A Curated 2016 Holiday Gift Guide for Flower Lovers

From Kit & Casey of Flower Duet

Faceted Ter­rar­i­ums Source: WestElm.com

Every year we like to curate a list of gift ideas for the Flower Lover in your life. In addi­tion to these ideas, make sure you check out our book rec­om­men­da­tions in this newslet­ter down below.

Gift Ideas from Shop Terrain

Shop Ter­rain is a peren­ni­al favorite of ours for gifts that are botan­i­cal­ly inclined.

Pressed Met­al Flower Gar­land — from Shop Terrain

Pressed Met­al Flower Gar­land. Source: Shop Terrain

Geo­met­ric Porce­lain Vase

Geo­met­ric Porce­lain Vase. Source: Shop Terrain

Bauble Bud Vases

Bauble Bud Vas­es. Source: Shop Terrain

Cone Trio Vase

Cone Trio Vase. Source: Shop Terrain

Aged Iron Waves Urn

Aged Iron Waves Urn. Source: Shop Terrain

Gold­en Lilies Wreath

Gold­en Lilies Wreath. Source: Shop Terrain

Habit + Form Rec­tan­gle Trough

Habit + FORM Rec­tan­gle Trough by Shop Terrain

Floral Holiday Gift Ideas from Ten Thousand Villages

Ten Thou­sand Vil­lages is a char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tion based in Penn­syl­va­nia that sells hand­made prod­ucts from around the globe in order to help the arti­sans cre­ate a bet­ter life. Their mis­sion as stat­ed: “We cre­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties for arti­sans in devel­op­ing coun­tries to earn income by bring­ing their prod­ucts and sto­ries to our mar­kets through long-term, fair trad­ing relationships.”

We have a Ten Thou­sand Vil­lages store near to us in Redon­do Beach and love perus­ing the wares sea­son­al­ly. On “Shop Local Sat­ur­day” last week, Kit and her daugh­ter found some great hol­i­day dec­o­ra­tions for the house! The shops are all staffed by friend­ly vol­un­teers and are locat­ed through­out the country.

Bronze Bloom Bowl — From Ten Thou­sand Villages

Bronze Bloom Bowl. Source Ten Thou­sand Villages

Recy­cled Sari Flower

Fine sari mate­r­i­al finds new life in the cre­ation of this flower from arti­san group Haji­ganj. Craft­ed with bend­able wire, this flower is eas­i­ly wrapped or maneu­vered into the shape of your choos­ing. Because each piece of fab­ric comes from a real recy­cled sari, no two flow­ers are entire­ly alike. From Ten Thou­sand Villages.

Posy Daz­zle Jew­el­ry Set

There are many jew­el­ry choic­es avail­able from Ten Thou­sand Vil­lages includ­ing this Posy Daz­zle Jew­el­ry Set. Source: Ten Thou­sand Villages.

Fire Flower Scarf

Col­ors warm and bright emerge in a pat­tern inspired by the vibrant designs of a sari. Source: Ten Thou­sand Villages.

Happy Holidays Gifts from West Elm

West Elm was born in Brook­lyn in 2002. A branch of Williams–Sonoma, Inc, the com­pa­ny brand is focused on mod­ern design.

Wood + Glass Terrariums

Wood + Glass Ter­rar­i­ums from West Elm. Source WestElm.com.

Water­scape Vases

Water­scape Vas­es. Source WestElm.com.

Embroi­dered Pop­py Square Pil­low Cover

Pop­py Pil­low Cov­er. Source WestElm.com.

Red Berries Wreath

Fresh Green Wreat with Red Berries. Source WestElm.com.

Holiday Gifts from Bambeco — Sustainable Home Goods

Bam­be­co designs, cre­ates and pro­vides respon­si­ble home goods that inspire sus­tain­able design and enhance the way peo­ple con­nect with our planet.

