Back to School

It's my biggest arrangement yet!  Had a fabulous time on Saturday in flower school with Remco van Vliet and Cas Trap, the floral designers from Van Vliet & Trap.  I wanted to bring the team some treats, so I made some lemon poppy mini muffins.

And wrapped them in a fat quarter of fabric called Boys will be Boys by David Walker.

The staff brought in loads of branches for everyone in the class to use.

Beautiful azalea, crab apple, lilac, scotch broom and snowballs

and they kindly helped us cut the fat branches: they made it look so easy!

It reminded me that so many jobs can be surprisingly physical.

Remco shared tips from his many years of creating designs for events, weddings and for every Monday in the Great Hall of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

where he stands on a painter's ladder to make the huge arrangements there.

So of course his demonstration arrangment was gorgeous.

I was struggling a bit and he showed me how to hold the clippers (I got the purple ones! although though I was holding them upside down).

And the class buzzed happily creating their own arrangements.

Here's mine!

Remco says that each arrangement showed its creator's personality.

Somehow I got it home.

And the lilacs smell really wonderful here.

Today I pared the piece down a little to weed out some branches that didn't make it

and put some lilacs in the bedroom

and made room in the kitchen for baking a few cookies.