Tips for Holiday Floral Decorations

This month, we cre­at­ed a hol­i­day dec­o­rat­ing flo­ral guide just for our stu­dents and newslet­ter read­ers! We’ve added some free online class­es for you to watch and also a few tips and tricks via our YouTube chan­nel! It’s been a while since we post­ed to YouTube, but we’ll be adding more free tips and tricks in 2019 to YouTube.

For all our fans in the Unit­ed States, we wish you a won­der­ful Thanks­giv­ing and to every­one in the world who subscribes…have a won­der­ful and fes­tive hol­i­day sea­son. Hug your fam­i­ly and enjoy your friends, so impor­tant in this life of ours. Take a cue from one of our reg­u­lar flo­ral design stu­dents,  Dave. He has a long tra­di­tion of bring­ing flow­ers to every­one! When­ev­er he gets togeth­er with friends, he brings flow­ers! Last week­end, he came to our Thanks­giv­ing class and announced that after class, he was mak­ing two more arrange­ments to bring to the friends he was gath­er­ing with that evening. What a great way to live!!!

We hope our hol­i­day video tip about “Shar­ing the Cen­ter­piece” helps you bring flow­ers to your friends. We encour­age you to host a potluck din­ner with cen­ter­pieces as sur­prise gifts for each guest when the evening finishes!

Winnie-the-Pooh Flowers

In late Octo­ber of 2018, just before Hal­loween, we were asked to teach 50 blog­gers, jour­nal­ists, and oth­er press peo­ple how to make a flo­ral design with a Win­nie-the-Pooh-themed vase shaped like a hon­ey­pot! The event was pro­mot­ing the launch of Dis­ney’s movie Christo­pher Robin on Blu­Ray and DVD. We went up to the Los Ange­les Arbore­tum on a warm Mon­day morn­ing to set up the flow­ers and wait for three sep­a­rate groups to arrive and eager to learn a lit­tle bit about flower arrang­ing. It was a love­ly way to start a week!

Some of you know we have a broth­er who also lives in Los Ange­les. He is an artist with a com­pa­ny who cre­ates print col­lat­er­al to pro­mote Hol­ly­wood movies. As it turns out, he cre­at­ed the poster for this Blu­Ray pro­mo­tion for Christo­pher Robin! Casey and I think it’s a sweet con­nec­tion in this big city to have our broth­er sort of stand­ing there with us with his art, too.

This movie poster hap­pened to be cre­at­ed by our broth­er who also lives and works in Los Angeles.

“Hun­ny” pots all lined up for the first group at the Christo­pher Robin Blu­Ray Press Event. Flow­ers by Flower Duet. Pho­to by Kit Wertz.

Casey sets up the flower selec­tion for the Christo­pher Robin Class at the Los Ange­les Arbore­tum on Octo­ber 29, 2018. Flow­ers by Flower Duet. Pho­to by Kit Wertz.

Casey in the mid­dle of the instruc­tions to the first group of 25 in our press jun­ket activ­i­ty for Dis­ney. Flow­ers by Flower Duet. Pho­to by Kit Wertz.

Par­tic­i­pants show off their flo­ral cre­ations at the LA Arbore­tum with Flower Duet and Dis­ney. Pho­to by Kit Wertz

Close­up of the Hun­ny Pots with fall flow­ers inside for Dis­ney by Flower Duet. Pho­to by Kit Wertz.

Fall Flower Class & Garden Club Recap

We’ve been so busy this month since the end of Octo­ber until well…almost Thanksgiving…that our newslet­ter is almost in time for Decem­ber! Here’s a glance at what we’ve been up to in Octo­ber and Novem­ber! P.S. — We’ve taught flo­ral design to over 580 peo­ple in the last 25 days for mul­ti­ple groups ages 7 to 70+! One is nev­er too young or too old to learn about flo­ral design. We shared the love with teenagers in high school and lit­tle ones just start­ing ele­men­tary school! We have shared tips for sea­soned flo­ral enthu­si­asts in three dif­fer­ent gar­den clubs from Long Beach to La Jol­la. We con­tin­ued to meet with brides, grooms of all ages from their 20s to their 80s!!!

Flo­ral design is for every­one! We love that our for­mer stu­dents and interns have their own thriv­ing busi­ness­es who come back to use our stu­dio as a home base rental space or to help us with a big event.

In short, we are grate­ful for what we are able to do in our busi­ness. Share a skill that can help some­one else cre­ate a new career or just to enjoy life a bit more.

Autry Museum

Here is the flower line­up we used for our 3rd Annu­al Flo­ral Design Class for Thanks­giv­ing at The Autry Muse­um. Pho­to by Kit Wertz

Class is ready to start at the Autry!

Sneeze­weed is native to Cal­i­for­nia and looks just like the Cras­pe­dia we use in our flo­ral designs…so we used that, too!

A fin­ished flo­ra cen­ter­piece inspired by native sun­flow­ers, West­ern Cedar, yarrow and cos­mos in the gar­den at The Autry on Novem­ber 18, 2018 by Flower Duet.

Fall Workshops

Casey teach­es in our studio.

Here is a fin­ished design from our fall flower work­shop just in time for Thanks­giv­ing tables. Flow­ers by Flower Duet. Pho­to by Kit Wertz.

