Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas a day late. :) I hope everyone had a wonderful celebration with their loved ones. I was in Everett, Washington with the family for four days. Really enjoyed being in the Pacific Northwest, where we spent quite a bit of time out walking and taking in the landscape. I felt very inspired by the green on green colors - so many tall & lush trees, moss, pinecones, berries, etc. I wanted to take some photos of the trees, BUT my camera battery died, bummer!
Now it's back to life in Denver where we have a foot of snow and more on the way. ;)

Locks of Love

On December 11, 2007, Denver Divas held their monthly meeting at Tuana Hair Design located at 2500 West 15h Street Denver, CO 80211. This month there was a special mission for this networking group - get as many members to donate their long hair as possible to the wonderful organization - Locks of Love. I've been growing my hair out for sometime with the plan to donate it. I'll admit I was a bit timid at first walking into the salon, afterall, I've had long hair for sometime. My friend, Allison, was great moral support & photographer that evening. Also, helped that Nil, Kymberly and all the other Denver Divas cheered me on! Thanks girls!! Now I love the shorter 'do! Will I grow it out again to make another donation? YES! Here are some photos from the evening:

The Broadmoor wedding

Here's another Broadmoor wedding to check out. It took place August 25, 2007. Barry Staver Photography provided me with a fabulous selection of photos to peruse, thanks Barry!
Penny from Revelry Events was the wedding coordinator.

Here Danielle carries a hand-tied bouquet of 40 stems mango calla lilies:Danielle & Dain pose outside The Broadmoor. The sky looks amazing!Elevated centerpieces on the head table. They are filled with hot pink hydrangea, orange unique roses, hot pink roses, hanging green amaranthus, mambo spray roses, mango callas, orange mokara orchids & pink veronica. The arrangements sit on 36" tall vases with lighted bases:

more holiday arrangements

Wedding planners in Colorado

I'd like to take a moment to say "Thank-You" to all the wonderful wedding and event planners that we work with!!! All of these ladies do a great job and make our part of an event even more fun. Honestly, I think everyone should consider hiring a wedding planner, if not for the whole planning process at least for the day of the wedding/event.
Here's a list of the planners that we worked with in 2007, I'd recommend any of them!!:
Calluna Events - Heather Clark - 303.443.4617
Classic Creations - Julie Gambrell - 303.471.0082
Dramatic Events - Michelle Gillette - 303.695.9235
Revelry Events - Penny Storchevoy - 303.941.9289
Sapphire Celebrations - Angela Johnston & Pam Drennan - 303.617.3984
Save the Date Events - Debbie DiClaudio Orwat - 303.550.9261
Weddings, Etc - Tanya Porter - 303.779.0395
Weddings by Norie - Norie Hamilton - 303.452.4802

Linked In

Fabulous Florists :: Ovando - NYC

Last time I was in NYC I stayed at the W in Times Square. The first thing I noticed when entering the lobby were the flower displays. Surprise, Surprise!
I picked up a card and while out exploring the city came across the shop. Walked in and chatted with the designer - she is great! Here's a link to their site:
Ovando

Colorado Retail Florists Association

Recently we posted a help-wanted ad and received a few inquiries of people asking how to get into the floral industry. I would say step #1 for Colorado residents is to check out:
Colorado Retail Florists Association
They offer a comprehensive listing of schools, shops, wholesalers, classes, classifieds, etc.

Book :: Paula Pryke, Table Flowers

Looks like my favorite London based floral designer has a new book out. You can click on this link and buy it from amazon, that's what I did.

Paula Pryke has been one of my favorite designers for years now. I've visited the shop in London a few times. I'll tell 'ya my mouth drops everytime I'm walking around that shop. It's a magical place. :)

Holiday arrangements available at Bella Fiori!

A large container is filled with three colors of Poinsettias and ivy plants:

Red Amaryllis stands upright with curly willow branches in a glass saucer bowl, surrounded by river rock. Cranberries can also surround the amaryllis.

A glass cube vase filled with cranberries. The arrangement is filled with cedar & seeded eucalyptus, red roses & red alstromeria.

A container is constructed out of candy canes and the arrangement contains seeded eucalyptus, cedar, red roses and red alstromeria.

A natural basket is filled with an amaryllis plant, ivy and green moss. A nice delivery option for the holidays.

One of my annual favorites - a cylinder vase is filled with cranberries and has an arrangement of gerber daisies, roses, stock, cedar and seeded eucalyptus. The stock and cedar give it a subtle scent.

