hey nicole, check out these bouts

My friend Nicole has a thing for bouts. She's in Australia right now and I miss her a lot. She's been there for a year and a half and will be there for another some odd months. She's training to be in the Australian military. No, she's not. She's cooking a lot of test food for her pretty rad biz Green Bellies. (That right there is what we call a plug). Anyway, Nicole got married a few years ago and I was living in Oregon at the time. Her wedding was in Philly. The logistics (because weddings are truly only about logistics) were too tricky for me to do all her flowers, be in her wedding and not lose my mind. So in an effort to do something for the big day, I made some bouts and corsages. I still feel guilty about this. I should have made all her flowers. If it were today, and she happened to be getting married in Australia, the logistics wouldn't scare me. The moral of this story that seems to be going nowhere is that Nicole's favorite floral part of her wedding were the bouts. And since then, she keeps tabs on the bouts I be making. I try to make them pretty enough for her high standards. 

PS - I didn't really like those bridesmaid bouquets, cole. I lied and said I did. But I didn't.

monday catch up

I keep meaning to talk about the chicken coup in the neighborhood. I'll have to save that for next time because it is so strange and interesting, I dare not write about that tale with tired eyes. On a completely unrelated note to chickens, I've been wanting to show you these ridiculous coral charm peonies from a few weeks ago. I had a bunch of them leftover after a peony mishap that goes into the whoops file. I gave handfuls and handfuls to my studio neighbors and grabbed some remnants to make one big puffy cloud of pink magic. These flowers are insane.

Some of the last hellebore and ranunculus of the season. I'll miss you. Until next year...

clients

I hope to have at least one more client as incredible as the woman I had the pleasure of working with this past weekend. Spoken with Southern charm, "I don't like to limit people's creativity" was her opening line and, with that, I was given creative freedom with the guideline to convey some "wow." Wow is what I gave her and wow is what I felt. No pestering calls. Only calls to see how I was doing. No rushed meetings. Instead, leisurely afternoon meetings accompanied by a couple glasses of champagne. I work hard to make sure my clients are happy, but this time my client brought me quite a lot of joy. Until next time, Miss Linda...

p.s. big up to my friends at saipua for sending me the referral.


p.p.s can we talk about that mock orange and that tiny clematis with that dusty mauve/chocolate foliage? I mean. Come on. Some flowers just mess me up with their beauty. 

"back to reality"

I truly detest the saying "back to reality." It makes my skin crawl, boil, and flake off all at once. When people say it, I have an intense urge is to smack them, but instead, I usually shrug and say, "yeah, something like that."

Back up. Why? It represents the opposite of how i'm trying to live my life. That may sound a tad extreme, but it's mostly true. When I leave the day to day in this city to visit friends afar or paddle out in CR or take a day to drive around, I don't like to think of it as pure escapism. It's fuel and information and it's invigorating and inspiring.

I'm well aware that I'm one of the lucky ones that gets to have a career doing something I truly enjoy. So, I suppose there's less of a need to run away from it all. But like all work, it gets stressful and tiring and you need to shut that part of your brain down at times.

I guess I want it all to be my reality. I get really connected when I'm away (perhaps overly so :) ). Connected to the environments and the people and those unfamiliar routines that quickly become second nature. I don't like to think that all that gets locked away the second i'm "back." I'm never really "gone" so how do I get "back?" It's all one long thread with a million awesome avenues. Thank goodness for planes, man.

P.S. here are some photos of flowers.

news bit dos: new site

The new Peartree website is finally up and relief is what comes to mind. It really means a lot to finally have a site that has the feel I'm trying to get across. I have Alex Hall to thank for his html (gibberish) assistance and Julie from Studio Olivine for her help with the branding. Fonts, man. Game changer. I would write more but the 8th dose of caffeine has long worn off. I have to get some rest before setting up an event at 5:45am tomorrow. Sometimes this job is hilarious. Anyway - after that I get to whisk my mother away for a nice mother/daughter getaway. Leaving from the event set up to hitch a ride to the airport. I'm so New York. ;)

Try to come back to the site every once in a while as I'll be updating the photos in the flower gallery just as often as I can. Alex made that easy - like sunday morning. 

news bit uno: Dwell

I have a very wonderful, dear friend named Hannah who I've known since I was 5. She has always supported my work and helped connect the dots to link my business to people who would enjoy it. A few months ago, she dot-connected and linked me up with Dwell since they were writing an interesting article about shared workspaces across the nation and researching spaces to include. Our (previous) studio in Red Hook fit the bill and they decided to include Nikole Nelson and myself in the feature. So, voila - there we are in the May issue of Dwell which is, ahem, on news stands now. Go get that shizzle!

*USB cord purchased. I can scan again! (see previous post) That was not an easy cord to locate. Even Apple didn't have it. Whaaaaa? They sold me the silly printer/scanner/blender.

rose cava

I treated myself to not one but TWO glasses of rose cava this eve. (forgive typos) I like the light blush color and am quite fond of le bubble. I have a few exciting tidbits to share, but I have to buy a stupid USB cable and improve my grammar to do so. I will elaborate on that in a follow up post.

Tonight I say goodbye to my 20's and hello to my 30's and I'm finally truly elated about it. My 20's were fun. "Looking back on it," I did it (mostly) right, but it's time to turn 30 and embrace it, roll with it, and look forward. 

I'm pumped about what this year and decade will bring. Things are about to take a turn for the awesome. Here's to all of our 30's! Drink up!