This week started with a bag of rice and a whole lot of glue. We are working on a logo for one of our clients, they are sponsoring a tent at the VA. Gold Cup Races this week.  This is one of the oldest and most prestigious steeplechase races in the country. We will be creating an Arabian Nights themed space for the company to host their guests at the races.  The company colors are orange and white. Smart me, I decided we would make the logo out of oranges and rice. This seemed like such a clever idea and one that tied perfectly to the theme.

Until the rice peeled off the board.

 

This unfortunately caused us to scrape all of the rice off the board and start over.

We scraped and we scraped, and then we started over.  After multiple attempts we got the rice to stick. We sealed the rice on to the board with heavy acrylic. Faux oranges and orange carnations will fill in the orange spaces of the logo. The logo will then be mounted on the top of the tent by my wonderful husband Evan.  We will also be draping the front of the tent with our new pipe and drape.

This is a really fun and exciting project for our team.

In addition to the arts and crafts projects, we have been receiving a ton of flowers.

Every single spot in our shop is covered with flowers, and the cooler is full.  Check the gallery below and see some of the lovely things we have  ” in the cooler” and see some of the designs we created yesterday.

Tomorrows forecast is calling for rain, a 100 percent chance of rain. Luckily my brides have no reason to fear because inside my cooler the sun is shinning. We are delivering some of the happiest Spring bouquets tomorrow. Both of my brides are in excellent hands and they have wonderful backup plans so I know they will have beautiful weddings. Unlike my brides there is no back up plan for me, I will be at the Leesburg Flower and Garden Show. The show is outside, rain or shine. I have jokingly said all day that I have a date tomorrow with Noah. Oh well, lets just focus on the pretty things "in the cooler."

This amazing bridal bouquet is a super happy thought. I am in love with these yellow cabbage roses, silver brunia, daffodils, ranunculus, yellow tulips, and billy balls.

This pink fluffy dream is my other happy thought for today. Life is good when you are standing over bouquets like these. Pink and white peonies, mixed with pink and white ranunculus. Tomorrow we will bind the bouquets up and deliver them.

I told you the sun was shinning in the cooler.

We have almost 1,500 roses waiting to go to the show. We are hoping we have lots of visitors on Sunday, for now they are going to sleep in the cooler.

We also cut flowering branches from my house and grandmas in preperation of the show. I am sorry to report that I will not have any lilac this year and that will totallly cause a riot once the crowds realize I am lilacless.

 I know my brides are worried about the weather tomorrow but I know the sun will be shinning on them as they take their vows.

I guess I better finish loading up. I need to be at my booth at 6:00am.

HC

We are certainly starting the season off right with some really fun and unique concepts. I always find us doing things that normal florists would never find time to do. Today we designed with Aunt Mary's hat pins, her vintage brooches, and her old lace tableclothes. We also designed in an old overnight bag, and in our amazing decoupaged vases. Yep, our cooler is rocking tonight.

Above is the maid of honors bouquet for one of our weddings. Only the bride and maid of honor get one of aunt Mary's hat pins, and let me tell you aunt Mary must have been one stylish lady, because I have never seen hat pins like this. The pin itself was almost a foot long she must have been wearing one serious hat.

Here is the bridal bouquet, and I know my bride is taking a peek right this minute. BTW it's so much better in person, you are going to love your bouquet. Can you see the little peice of rosemary poking out of the bouquet? Rosemary is used in remembrance, it is one of my favorite little things to do.

We also used a combination of mine and aunt mary's crystal bowls.

Pretty, pretty, corsages…

and our place card display was made with vintage brooches. Yes we are more than happy with the look of this wedding.

We even used cherry blossoms to create the altar arrangements.

Our orange weddings is a bright and happy wedding and we will be taking this to DC.

This bouquet was created with orange ranunculus, cream de la cream roses, combo roses, orange spray roses, green hypericum berry, green viburnum, white cabbage roses, white ranunculus, and mini green hydangea. Amazing!!!

We love our decoupaged vases.

Daffodils from my garden.

We had a great and successful day and we even slipped in two new clients. We did awesome this week!!

HC

 

Here we go again!!! This weekend is the start of our wedding season. We have weddings booked from here on out, and we are mighty happy about that. We were able to ease back into the pace; nice and slowly this weekend, with one lovely wedding. Our bridal bouquet was created with deep purple callas, deep purple carnations, and freeze dried purple roses. Little faux diamonds were inserted into the roses. 