It's snowing!

Why am I blogging this much this morning? The answer is easy - there's snow outside! And this California girl is never in a hurry to leave the house on a snowy morning. I prefer to wait for the roads to clear a bit.
That's good news for all of you that like to read the blog. I have decided to post more links from other informational sites or sites that have fabulous photos of floral design. Plus, I'm digging in the archives of the home computer to see what photos of our previous work I can find....
Guess I should post more of the holiday photos to give everyone ideas, it is November 28 afterall! ;)
Here's a photo from the past, it was from a Christmas/Swedish theme wedding:

Favorite Websites :: Denver Plants

Looking for a site full of information on growing plants in Colorado?
Check out Denver Plants
"Denver Plants is the only... totally free horticultural gardening reference site dedicated to home gardeners in the Denver Metro area... and along the Front Range of Colorado. There are no annoying popup ads, thanks to the sponsor support of... Colorado's leading green industry plant and floral retailers and growers..."

Fabulous Florists :: White Lilac - Irvine, CA

Recently I became aware of White Lilac in Irvine, California. They are a "comprehensive event design studio specializing in large-scale parties, exclusive weddings, unparalleled corporate functions, and intimate soirees."
They had contacted us to take care of some deliveries in Denver that they needed for their client. We enjoyed working with them and taking care of their orders. I enjoyed looking at their website - talk about eye-candy for a floral design lover!!
For any of you who love good design, or are planning an event in So. Cal. you are going to love this site!
Click here to see more of White Lilac

stuff from the studio

I'm definitely in a chatty mood today! Seems like there is just a lot going on right now - could be the holidays. ;)
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. I flew home to northern California.

We had a pretty quiet weekend. The good news is that I was reunited with Johann. Thank you to everyone for their thoughts and prayers for the little guy. For those of you that don't know what happened - little Johann we think was bitten by a poisonous spider the beginning of November when I was in No. Cal. He spent 5 days in the emergency vet where he fought for his life. I had to return to Denver and leave him in the care of my parents. (pretty good place for his recovery!). I was so happy to see him! He flew back with me yesterday, his first flight. He did just fine and is small enough to ride in the cabin. He's now back to his normal self; taunting Matisse!

We have a pretty busy month ahead of us, quite a few holiday parties and some really cool weddings! I'm feeling jazzed up for all the fun arrangements we get to make. :) And one thing is for sure - I must have more time to blog this month! ;)

order arrangements online from us!

We have a new service - ordering arrangements online from us! It's pretty simple, just follow the prompts.
Check it out here:
Order arrangements from Bella Fiori

Fabulous Florists :: Fiori - Burlingame, San Francisco, Palo Alto

I feel pretty fortunate that I've been able to travel around the world. Traveling ranks as one of my top passions - right up there with floral design! Everytime I arrive in a new city one of my favorite things to do is to visit flower shops. I've spent entire days in London and Sydney just walking from one shop to the next. Yes, I'm usually alone on these excursion days - not too many people can handle a whole day of flower shop visiting! ;) The shops in Zurich, Paris, London, Sydney, Buenos Aires, Shang-hai are all amazing!
Yet, my favorite shop remains Fiori, a shop where I worked at part-time when I lived in the Bay Area. Fiori has three shops - San Francisco in the Marina district, Burlingame Avenue and Palo Alto at Stanford shopping center. I love these shops. Monday, Wednesday and Friday they receive fresh flowers from SF Flower Mart, all the flowers are hand-picked by the owner. The flowers are set out on tables for the customers to select from; the variety, colors, smells, textures are just amazing.
I highly suggest if you are ever in any of these three locations to stop by the shops and check them out - you'll be happy you did!

Denver Post - ROOM

In today's Denver Post there is a write up in the ROOM section about how to set your Thanksgiving Holiday Tables. It was a great way to wake up this morning when I flipped to the page and saw the centerpiece that our Michelle created. She had a very short time limit to come up with something creative that people could reproduce in their own homes. I really like how she wrapped the vases with various colors of orange and brown ribbons. Then each vase contained one element of traditional Thanksgiving decorations; including berries - bittersweet and hypericum, one floating confetti rose, red coxcomb, orange unique roses, gourds and in the center a vase with victorian birch and nandina leaves.
Also fun to see our friends at Bouquets, Catering By Design, Delilah's of Denver and Footers Catering all featured!

