Even a job as lovely as being a florist has its tough parts....

Flowers...such happy, cheerful, spirit lifting beauty. One of the very few things in this world that the majority of people will look at and feel even that little bit happier.

Every now and then a florist comes across a job which truly touches the heart. 9/10 it's funeral work. We recently had the honour of creating some sympathy designs for a friend of ours. A lot of florists find comfort from creating those farewell designs, and although we definitely felt it our duty, more so than usual, to create the perfect floral tribute, it certainly was a tough one to get through.

Funerals are a hard time on anyone, but especially to the family that has lost a loved one. Arranging the funeral is a very difficult thing to do and is very personal to each individual be it hymn choice, church choice, prayer choices etc... that also includes flower choice.

It's not until you have to say good bye to a loved one, or until you have to make one of the final gifts for the family, that you realise just how comforting flowers at a funeral can be. Whether it was her favourite colour of rose or his favourite flower to grow in the garden, it has a personal meaning between you.

Here are a few tributes we've created for families to give to their loved ones.

To see more of our designs and to keep up to date with all our shop goings on go to Amanda's Creative Florist

The hand-tied bridal bouquet....Yay or Nay??

If you open up the majority of wedding magazines, whether it filled with dresses, crafty idea's or wedding flowers..... 90% in fact i'd go as far to say that 99% of the bouquets in those magazines are hand tied bouquets.

Massed roses, massed hydrangea, peonies roses, textured posies of roses and thistles, roses and ranunculus. Round round round round round. That has it's place as we mention further down, along with a picture posted of what looks like a hand tied bouquet, but is actually an all wired bouquet!

What a lot of brides to be don't always realise is that there is a whole world of bouquet styles and shapes out there and these hand-ties don't match with every style of dress.

Our pet hate....large floaty dresses with ruffles and lace..with a dumpy hand tied bouquet. What does that do for the over all look of the dress? Nadda, zilch..nothing. All the eye is drawn to the hip area.. and there is stops.

The bouquets should elegantly highlight the shape of the dress, the details in the dress, the height of the bride and the build of the bride. The bouquet should work with all those so your eye follows from your face, to the bodice, to the flowers, to the legs, to the dress hem and then back up.

So if you don't go for a hand tie you have to go for one of those big bulky trailing bouquets...right?? WRONG.

The term shower bouquet traditionally means the oval shaped bouquet, which, yes, used to be bursting with foliage and carnations ( Not that there is anything wrong with carnations, Check below for a gorgeous bouquet made mostly from carnations! ) Chrysanthemums and gyp.
Today though it's a whole different story. Wire frame, vine frames, feather frames, crystal frames....masses of flowers or very little flowers.

These bouquets will have to be heavy then and uncomfortable to hold? Wrong again. Infact, you'd be surprised at how much easier it is to hold a trailing bouquet made on the right handle to suit your grip. We attended the Weigh Inn wedding Fayre Sunday 15th January and so many brides commented on how light and easy our shower bouquets were to hold.

Below you will find a collection of shower bouquets and trailing bouquets. Some what you might expect, some a little different to you're normal design.

We're not saying the hand tied bouquet is wrong in all cases. Not at all. Knee length dresses have been very popular the last year or two and hand tied designs work amazingly well.

We just think that some of the magazines out there need to work a little bit closer with professional florists, working in the industry to give brides the right informational on not only flower styles but actual flowers ( One magazine once named a lisianthus head as a rose and so often we find they have the wrong variety of flower named).

I always suggest to brides to come to speak to me, that if they do look at the magazines, get colour idea's, find flowers you've maybe never seen before but never to read the descriptions of what is actually written about the design.

So please bare in mind, when you first start that fantastic journey of planning your wedding flowers, that there is so much more available out there. Just because you don't see it in the magazines, on an online search or in the celeb wedding pages in gossip magazines, it doesn't mean that you're perfect wedding bouquet is not available to you!

Check out our facebook page for more bouquet designs and ideas http://www.facebook.com/pages/Amandas-Creative-Florist/44514682367
xxx

Welcome to 2012....The year of the Creative mind!

Well here we are...2012! Who'd have thought it?? So first off...we hope you have had a lovely holiday season!

There were a sincere lack of blog updates last year we apologise for that! Between the shop, competitions, weddings and a whole lot more on top something had to give and unfortunately the blog suffered :(

Not this year though! We are determined to bring you regular updates on events, weddings and all things floral.

Most recently we had the chaos which is so fondly called "Christmas" lol. Well ladies nd Gents it was a record breaker for us here at Amandas. Our busiest one yet! It was our 6th Christmas too..can you believe it? Where does the time go?
Lots of lovely orders going out as well as being collected. Early mornings and late nights but it seems to have all been worth it with the feedback with everyone telling us how much they loved their flowers.