Bloom Can­dles

Bloom Can­dles by Bam­be­co. Pho­to: Bambeco.com

City Cedar Coast­ers — Set of 4

City Cedar Coast­er Set of 4. Choose from 8 dif­fer­ent cities includ­ing Bal­ti­more, Brook­lyn, Chica­go, DC, LA, Man­hat­tan, Paris and San Fran­cis­co. Offered at Bambeco.com — Sus­tain­able Home Goods

Arti­san Root Wood Vases

Arti­san Root Wood Vas­es are made from dis­card­ed rem­nants trans­formed by artist’s hands into some­thing extraordinary—the essence of nature, hand-touched. From Bam­be­co. Free Car­bon­Free Ground Ship­ping for orders over $100.

There are No Bad Flower Arrangers, only Bad Vases

By Kit Wertz

These recy­cled glass vas­es from Pot­tery Barn make good choic­es for begin­ning flower arrangers because of their gath­ered open­ings which help cre­ate a nat­ur­al shape to flo­rals. Pho­to: PotteryBarn.com

It’s all about the vase.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again…there are no bad flower arrangers…only bad vas­es. If you con­stant­ly strug­gle with mak­ing flow­ers look pret­ty in a vase from your grand­moth­er or from an estate sale down the street, maybe it’s not you…maybe it’s the vase.

Wide Openings = Lots of Flowers

Vas­es with wide open­ings require a lot of flow­ers and it’s hard­er to make a great flo­ral design in one of these vas­es unless you have a huge back­yard cut­ting gar­den. If you do have a vase you just love with a large open­ing, exper­i­ment with lots of dif­fer­ent types of green­ery includ­ing tree branch­es to make up the bulk of an arrange­ment, then add a few choice blooms for impact.

Vas­es with wide open­ings like these can be prob­lem­at­ic to design in because they require a lot of flow­ers to fill them up! 3D Eye­let Vas­es. Source: West Elm

Leave the Bubble Bowls for the Goldfish

Bub­ble bowls are tru­ly one of the most dif­fi­cult vas­es in which to design. These vas­es, shaped like gold­fish bowls, are bet­ter kept for the gold fish. They can make great ter­rar­i­ums! So don’t toss your entire col­lec­tion! Just place a nice long-last­ing Tilland­sia in there and it will be quite hap­py with the nat­ur­al humid­i­ty cre­at­ed by the slight­ly enclosed top.

It’s tough to make an arrange­ment in a bub­ble bowl and the thin glass of the lip can make it dif­fi­cult to trans­port. Pho­to: Save-On-Crafts.com

 Cylinder Vase Alternative Uses

Cylin­der vas­es are quite chic and still trendy, but are best left for very min­i­mal­ist designs like a gath­er­ing of Calla Lilies or one Mon­stera Leaf. Oth­er­wise, keep the cylin­der vas­es for your pil­lar can­dles or tall ter­rar­i­um design.

Cylin­der vas­es are sleek and slen­der, but dif­fi­cult to design flow­ers in with flow­ing shapes. These vas­es do well as ter­rar­i­ums as shown here or con­tain­ers to dis­play col­lec­tions like the antique keys. Pho­to: PotteryBarn.com.

Here are some tips on how to choose a vase that will make arrang­ing flow­ers a lit­tle eas­i­er on you.

Tip 1: Pick a vase with a gath­ered open­ing and a large base. Think hour­glass shape.

Nar­row vas­es with wide bases make for easy design­ing. Flow­ers by Flower Duet. Pho­to by Kit Wertz.

Tip 2: Pick a nar­row-topped vase if you have a small bud­get for flow­ers. The nar­row­er the open­ing, the few­er flow­ers you’ll need to use.

Gild­ed Fig Vas­es from Vivaterra.com.

Tip 3: Foot­ed con­tain­ers give an arrange­ment a nat­ur­al ele­gance. Use flo­ral foam or a flo­ral frog to secure the stems place.

Foot­ed cen­ter­piece in gold con­tain­er with red ros­es, bur­gundy scabiosa, pur­ple lisianthus, hyper­icum berries, red hang­ing ama­ran­thus and red celosia. Flow­ers by Flower Duet, pho­to by Kit Wertz.

Most impor­tant­ly, have fun and don’t be afraid to keep try­ing to see if a vase will work. If you’ve tried to design in a vase more than five times with­out suc­cess, it’s time to put the vase aside or take it to your next flo­ral design class and ask the instruc­tor on how best to design in it!