Thanksgiving arrangements

Hard to believe that Thanksgiving is next week! Where did November go? I've heard a few people saying this. I think it's because we haven't had any snow yet and such warm temperatures?
Nonetheless, it is just some days away and time to order those Thanksgiving centerpieces! We will deliver up until Wednesday evening, November 21. A minimum of $50 per arrangement plus delivery and sales tax. We can also arrange to have flowers delivered throughout the USA and overseas, call us for details. We accept visa and master card for these deliveries.
(we are closed Nov. 22-25)
Here are some of photos of our previous work:
This arrangement would be great to place on a side table. It has height with the curly willow branches and the flowers include blue iris, orange asiatic lilies, yellow stock, nandina leaves, red roses, montbretia pods and gourds.

Here we have two colors of roses, kumquats, pin-cushions and safari sunset.

This arrangement contains a large mixture of fall flowers and textures, including roses, sedum, montbretia pods, hydrangea, safari sunset, nandina, scabiosa and coneflowers.

Not pictured would be a long&low style arrangement. I do love to do these types of centerpieces which fit nicely down the center of a oblong or rectangular table.

Keystone - Timber Ridge

One of my all-time favorite weddings took place at Keystone - Timber Ridge. It was a late August wedding and my first time at that location. The ceremony took place on the deck with the guests facing the beautiful view of big trees and blue sky. We didn't do any decoration for the ceremony itself, only the personal flowers.
The bride carried a hand-tied bouquet of 5 green goddess calla lilies with jasmine vines. Her bridesmaids carried one stem of green goddess each. The groomsmen wore a white mini-calla lily. The flower girl wore a halo of white dendrobrium orchids with greenish/white sedum. Very delicate and adorable!

Inside for reception we decorated 6 long tables with tall vases that enclosed a stem of green cymbidium orchid. We had about 3-5 of these per table. Then between the vases we ran bamboo. I had purchased the bamboo fresh from the Carolinas and then cut and shaped them to size at the studio. The bamboo was filled with moss, black river rock, green cymbidiums, purple dendrobriums, succulents and japonica leaves.



On the back of the bride & groom's chairs we attached a cluster of green goddess calla lilies.

The four tiered cake was decorated lightly with a few blooms of the green cymbidium & purple dendrobrium orchids.

Sierra Flower Finder

Here's a great website for anyone that wants to learn more about flower varieties:
http://sierraflowerfinder.com/
It's an online reference for everything you need to know about flowers. They have pictures of over 2500 varieties of flowers.
A great resource for a bride doing some research and for other floral professionals that need information on flower seasons, etc.

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San Francisco Flower Market

I love SF Flower Market, always have. Prior to moving to Denver in 2002 I had a business in SF called Alicia Chestine Designs. Every Wednesday I'd arrive at the flower market at 5am to hand pick all my fresh flowers, most of which had just come in from the farms on the coast. The amount and variety of flowers is amazing. I haven't been to the market for a few years now so returning this past week was quite fun. I picked up some new containers and some new novelty stuff - like other types of California Crystals. Here are some photos of the mass amount of flowers:

hello from California

I'm home in northern California. Looks like I'll be heading out first thing Tuesday morning to return to Denver. It's been beautiful out here. I had a great time at the SF flower mart and gathering manzanita branches off our friend's property. Everything is so plentiful here! Fun new stuff to add to our shop. Here's a picture from the front yard!

Blume boxes - an idea for placecards

I love this new little product. It is called a bud box and it measures about 2.5" tall without a flower added. They come in pink, purple, brown, black, orange, red, sky blue and lime green - some solid colors and some with patterns. There is a space to insert a tag with your guests' names and their table number. Quite a few flowers work well with these. Such a fun and unique way to mark where your guests sit and a fun favor for them. The photo isn't that great, they are much cuter in person.

the knot - Best of Weddings Pick

Bella Fiori is honored to be selected for “The Knot 2007 Best of Weddings Pick”. This actually happened last May. Seems that I never actually posted about this on the blog. I had such an elated feeling when a few wedding planners called to tell me I was in the magazine listed for one of the top wedding floral designers for the state of Colorado. This is thank-you to all our previous brides that nominated and voted for Bella Fiori!!
Thanks Ladies!!

Rocktober!

It's a great day here in Colorado!! Why? Well, the Rockies swept their way into the World Series AND more ski resorts have opened for the season!
I think everyone is enjoying this October!

We won for best wedding florist!