Mother’s Day Gift Ideas for the Flower-Inclined

By Flower Duet Editors

Flower Duet will always rec­om­mend fresh flow­ers and plants as won­der­ful gifts for Moth­er’s Day, but if you want to add anoth­er lit­tle (or big) gift for the spe­cial moth­er in your life to accom­pa­ny flow­ers, here are some favorite curat­ed gift ideas from Kit & Casey of Flower Duet. Of course, we always love a good spa day, too!

Flower Classes and Tours of the Los Angeles Flower Mart as Gifts

Many stu­dents in our class­es are moth­ers whose chil­dren pur­chased a gift cer­tifi­cate for them to learn how to design flow­ers with Flower Duet. This is a great event to do with your mom after Moth­er’s Day to keep the cel­e­bra­tion going all year long.

Our flower arrang­ing class­es are designed for every lev­el and we take each stu­dent step-by-step through the process of choos­ing the best flow­ers, how to make them last a long time in a vase and look pret­ty. We instruct on basic design tech­niques, use pre­mi­um flow­ers like ros­es, tulips and peonies and make sure each class is unique and true to the cur­rent inte­ri­or design and event trends.

You can book a tour or class online or if you want to arrange a pri­vate par­ty, you can email us and call us to dis­cuss your plans. We cater to your taste and tech­nique you want to learn.

We offer gift cer­tifi­cates you can down­load imme­di­ate­ly to give as a gift for any occa­sion — espe­cial­ly Moth­er’s Day!

Floral Gifts for Flower Lovers

Casey and I cre­at­ed a new Pin­ter­est board for you to see more ideas on what to give to the spe­cial moth­er in your life in addi­tion to fresh flowers!

Find all our flower-themed gift ideas for Moth­er’s Day on Flower Duet’s Pin­ter­est Board.

DIY Flowers — Free Videos from Flower Duet

Remem­ber when you were a lit­tle kid and you made a gift for your mom for Moth­er’s Day? Kit used to pick yel­low dan­de­lions in the back­yard and give them to our mom. Mom would always put them in a vase! These day’s Kit’s twins give her lit­tle clover flow­ers and she does her best to get them home into a vase.

Flower Duet’s YouTube Channel — FashioningFlowers

You can design your own flow­ers using videos from Flower Duet! We offer many FREE how-to videos on our YouTube chan­nel on how to cre­ate basic flower arrange­ments that are ele­gant, easy with flow­ers that you can pur­chase all year round from any local gro­cery store. The key is to use the right kind of vase to make it easy on your­self. So…what are you wait­ing for? Check out our videos this week and prac­tice a few designs before you come up with the per­fect flower recipe for your mom!

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Flower Duet Co-Sponsors 2nd Annual Be an Event Hero Event at Terranea Resort on April 13, 2015

By Kit Wertz

Flower Duet co-host­ed its 2nd Annu­al “Be An Event Hero” invi­ta­tion-only wed­ding indus­try event on April 13, 2015 at Ter­ranea Resort.

We want to extend our spe­cial thanks to our won­der­ful Ter­ranea-based event ven­dor group, The Wed­ding & Event Heroes, with whom we love shar­ing ideas each month. Read on to learn about our ven­dor part­ners and what they did for this won­der­ful event.

First on the morn­ing agen­da was for over 100 wed­ding and event plan­ners to enjoy a relax­ing round of net­work­ing on the Catali­na Ter­race under crisp sun­ny skies over­look­ing a clear view of its island name­sake. After we enjoyed fab­u­lous cit­rus tea-infused fruit kebabs, poached eggs in fresh Cal­i­for­nia avo­ca­dos, a hon­ey and cheese bar and more deli­cious savory bites and sweet desserts, we direct­ed the group for a whirl­wind round of nine mini work­shop ses­sions to fix com­mon prob­lems that come up dur­ing wed­dings and spe­cial events.