Real Wedding by Flower Duet

This wed­ding took place in Long Beach, Cal­i­for­nia. All flow­ers by Flower Duet. All pho­tos by Jes­si­ca Cas­tro Wed­dings.

The theme was Cit­rus. All types of cit­rus col­ors and fruit were inte­grat­ed into the flower designs. We used mums, dianthus, ros­es, ranun­cu­lus along with lots of citrus!

Flower Duet is Florist for WIPA Gala Dinner

A Gem of a Night — Third Annual Gala Dinner at Hotel Irivine, November 30, 2016

Casey (left) and Kit (right) of Flower Duet pose in front of their gild­ed flower wall they cre­at­ed for WIPA SoCal’s Gem of a Night Gala Din­ner at the Hotel Irvine on Novem­ber 30, 2016. Pho­to­Booth: SocialLightPhoto.com.

We were asked to cre­ate the flo­ral designs for the 3rd Annu­al WIPA SoCal (Wed­ding Inter­na­tion­al Pro­fes­sion­als Asso­ci­a­tion South­ern Cal­i­for­nia Chap­ter) Gala Din­ner and were delight­ed to add to the gem-filled theme of blue agate geo­des and gold.

Tak­ing a cue from the invi­ta­tion, we gild­ed two types of Rus­cus green­ery and mixed the gold with non-gild­ed green­ery along with a vari­ety of white flow­ers from Ros­es to Amaryl­lis. We’ve spon­sored three WIPA SoCal events in 2016, but this was the first event we were able to attend togeth­er as a team and it was so nice to see the reac­tion of peo­ple to our flo­ral designs.

Love­ly work by all the spon­sors, espe­cial­ly Hotel Irvine and de LUXE Events!

We’ll have more pho­tos when they are pub­lished by WIPA, but here a few sneak peeks from the evening as we were set­ting up for the gala.

Kit and Casey col­lab­o­rat­ed on this design using over 30 long-stem Denbdro­bi­um orchids and two types of Rus­cus gild­ed and non-gild­ed. Pho­to by Kit Wertz

Ros­es, Wax Flower, Hyper­icum Berries and Amaryl­lis were the stars along with White Den­odro­bi­ums and gild­ed Rus­cus in this design by Flower Duet for WIPA SoCal’s 2016 Gala. Pho­to by Kit Wertz.

We cre­at­ed many dif­fer­ent sizes of arrange­ments for the evening. Ros­es, Wax Flower, Hyper­icum Berries and Amaryl­lis were the stars along with White Den­dro­bi­ums and gild­ed Rus­cus in this design by Flower Duet for WIPA SoCal’s 2016 Gala. Pho­to by Kit Wertz.

A Donut Wall by Lav­ish Can­dy had a flower wall back­ground cre­at­ed by Kit of Flower Duet.

Spon­sors:

Hotel Irvine | @hotelirvine
de Luxe Event | @deluxeeventweddings
Sweet­est Love Events |@sharonagonzalez
3J Events | @3jevents
AmariPro­duc­tions | @amariproductions
Amper­sandInk Designs | @ampersandink
Beverly’s Bak­ery |@beverlysbakery
Chloe Wine Col­lec­tion | @chloewine
Christo­pher Todd Stu­dios | @christophertoddstudios
Design Vis­age | @designvisage
Flower Duet | @flowerduetla
Krieger | @kriegerstyle
LA Fol­lies | @lafollies
Lav­ish Can­dy | @lavishcandylife
NFP Pro­duc­tions | @nfpevents
Rrivre Works | @rrivre_works
Social­Light | @sociallightsocal
The Soci­ety Band |@thesocietyband
TMMPRO | @jack_tmmpro
Urban Espres­so |@urbanespresso
Wild­flower Linens |@wildflowerlinen
Sweet Traders | @sweettraders
Bak­er Par­ty Rentals | @bakerparty

Books Recommendations — Comfort Flower Books

Forager’s Cocktails by Amy Zavatto

From farm­ers’ mar­kets to speakeasies, delec­table drinks made from for­aged and grown ingre­di­ents are the lat­est trend to hit mixol­o­gy. Full of mouth-water­ing col­or pho­tos, this handy guide to imbib­ing the great out­doors offers 40 inspir­ing recipes, divid­ed into sea­sons, as well as tips on how best to for­age and pre­serve the fresh­est and tasti­est berries, herbs, flow­ers and more.