Maids will carry bouquets of white carnations. Silver wire was woven through the bouquets for an extra fun twist. The maid of honor and the mothers will carry mixed bouquets.

Huge balls of purple carnations will be elevated on my silver stands.

l The low centerpieces feature groupings of 3 julep cups designed with balls of dark purple carnations. Everything is done and waiting "in the cooler."

So here we go again, another season is starting, and I feel confident that it will be as good as all of the years in the past. 

On a personal note, congratulations to my amazing daughter, Hannah, who just got her acceptance letter to JMU, go Dukes! This year I will be working for 2 tuitions to JMU. I hope the Flower Gods continue to shine down on this flower shop/ home.

Holly

 

Today was quite the day, we are quickly moving back into full throttle Holly mode. The day started with baby Grace at 6:00 a.m., once I had her settled I packed lunches and I prepared for my first client of the day who was coming at 8:30 a.m. I had a floral design student arrive at 10:00am and then we went into designing. My first piece of the day was Lynda's bridal bouquet. I knew Lynda when she was 7 years old. I used to date her brother and I spent a lot of time in their home when I was young. Her family was absolutely the reason why I wanted a big family. In fact Lynda was the 7th child of the family and I have 7 kids as well. Her family seriously had a big impression on me. I adored this young lady and I recently reconnected with her in SFO. She literally saw that I was in CA. through Facebook and we agreed to meet. It had been at least 27 years since I had seen her but we had a blast meeting as adults. I promised her that when she married I would do her bridal bouquet. Being true to my word I FedExed my first bridal bouquet to CA. Yep California, lets all hope, wish, and pray that the bouquet makes it safely to the little girl I knew and loved.

I created Lynda's bouquet of wine toned callas, black magic roses, and black beauty roses. The bouquet was placed in a paper mache bucket.

We stuffed cotton into the center of the callas to protect the lily, we wrapped the bouquet in cotton t-shirts and stuffed the bouquet into a box. We actually stuck the bucket to the bottom of the box with putty, hoping it would make it more secure. We wrapped cotton and paper all around the bouquet to keep it tight and snug.

We also placed a grooms boutonniere in the box.

Making this bouquet was such a pleasure and I am hoping this story has a happy ending. I am sure I will twitter the results tomorrow. I am so excited for Lynda and I am so glad I got to be a part of her wedding.

These lovely designs of yellow and gray were created for our friend Jamie of Simply Chic Events.  

Next we started designing for tomorrows wedding. During this time my student just watched the comings and goings of a day at Holly Chapple.

These designs will be placed in silver compote bowls

I designed a bouquet of gray feathers, white roses, sahara roses, blue hydrangea, silver brunia, and dusty miller for tomorrows bride.

Huge balls of blue hydrangea were created for my silver stands.

Here are the pieces hanging "in the cooler".

We also had a visit from my man Don.

Don is doing an exhibit tomorrow and we created a centerpiece for his table using foliage's and branches from his property. Seeing Don was such a happy thought. We LOVE Don and I am ready to see him at my door every week. He is my favorite neighbor! Yep I will say it again we LOVE Don!!!!

We also had a visit today from photographer Genevieve Leiper and my past bride Kristin ( a story about her is coming soon.) The house was hopping all day long. Throughout the day I was able to answer questions and share knowledge with my student. We did a final consult at 5:00pm and sometime after 6:00pm my student left. When I had a few minutes to reflect on the day I was blown away by all that had happened.

My last big project of the day was ordering flowers for my sisters wedding. Next week I will be designing in TX. Being the nontraditional bride my sister just sent me pictures of the dresses and the colors of the wedding today ( I could kill her). Yep this one will be the challenge of a lifetime. She keeps saying "its no big deal, you can do this, it's only 25 tables." I can already hear the fighting and the screaming. Where are my scissors? Vases you needed vases?

Happy night!!!

We are happy, happy, happy, to be rich in anemone, blue muscari, hydrangea, hellebores, scabiosa, tulips, and roses. To give some typical spring flowers a little bit of winter shimmer we hit our blooms with tack 2000 and glitter. Yes glitter. We had major fun in the flower shop this week preparing for Saturdays wedding. We will be styling and designing lots of different areas, so we will keep you posted but for now here's whats "in the cooler."