Be An Event Hero Mini Workshops

Casey Schwartz and Kit Wertz of Flower Duet taught their groups how to design flow­ers with mean­ing. Casey & Kit showed the group step-by-step how to cre­ate a mini posy from scratch.  Meg Hall of Made by Meg Cater­ing taught her groups how to plate for pre­sen­ta­tion with won­der­ful place set­tings pre­sent­ed by Sandy Radice­vic from Pre­miere Par­ty Rents.  Miki & Son­ja Rakice­vic of Miki & Son­ja Pho­tog­ra­phy and Lisa Oler  of Smile Lounge Pho­to Booth taught par­tic­i­pants how to pose for flat­tery and fun!

Per­ry­field Films team of Bri­an Per­ry and Ryan Sat­ter­field taught plan­ners how to deliv­er dig­i­tal files flaw­less­ly while Leo­ra Mauck of Cop­per Wil­low Stu­dio went over the ins and outs of wed­ding invi­ta­tion etiquette.

Ida Gard­ner of Ida Gard­ner Events demon­strat­ed how to remove the top 5 event stains from pre­mi­um fab­ric while KC Camp­bell of VOX DJS instruct­ed teams on how to pack a dance floor and keep the par­ty going. The team of Design Vis­age Hair & Make­up showed guests how to attach a bridal veil (and reat­tach one in case it came off at an inop­por­tune time) while Dahlia Wexler of Luxe Linens showed off her new line of pre­mi­um linens as well as inno­v­a­tive nap­kin folds for all types of celebrations.

Video Snapshot by Perryfield Films of Flower Duet’s Be An Event Hero Workshop

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Wedding Flowers by Flower Duet

All Pho­tos by Flower Duet Pho­tog­ra­phers except where noted

Here is a small sam­pling of wed­ding flow­ers we designed over the last few months. More to come as the sea­son starts to sizzle!

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Private Succulent Garden Tours & Workhops in San Diego with Debra Lee Baldwin

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Flower Tool: Loppers

It may be the end of Spring flow­er­ing branch­es at the flower mart in Los Ange­les, but we could not have made it through this sea­son full of the love­ly woody branch­es with­out our “lop­pers.” These long-han­dled pruners are essen­tial for prep­ping thick stems for flo­ral designs.

Start­ing with ear­ly for­syth­ia stems and plum branch­es and mov­ing into cher­ry blos­som sea­son, we rely heav­i­ly on a sharp set or two of what we affec­tion­ate­ly call “lop­pers” which is what you do when you “lop off a branch” from a tree.

The rea­son these work bet­ter than short­er han­dled pruners is because you can use the lever­age of the long han­dles to cut thick­er-gauge stems. This is impor­tant if you are prep­ping a large num­ber of branch­es for a design to avoid fatigue in your hands and arms.

These are also great to have on hand year-round for cut­ting kiwi vine, dog­wood stems, curly wil­low and ever­green branches.

This is an essen­tial tool for any seri­ous flower arranger and is avail­able at all home improve­ment and gar­den stores.

How to use Loppers

Here is a great video from Fiskars on how to use our favorite loppers!

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Floral Design Book Recommendation: Flower Styling

Tal­mage McLau­rin con­dens­es 20 years of flo­ral exper­tise here in this col­lec­tion of per­son­al favorites and excit­ing all-new designs. More than 100 gor­geous arrange­ments will inspire you to cre­ate your own flo­ral show­pieces for any sea­son or occasion.

This beau­ti­ful book, authored by Tal­mage McLau­rin, AIFD, con­tains over 100 images divid­ed into four sec­tions, Gar­den, Graph­ic, Har­vest and Hol­i­day. Insid­er tips are includ­ed on each page explain­ing the prin­ci­ples and tech­niques in cre­at­ing the designs.

Flower Styling, pub­lished by Florist’s Review, Hard­cov­er, 100 designs, 128 pages