Keely (Kit’s Daugh­ter) assists Casey at The Hunt­ing­ton in ear­ly November.

Garden Clubs

In Octo­ber and Novem­ber, Casey and I spoke to three gar­den clubs along the coast of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia from San Pedro to Naples to La Jol­la. We shared tips and trends for hol­i­day arrang­ing and now to share the love of flow­ers with the guests you have in your home for enter­tain­ing. Here are a few pho­tos to share with you.

La Jol­la Gar­den Club — This was an amaz­ing 24 hours for us. We were giv­en world-class treat­ment to a hotel stay and won­der­ful lun­cheon at The La Jol­la Coun­try Club after our demon­stra­tions. We shared three ways to “Gath­er with Flow­ers” for the hol­i­days and it was lots of fun to meet such a won­der­ful and pas­sion­ate group of gar­den­ers with many var­ied tal­ents and phil­an­thropic interests.

La Jol­la Gar­den Club mem­bers hold their meet­ing pri­or to our demonstrations.

The results of Flower Duet’s pre­sen­ta­tion to the La Jol­la Gar­den Club.

Gar­den Club Mem­ber Luncheon

It’s a great idea to present to gar­den clubs because often, mem­bers then hire us for their pri­vate events. These were for a pri­vate lun­cheon for a gar­den club mem­ber who had seen Casey speak.

Fundraisers for Our Schools!

Fall is for fundrais­ing and Casey and I both helped our schools make mon­ey for extra programs.

Groovy 60s Fall PTA Fundrais­er — For Kit’s kids, we donat­ed the labor for 20 cen­ter­pieces and 8 cock­tails for the fall PTA din­ner. The theme was the Groovy 60s, so we bought 450 Ger­ber Daisies and had fun mak­ing pavé designs for the wide tables.

Ger­bers Galore for a school fundraiser!

We con­di­tioned the 450 Ger­ber Daisies in our stu­dio before design­ing. Flower Duet Stu­dio Photo.

Here is the ball­room set­up for the din­ner at the Palos Verdes Art Cen­ter. Pho­to by Tra­cy Kumono.

Here is a close­up of a table with our flow­ers. Pho­to by Tra­cy Kumono.

Thanks­giv­ing Flower Duet Pop-Up — Pick Your Pro­gram Fundrais­er - For Casey’s school dis­trict, we cre­at­ed a Mom­my and Me flower class where par­tic­i­pants came into make a cen­ter­piece two days before Turkey Day, then choose which pro­gram they want­ed to donate to. We donat­ed 50% of the cost of the class to the char­i­ty with­in the Redon­do Beach School Dis­trict for each participant!

Par­tic­i­pants in our 50% Dona­tion to RBUSD received a semi-pri­vate class and made a Thanksi­giv­ing flo­ral design to take home! Pho­to by Kit Wertz.

Baby Showers & Weddings

Here are a few Insta­gram Posts from our recent wed­ding and show­er work!

Beau­ti­ful bride on her wed­ding day post­ed a gor­geous pho­to with our bouquet.

Gor­geous and woody fall wed­ding set­ting at the Stor­ri­er Stearns Japan­ese Gar­den with cen­ter­pieces by Flower Duet.

Gor­geous fall wed­ding flow­ers for a love­ly couple.

Fall bride with a vibrant fall bou­quet by Flower Duet.

Dar­ling blush and laven­der col­or scheme for this one-year-old birth­day par­ty for a love­ly lit­tle girl. Flow­ers by Flower Duet.

Vin­tage Day of the Dead par­ty with flow­ers by Flower Duet.

Gor­geous tones of flow­ers and dress­es col­lide! Flow­ers By Flower Duet

Flower Book — Wreaths & Garlands by Malcolm Hillier

It is espe­cial­ly help­ful for the Slow Flow­ers move­ment for peo­ple who want to make liv­ing wreaths with­out flo­ral foam. This book gives you mul­ti­ple ways to cre­ate unique wreaths using clas­si­cal florist meth­ods of chick­en wire and damp­ened moss!

It’s not that hard to escape from the con­fines of the con­ve­nient flo­ral foam for wreaths.

Mal­colm Hillier’s Wreaths & Gar­lands is worth a hunt at your next local book sale!

Flower Tool — Mobile Phone

Kit looked up a word she thought was close to the green­ery she was seek­ing and Google deliv­ered the goods!

Okay…this is a tool almost every­one has, but when one works as a flo­ral instruc­tor and wants to add a tid­bit of extra infor­ma­tion about a flower in a class, a mobile phone with an Inter­net con­nec­tion is a key tool in the flower box. Last week­end, Kit was teach­ing a class at The Autry Muse­um and was using a cit­rus green­ery but could not quite recall the Latin spelling. After two or three Google search­es, Casey land­ed on it!

The green­ery was grown in San Diego but is a native to Aus­tralia. It gives a fan­tas­tic cit­rus scent when cut and is a love­ly sculp­tur­al ele­ment in any fall design. I knew the name but had tem­porar­i­ly for­got­ten it. I knew it start­ed with an “Er.” Turns out, thanks to Google, we tracked it down to Erioste­mon, a genus of flow­er­ing plants native to east­ern Australia.

Thanks to our mobile phones and Google, we were able to share all the details with our stu­dents dur­ing class!