Garden Made: A Year of Seasonal Projects to Beautify Your Garden and Your Life — by Stephanie Rose

40 down-to-earth ideas for inspired gar­den crafts, includ­ing con­tain­ers, hand­made gifts, out­door light­ing, hol­i­day dec­o­ra­tions, and more.

Blend­ing the plea­sures of gar­den­ing with the joys of craft­ing, Gar­den Made show­cas­es over forty projects to adorn your gar­den, beau­ti­fy your home, or give as gifts. Fol­low­ing the nat­ur­al cycle of the gar­den in all its seasons—yes, even winter!—these gar­den-inspired projects, made by hand and fin­ished with finesse, are the per­fect way to express your love of the gar­den in fresh ways. With full step-by-step instruc­tions, as well as gar­den­ing tips and advice, Gar­den Made will inspire sea­soned and novice gar­den­ers, and every­one in between.

Herbarium: One Hundred Herbs Grow — Cook — Heal — by Caz Hildebrand

From the for­ward: “This is a book of herbs. There are sweet herbs — basil, angel­i­ca, pan­dan — and tart herbs — sor­rel, berg­amot, sas­safras. There are minty herbs and oniony herbs and bit­ter herbs. There are tall herbs that whis­per, and small herbs that shout. There are herbs to eat and herbs very much not to eat; some of them heal, but there are a few that could kill. Not all herbs are green, although there are a lot of green herbs.”

The Aromatherapy Garden: Growing Fragrant Plants for Happiness and Well-Being by Kathi Keville

The Aro­mather­a­py Gar­den explains how fra­grant plants can be as ther­a­peu­tic as they are intox­i­cat­ing, and how easy it is to add this cap­ti­vat­ing ele­ment to gar­dens large and small. It reveals the scents, secrets, and sci­ence behind fra­grant plants, and how to opti­mize the full ben­e­fits of fra­grance. Hone your pow­ers of con­cen­tra­tion with lemon ver­be­na. Beat the blues with win­ter­sweet. And use rose gera­ni­um to relieve anx­i­ety and stress. Revealed here are the scents, secrets, and sci­ence behind plant aro­mather­a­py, and how to opti­mize its full ben­e­fits. Detailed plant pro­files will help you cre­ate a beau­ti­ful source of restora­tive aro­mas, oils, sachets, teas, and more. The nose knows—and with Keville’s exper­tise, now you too can cre­ate your own sanc­tu­ary of health and happiness

Flower Tool Recommendation — Garland Making Tools

Gar­lands are all the rage for the hol­i­days and we thought it might be nice to let you know the right tools you’ll need to cre­ate  your own. We use a lot of gar­lands in our wed­ding and event work. Some­times we cre­ate them our­selves and oth­er times, we out­source the gar­lands if we need A LOT of them!

They are all built the same way…with one con­tin­u­ous rope (hemp rope) and one con­in­u­ous wire (pad­dle wire). Basi­cal­ly, you gath­er stems of green­ery and wrap them togeth­er onto the hemp rope and then over­lap the next gath­ered group of green­ery with more pad­dle wire until you reach the end.

Here is a wed­ding by Flower Duet. The gar­lands on the table were accent­ed with fresh flo­rals includ­ing ros­es. Tools for mak­ing gar­lands are simple…rope, pad­dle wire and shears. Pho­to by Kit Wertz.

Hemp Rope - Can be pur­chased online or at hard­ware stores.

Hemp Rope

Pad­dle Wire — Can be pur­chased online or at craft stores like Michaels.

Pad­dle Wire

Prun­ing Shears - Bunch Cut­ters or prun­ing shears work best for cut­ting large stems like Dou­glas Fir.

Prun­ing Shears by Fiskars

Here is a great step-by-step gar­land mak­ing tuto­r­i­al from Bob Vila of This Old House fame.