send us a brief description of your project, incl. location...

The Flower Classroom & the Hobbs Art Studios....Fall Open House Friday October 11, 2013

If your looking for something to do exciting this Friday October 11....Come to the Hobbs Building open Studios....great ART, great FLOWERS, food and music.

I will be doing Flower Demo's this year in the Classroom during the evening...hope to see you in the Flower Classroom!

Christina Burton-Fox  AIFD

Fall Hobbs Open Studios The Hobbs Building is pleased to open its doors October 11-12 to showcase the work of its member artists. The dozens of artists who occupy over four full floors of studios work in a variety of styles and media, ranging from found object sculpture to painting to printmaking and more. We will be open Friday, October 11, from 6-10 p.m. and Saturday, October 12, from 1-4 p.m. The Hobbs Building is located at 1427 W. 9th Street in Kansas City's West Bottoms. On Friday night, enjoy outdoor food vendors and live music by Pheasant Pluckers in the Feasts of Fancy courtyard. Visit our Facebook event »

Tip of the week for sparkling vases

October 7, 2013

Easy trick for sparkling vases

Florists Review Magazine

Sometimes glass and crystal vases can develop stubborn rings or cloudy film.

Simply drop in a denture cleaning tab – available at any drug or discount store – fill the vase with water and leave the tab to work. If needed, cover the vase opening with your hand and give it a shake or “whisk” the container to reach all of the interior. Repeat if necessary.

Voila! Your glass will sparkle once more. Frequent customers will appreciate this tip, too.

~ Another great tip for cleaning your glass..3/4 vinegar 1/4 water and a splash of lemon juice in a spray bottle.

~ Getting ready to adhere something to the outside of your glass....clean with denatured alchol.  This takes away any film and allows your dash/glue dots...to firmly adhere to the glass.

If you have a great tip for glass post it here and share....we all love to learn new things!

Christina Burton-Fox    AIFD