2012 Holiday Gift Ideas for the Flower Lover

by Casey & Kit

Gifts for You and Your Loved Ones for the Holidays

Pic­tured at left is our flo­ral design class in our deluxe design stu­dio which we offered for wed­ding bou­quets. Join us in a class, pri­vate les­son, tour or work­shop as a gift to your­self or give a gift cer­tifcate to one of our class­es to a friend or relative!

‘Tis the sea­son for shar­ing, giv­ing, mak­ing and gift­ing. Flower Duet would love to give you a few ideas on all things flow­ers just in time for this joy­ful season.

Duet yourself and Duet for yourself.

Join Flower Duet on Decem­ber 8th and make your own Hol­i­day Cen­ter­piece or Wreath. Give your­self the gift of a new skill, con­fi­dence, and knowl­edge. Wrap your­self up with the know-how of iden­ti­fy­ing fresh flow­ers in order to eas­i­ly nav­i­gate the largest Flower Mart in the USA, the Los Ange­les Flo­ral Dis­trict. We’ll show you how.

Flower Duet’s Shopping Cart Gift Items

We have our own store online where you can sign up for class­es, pur­chase gift cer­tifi­cates, order DVDs, flo­ral shears or our suc­cu­lent wall art containers.

• Work­shops Sign up here and spend some time with Casey and Kit. Flower Duet Workshops
• How-To DVD Or Pur­chase a DVD to learn a new skill if you don’t live here in the Los Ange­les Area. Flower Duet Hand-Tied Bou­quet DVD
• Suc­cu­lent Art Make your own suc­cu­lent wall art with our hand-made in the USA Pop Box­es (made by our Pop in his Vir­ginia work­shop). Suc­cu­lent Wall Art Boxes
• Flo­ral Shears Sup­ply your­self or a friend with our favorite flo­ral shears. Best Flo­ral Shears

Gifts for the Flower Lover

We are drawn to flow­ers. Whether it be walk­ing down the lane and eye­ing that Bird of Par­adise show­ing off his col­ors, or that last breath of the Antique Hydrangea hang­ing onto the bush. We have found some fun gift ideas for you or for friends who share your love of flow­ers. See your flow­ers bright and ear­ly with cof­fee, all day long wrapped around your phone, dur­ing cock­tails as you pro­tect your cof­fee table and at your feet, dur­ing that long day of flo­ral design.

Pic­tured at left is a flo­ral orna­ment from Amazon.com.

Floral Skins for your Smart Phone

Skin it – Cov­er your device with some­thing more excit­ing than blue or black. There are so many to choose from you could change it every week like a flo­ral arrange­ment. Pick your device and skin it.

Skinit Flo­ral Skins for Smart Phones

Floral Hanukkah Gifts

Gift bas­kets are great ideas for Hanukkah, but we also thought this non-tra­di­tion­al meno­rah was a nice gift idea for the flower lover.

Floral Tile Coasters

A par­ty of six is more fun than four and no two are alike, just like your guests. Avail­able at Urban Out­fit­ters. A great spot for that fun gift, for that quirky friend. Or a quirky gift for a fun friend.
Flo­ral Tile Coast­ers from Urban Outfitters.

Floral Rugs

When we tell our stu­dents and clients that Tulips are avail­able year round, we are not kid­ding. Add some bright Flo­ral rugs to your home this win­ter and make it bright and cheer­ful all year long.

Rugs from GrandinRoad.com

Muggy Flowers

Pic­tured above are to-go tum­blers avail­able at Amazon.com.

GO Grand­ma, GO Retro and Go MOD. Every­thing is avail­able for all tastes. We each have some mugs that have Daisies on them. They are very retro, as we have had them since the mid 70’s. We also have some love­ly flo­ral cups from our grand­moth­ers. Sip­ping tea or cof­fee in a fun mug makes it all taste better!

Pic­tured above at left, Pan­sy Mug from Amazon.com and at right,Vin­tage Flo­ral Mugs from Etsy.com: Rust Belt Threads Shop.

Zap­pos Flo­ral Mugs

Wear Flowers on Your Feet

To your toes. Our Dad always told us to have the right tools and for any flo­ral design­er who spends a lot of time stand­ing, the right tools start with good shoes. After design­ing on your feet all day, it’s time to go and deliv­er your cre­ations and still be on your feet. Chefs and nurs­es all say that Dan­sko Clogs are the way to go. Who can resist these flo­ral prints too! Hap­py Feet!

Dan­sko Flo­ral Clogs

See More of Flower Duet’s 2012 Holiday Gift Guide on Pinterest.com

Flower Duet’s Pin­ter­est Gift Guide Board

Let It Snow: How to Flock Branches, Trees and Flowers

by Kit & Casey

Pic­tured above is a flocked branch of noble fir. We sprayed it three times to build up the look of snow. Always spray out­side in a well-ven­ti­lat­ed area.

Current Flocking Trends — White, Blue and Pink Snow? Oh My!

While the cur­rent trend is to see flocked trees in more col­ors than just plain old white pure snow, we are not going to judge here. It may go very well with your Breast Can­cer Aware­ness Hol­i­day Char­i­ty Auc­tion to use a pink-flocked tree adorned with pink rib­bons and oth­er love­ly gifts. Or, cel­e­brate the birth of a new baby boy who is due around Christ­mas with a baby-blue flocked tree. There are real­ly so many possibilties.

