Diggin' Design: a sustainable Christmas Fair

The Diggin' Design fair at the Garden Museum bade a gentle goodbye to November, and a Christmassy welcome to December with its mince pies, wrapping paper, and woolly hats. There were so many stalls - I managed to do a quick tour before the fair got busy - with many beautiful things that you can't find on the high street.

The illustrators and designers who created cards, other stationary, and textiles were incredible. I didn't see Liz Temperley, the artist behind Blank Inside, but her friend kindly managed the stall and seemed to do a great job of selling the work! You can see her with Liz's products on the left in the photo below.

The two men at the Supermarche Studio were so friendly and enthusiastic about their work, which was so cool itself, I went back later and bought some London wildlife cards. And Sophie Richardson's pretty teapots will have made wonderful presents for some lucky people! 

There were filo mince pies being baked in the Garden Museum cafe, and carol singers entertaining us in the afternoon. They sang a song that I recognise from Love Story, when Jenny is teaching a choir of children, but I've forgotten the name of it. I had a good view of them from my stall.

I shared a stall with Annie, who works at the museum on different days from me (so we'd never met before). She chatted to me as we sat at our stalls, and she looked ever so peaceful as she knitted for most of the day. I felt like I too should have been industrious and brought work with me!

As for me, it was lovely to promote my flowers, especially as these were all British. There was a lot of surprise that all of the flowers were British, and much smelling of the rosemary, freesias and paperwhites.

I chatted to a lady with a tiny garden who would like to grow cutting flowers - I recommended two Twitter colleagues' books: Georgie Newbury's The Flower Farmer's Year and Louise Curley's The Cut Flower Patch. She bought a posy to take to a dinner she was going to and, in true sustainable style, declined a biodegradable hessian bag in favour of carrying the jar of flowers in her hand.

A little girl visited the stall with her father and shyly asked me how to make "that" (pointing at my favourite handtied). I explained the process, in simple, pidgin toddler style. I like to think she will go off and collect flowers in the spring to make a posy.

The day was made better as I had just received new business cards and stickers from Wendy Bell - the most wonderful designer (in keeping with the design theme of the fair!), who I've worked with in the past and who I can't recommend enough. She's a delight to work with, incredibly intuitive and creative, and got the essence of both my desert island flower (the forget-me-not) and me down to a tee.

At last! A Christmas flower stall.

If you cast your mind back three years, you might remember I was trying in vain to get a flower stall for Christmas with a fellow student from my floristry diploma. Fast forward three years and I finally have one! The lovely people at the Garden Museum are running an eco-friendly Christmas fair called Diggin' Design for the third year running (I should have asked them three years ago!) and I will be sharing a stall with another lady who volunteers at the museum. I'll be doing all British flower posies and bouquets.

So this morning I was at Pratley in New Covent Garden Market nice and early (on the way there I saw two ice cream vans on the road...surreal in November). There was plenty of British flowers loveliness to choose from, including a box of 200 different-coloured tulips, which was very tempting but a bit too much for my needs! In the end, I bought powder blue scabious (I couldn't believe it was still flowering), brassicas, paperwhites, and freesias. The freesias and paperwhites smell beautiful.

I also went to GB Foliage and got viburnum, berried ivy (the berried ivy growing in the garden is not that great now - the ivy is fine, but the berries are not so pretty), and mistletoe. "Is it British?" I asked. "Yes," came the reply. "We don't like the French stuff."

I also had a delivery from Tregothnan - lots of pretty Sweet Williams from B J Richards, the last of the British chrysanthemums (well, it is still November), ranunculus, rosemary, sage, and pepperleaf. I got a bag of scented pine cones too, which I've wired to add to posies and other arrangements.

Here's it all cut and conditioned and ready to be arranged.

And here are the first of the posies in upcycled jars and tins...I had to quickly take these before the sun disappeared. There are big bouquets too...but you'll have to wait till tomorrow for photos. Or better still, come to the fair and see them for yourself! The fair is from 10.30am to 5pm tomorrow, at the Garden Museum (next to Lambeth Palace). Who would have thought you could get all this from Britain at the end of November?!

Happy Halloween

I offered to take flowers to a friend who had invited me over for dinner. He asked for something ‘unusual’ and ‘interesting’. I’m hoping that this Halloween/autumnal arrangement fits the bill. I’ve used orange ilex berries, orange brassicas, and Picasso eucalyptus in a hollowed-out pumpkin. But no scary face, especially since I am going to be delivering this on All Saints Day!

And either side are more leftovers for me. One of the perks of floristry!