These blue muscari were sprayed with tack 2000 and then we rolled them in glitter. The blooms then jumped into my bridal bouquet.

My brides bouquet is so PRETTY!!!

For the maids we added glitter and sparkle to the silver brunia and the dusty miller.

Our bouts and corsages will shimmer as well.

We even crystalized some hellebores, we were full out mad women today glitterizing everything…

Our centerpieces also are wearing lots of… GLITTER!!!

My sweet baby Grace, has also found a new love for all things that GLITTER since her 2nd birthday last Sunday.

It looks like we are going to have a bright and sparkly weekend. I hope you do to!!

It seems like every time it snows we have a wedding. In spite of a foot of snow we are ready to deliver. My lovely flowers are resting "in the cooler."  The bride will carry a bridal bouquet of white cabbage roses, pine cones, pods, cedar, magnolia, dusty miller, and white ranunculus. The bouquet is absolutely delicious and it is the perfect winter bouquet.

Half of the centerpieces were designed in my birch vases. The vases were carved by my husband Evan. The other half of the centerpieces are huge mounds of evergreen, roses, pine cones and fillers.  The pictures I took are so horrible I was unable to post them.

Maids will carry bouquets of gold combo roses, dusty miller, seeded euc, pine cones, and cedar. The bouquets were bound with gold satin ribbon.

The grooms bout was created with angel vine, spray roses, cedar, pine cones, and dusty miller.

We also have some sweet pink designs "in the cooler,"  it's my baby Grace's 2nd birthday. Time is flying.

We truly have created some of our most inspired designs for this weekends corp. events and our one and only bride.  We even made snowflakes, pretty impressive I know. The snowflakes were made by rolling clear tape in a tube and then dunking them in snow powder. The little rolls of tape were inserted onto the branches of our manzanita trees. There are times it actually boggles my mind that I can be so insistent on a design that I will sit and roll up tape and create snowflakes. Obsessive…

These pieces truly make my heart sing, from the wooden boxes made from old barn wood, to the natural wheat. I am thrilled with these designs and I can't wait to pair them with the mercury glass designs and our vases covered with burlap. The only thing that will be more awesome is the incredible linen they will be placed on. We are using a black toile table cloth, and I can t wait to see this come together.

We have a really wonderful wedding, and contemporary corp. party, also chilling in the cooler but we have had trouble with the blog tonight.  Each event is truly stunning and I will bring you images as quickly as I can.!!!

Congratulations to our son Alex who finished his masters dissertation today. You are an amazing man!!! Next comes marriage!!!

The energy in my house is perfect right now, all of my kids are home and this is absolutely when I am the happiest.

Our day started with  trip to Eli's preschool for a little pre Thanksgiving celebration.  Big sister Abby got home just in time to visit with us at the school.

Casey, and Kelly, got to check out working in the new office. Our makeover is going to be a huge help. We went through countless emails, ordered flowers, wrote invoices, and worked on the new website which is very close to launching.

Our cooler is holding flowers for two weddings and we look forward to delivering both of these events.

Now that Alex is home our house is full, and I am totally content.

Good night and enjoy the family around you!!

We have a purple and red toned wedding tomorrow. Purple and red is regal, dramatic, and super lush. Purple and red is also the color of royalty.  I am so excited because our wedding is at the Goodstone Inn. I have always truly dreamed of doing a wedding at this venue, so I am seriously ready to preform.  The Goodstone is one of the finest inns, and it is seriously famous. I can't wait to get these awesome flowers to our wedding.

We added touches of gold to our designs this weekend to increase the drama.

These pieces are for our huge king sized table. We have several large elevated designs for this table and multiple little designs and lots of candlelight.

This is the start of my bridal bouquet. Since sleeping on the bridal bouquet went so well last weekend, I decided to finish this in the morning. I wonder what I will think of in the middle of the night. 

These designs are going in the windows of an old ruin on the property. The ruin or stone wall is covered in green ivy and it is the backdrop for the ceremony.

We will be creating two large columns of flowers. I look forward to seeing all of these flowers in a huge garland style design.

Time to get to sleep, I have a big day ahead of me.