What we like to do is a more sub­tle treat­ment of flock­ing a few ever­green branch­es for an all-white flo­ral design or to flock some decid­u­ous tree branch­es to cre­ate a dra­mat­ic tall look for a hol­i­day par­ty. Add a few hang­ing orna­ments and you’ve got a classy design with impact in a dark ball­room (see pho­to below from batteroperatedcandles.net).

Pho­to above from Batteryoperatedcandles.net — Snow Trees

History of Flocking

The Christ­mas Tree lots are pop­ping up around town and as we flock to get our ever­green trees, why not con­sid­er adding a lit­tle flock. Flock­ing is sim­ply adding and adher­ing, usu­al­ly a nat­ur­al tex­ture, to an area to give it a new look. Some treat­ments give a velour tex­ture feel­ing like the inside of a jew­el­ry box or a t‑shirt (check out the flocked lamp­shade at left). Appar­ent­ly they can date flock­ing back to ancient times where the Chi­nese used a resin glue to add fibers to fab­rics and the Ger­mans added fiber dust to wall cov­er­ings dur­ing the Mid­dle ages. Louis the XIV of France, said “c’est bon” to his flocked wall coverings.

Where to Purchase Flocking Suppplies

We were down at the flower mart pick­ing up a flower order for a win­ter won­der­land wed­ding for Decem­ber 1st and there it was. Snow-in-a-Can, instant flock­ing at your fin­ger­tips. We are sure the ancient flock­ers would find this very handy. As we are based in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, we are unlike­ly to see snow this hol­i­day sea­son so we gath­ered some fall­en pine limbs and gave them a good flock­ing. It was fun and it total­ly changed the look.

Snow Flocking Tips

• Shake the can before use.
• Keep at room tem­per­a­ture, but don’t spray indoors!
• Spray in front of an card­board box to pro­tect against get­ting snow in places not meant for snow. Although, if you do have some over spray, you can wipe it up with a damp cloth or just vac­u­um it up.
• Lay­er it up from the top to cre­ate the illu­sion of a large snowfall.
• Allow it to com­plete­ly dry before using in a flo­ral arrangement.

It is start­ing to feel a lot like Christ­mas.… If you are feel­ing like flock­ing, head to your local craft store or Ama­zon and get some Snow-in-a-Can and may the flock be with you.

Video: How to Create Holiday Pomanders

Pic­tured at left is a poman­der cre­at­ed with red car­na­tions. It’s a per­fect accent for any hol­i­day table. Watch the video below to see how to make these love­ly flo­ral fea­tures. For a fes­tive Hanukkah flo­ral design, use white car­na­tions and add small blue glass ball orna­ments through­out the design.

Casey Schwartz of Flower Duet has appeared on Pub­lic Tele­vi­sion’s Cre­ative Liv­ing with Sheryl Bor­den the past two sea­sons and returned to Por­tales, New Mex­i­co to film anoth­er set of five shows for the 2012–2013 season.

This month, we fea­ture a video on how to make a poman­der — per­fect for accent­ing your hol­i­day dec­o­rat­ing ideas for your home or Christ­mas party.

Sub­scribe to our YouTube chan­nel: fash­ion­ingflow­ers so you’ll know when we’ve uploaded a new show of our own!

Flower Arranging Book: The Flower Shop Christmas

The Flower Shop Christ­mas: Christ­mas in a Coun­try Flower Shop by Sal­ly Page

There are some won­der­ful how-tos in this book for how to use rib­bon on a glass cube so that the flo­ral design looks like it’s wrapped for Christ­mas and many more beau­ti­ful flo­ral designs for Christ­mas. Hap­py Holidays!

Here is a snip­pet from Amazon.com: “The Flower Shop Christ­mas is a nat­ur­al fol­low-on to The Flower Shop, Sal­ly Page’s first book. It takes the form of the 12 days of Christ­mas and reflects on life in the flower shop dur­ing this mag­i­cal time of year — a time for fam­i­ly and friend­ship, full of love and shar­ing. Not only does it cap­ture and cel­e­brate the true spir­it and mean­ing of Christ­mas through human sto­ries, it also is full of fresh ideas and focus­es on the essen­tial role that flow­ers play in this enchant­i­ng sea­son. Step inside and enjoy the unique expe­ri­ence of Christ­mas in The Flower Shop.”

Floral Design Tool: Wreath Making Supplies

Want to make your own Hol­i­day wreath this sea­son? Great! Now, where do you find sup­plies? Here are the three essen­tial items you’ll need to cre­ate your own wreath. First, you’ll need a wire wreath form. Use a 12-inch size or larg­er for best results. This gives you a nice hole in the mid­dle. It’s best to get the one pic­tured here. Work with it so the con­vex part is point­ing at you in order to help cre­ate around and full look to your wreath. Use branch­es of pine cut off from the bot­tom of your Christ­mas tree, or go out and trim a few trees. Don’t stop at just pine boughs. It’s great to use oth­er tree branch­es like euca­lyp­tus or even flow­ers like Pro­tea in your wreaths.

When you bun­dle each lit­tle group­ing of green­ery you’ll then use this pad­dle wire to bind it to the wreath form. To learn more about how to do this the eas­i­est and fastest way, come to our hol­i­day wreath work­shop on Decem­ber 8th at our studio.

To add all those fun orna­ments, pine cones and oth­er accou­trements, use flo­ral picks like the ones shown here and then just insert into the wreath where you like. Here are a few ideas for your wreath mak­ing this season!

Mixed Green Wreath from Roger’s Gardens

Nor­folk Pine Wreath — from the LA Flower Mart

Pro­tea Wreath from Roger’s Gardens

Seed­ed Euca­lyp­tus Wreath