We also had a special inclusion of our charity design. Something a little different to help out our heroes at The ABF Soldiers Charity. With your most generous donations we raised £222.41 for this worthwhile cause.
Our window was also decorated as a reminder who are away fighting at Christmas, those who never made it home and for anyone missing a loved one at the Christmas period.
So a big thank you for all your donations and your lovely comments.

So whats in store for 2012? We've already secured some new contracts, our first big event is this Saturday followed by the weigh in wedding Fayre on 15th January where we will be showcasing some gorgeous bouquets and arrangements. If you're planning getting married this year, next year or any time in the near future, you'll definitely want to come a long a look.

Amanda has another few workshops lined up where she will learn even more to keep you all in the loop with modern trends and designs, as well as a weekend away helping some of the worlds top International designers to produce a floral wedding magazine as well as designs for other publications within the Fusion Flowers web of wonder!

Valentines is our next big date on the calender so stay tuned to see what gorgeous designs we come up with for your valentine!

Don't forget to follow us on facebook to keep even more up to date on our daily goings on at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Amandas-Creative-Florist/44514682367 or look for us on twitter, AmandasFlorist

So here's a fabulous 2012 for you all, and to creating the most gorgeous flowers for you all to take home and enjoy! xxx

RHS Chelsea...SILVER MEDAL!

Well Amanda made that horribly long drive all the way to London to take part in the RHS Chelsea Florist of the Year competition and came home with a silver medal!

The Chelsea flower show is one of the most prestigious flower shows in the world. Amanda was delighted to have even reached the final 16, but to come home with a silver medal just blew her away!

The finalists were asked to design and construct a Jockeys silk, to be worn on race day.

Amanda created a bodice of layered "punched out" aspidistra leaves, side panels of silver leucedenron leaves. A circular panel and a flowing collar were created from woven grasses, built up layers of flower material and foliages. Finishing touches were added with little cut out clovers from Eucalyptus leaves and also a few green diamantes for a bit of sparkle.

" I don't think it will ever really sink in. It was such a long build up to it, from qualifying in October, to receiving the brief at the end of March, then the two days travelling, two days constant work on the piece with only a couple of hours sleep in between" Amanda says " The buzz of the show was amazing, not just in the great pavillion but all over the show ground. I am delighted that I got to see the gardens as well especially Dermots Sky garden..that was fantastic"

Amanda would like to thank everyone who wished her well, sent good luck cards and also for all the support from everyone, she says it was a real boost being all the way down there knowing that everyone was behind her raring her on! The cards she has received since has been astounding..she's running out of room to put them all up!

We're going away!

We are so so sorry about the severe lack of updates to our blog lately. Between weddings, funerals, day to day work and Chelsea prep there just doesn't appear to be enough hours in the day.

We promise after chelsea we will be back on track with regular updates!

For now though, please note that the shop will be closed for a week. Starting from Monday 23rd May through to the 30th May. We will re open on Tues 31st May as normal.

This is so that Amanda can compete in the RHS Chelsea florist of the year competition and the famous Chelsea Flower Show.

Thank you so much for your understand.

If you urgently need to contact us, please use the e-mail address below and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Amanda@amandasflorist.co.uk

We had to go that extra mile....

We always go that extra mile for our customers! In January though we had to push the boat out just that little bit more than usual!

Amanda's sister got married at the end of the month so there was no pressure on creating the perfect designs for Tanya and her big day!

Tanya opted for a perfect pomander of blue hydrangea and steel berry with a little trail of Ivy. The pomander handle was an Austrian crystal necklace which belonged to their late great Granny.
The soft delicate heads of the Hydrangea were perfect against Tanya's soft ivory dress.

The bridesmaids ( Amanda included) carried floral muffs. Perfect for that winter weather which thankfully stayed away for the day. The framework was made from a fleece material, covered in layered Stachy leaves, wires wrapped in lily grass and then decorated in Blue hydrangea, blue muscari and steel berry.

The Groom and best men wore thistles with Muscari and hydrangea to match the blue with the brides bouquet and also the bridesmaids.

In the church the alter was lit with pedestals on either side and sphere arrangements on the alter with ivy trails and candle lights.

At the reception giant "snowballs" of massed gypsophlia were the table centers. Based on a mirrored plate and decorated with Diamante pins.

We think its safe to say that Tanya's wedding flowers certainly a different feel to any weddings that we have created before, and even though Amanda was more than ever set to ensure that these wedding flowers were perfect for her little sister, that she really enjoyed the challenge!

Flower classes.

Here at Amanda's we enjoy running casual flower arranging classes. We take it all as a bit of fun but still learn you how to make gorgeous displays using materials you would never think of using.

At the moment we are running our second term in Bettyhill. The ladies come every Wednesday night for two hours for creative laughs and giggles!

We also run classes in Wick and we are looking to expand to area's further out.
If you would be interested in any of our classes give us a call on 01955 606743.

Check out some of the picture's below to see some of the creations the ladies have enjoyed making.