Blooming branches are so amazing this time of year. They add life to any room and they last forever (these were shot 3 weeks after I bought them… and lasted 6 weeks total).

Common blooming branches this time of year are quine, cherry, apricot and plum (these are quince). To ensure a long life, use a hammer to smash the ends of the branches to allow for proper water uptake. Place in a tall vase with water and change the water weekly. For a wedding, blooming branches work well for tall ceremony arrangements, welcome table or seating card arrangements, and on a dinner table as they add great height to a tabletop design. In your home, any buffet or console table will make them look great. And there you go, a little piece of spring inside your home.

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Who doesn’t love peonies, and these beauties from Florabundance are nothing short of amazing, especially since its almost September (peonies are generally not available after mid-July at the latest). To show off these blooms, I mixed in some delicate pink hydranga and the always unique flower, blushing bride, for texture.

Such a lovely and delicate shade of pink in the peonies and blushing bride…

For this arrangement, I’m using this mercury container (6″ x 8.5″) from Jamali Gardens. All containers like this need a liner, here I used a glass cylinder filled with water and a mesh of chicken wire (this creates a frog to hold the flowers). For this arrangement you will need:

-2 bunch of peonies

-3 bunches of blushing bride

-1 bunch pink hydranga

-mercury glass container with liner

-chicken wire

- floral shears

A special thanks to Florabundance for sponsoring and providing these blooms (and if you’re wholesale they do ship flowers to anywhere in the US.) And to see all Flower Chic posts click right here.

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I love brass (its way under-used in weddings in my opinion) so I thought it would be fun to do a collection of brass containers that I could see used on the seating card table or on a bar.

All the containers I sourced at various antique stores, the tall urn is actually from my sister’s wedding and I lugged it back to the states in my suitcase. The shorter taper candle holder is actually an old fire nozzel that I repurposed here. And the smaller urn shaped container is an old golf trophy, I love the shape of it!

To arrange taller centerpieces, I start with the tall filler foliage, mondara, to create a nice shape (asymetrical is always nice and dynamic). Since these containers are pretty tall, and after you place the taller foliage pieces, you end up making a natural frog for the flowers to go into. Place dahlias, scabiosa, cosmos, at different heights. Also, since this is meant to mostly be seen from the front and the sides, you don’t need to put flowers on the back side of the urn (aka, this is a 3-sided arrangement, front, left and right sides). For this arrangement you will need:

-A mix of containers in different heights

-2 bunches of red dahlias

-2 bunces of  brown cosmos

-2 bunches of  red scabiosa

-2 bunches of mondara

-Floral shearers, water, flower food

Happy arranging! And to see all Flower Chic posts click right here.

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I love, love muscari, and this variety in white is so feminine and delicate. Here, I styled them in my old pointe shoes…

Of course, they also look pretty good in an old golf trophy I picked up an antique store. I like the idea of a table design of different trophies filled with simple blooms, what do you think? And to see all Flower Chic posts click right here.

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I love that winter peonies are here and ranunculus are finally back too!

A hot pink ranunculus in an ink well from the 1870′s.

This arrangement is in a vintage aqua ball jar.

Happy Wednesday!

Photos & arrangements by me.

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I bought some fall inspired flowers for my office this week. And I’m loving the red ranunculus & dahlias in my old bottles (this look is going to be used for an upcoming event!).

I also bought pumpkin branch, which I’ve never worked with before. It has some serious thorns, but the pumpkins are so cute!

I love billy balls for their fun and whimsical shape (plus they last forever). Happy Wednesday, everyone!

Photos by me.

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I bought some garden roses yesterday (from a rose farm no less) to put in my office and I used some of my vintage bottles as bud vases. I’m in love with the slight green color of old glass, not to mention a lot of them have funny messages on them like “makes 5 gallons of drink.”

The books are left over decor for a recent wedding and I love them. I have a thing for books, especially old books and several stacks have made their home in my office.

The roses make my office smell amazing and there’s nothing quite like a pretty vignette to make my work day less stressful. Happy Wednesday!

Photos by me.

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