Almost Wordless Wednesday: Losing my voice.

As you can see, I have lost my blogging voice. Or mislaid it. Until I find it again, I am going to follow Deb's Dust Bunny's wonderful example and do some "wordless Wednesday" posts each week. Obviously, in future I won't need to write this explanation!

Sugar plum fairy in a pear tree

I was a bit sad to hear that my partner, who loves Christmas drinks in coffee shops and the Mariah Carey song, wasn’t going to have a tree this year. If it wasn’t for the trouble I had when I carried my topiary tree on the train back from college, I would have made another one for him. So, since he likes candles and prefers silver to gold, I made this table centre for him. Leigh at Nikki Tibbles Wild at Heart taught me how to insert soft-stemmed ranunculus into floral foam without squishing or snapping them, and as the market is full of them right now, I thought I would try them out at home. I used eucalyptus and berried eucalyptus, white and pink ranunculus, ilex leaves and thistles that I’d painted silver, and sugared pears. I think the berried eucalyptus has made this a bit flat, but otherwise, I’m quite happy with it. Let’s hope it survives my last trip to the Midlands before Christmas.

Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!

I used to steadfastly stick to a 'no Christmas talk before December' rule – I wanted the Christmas season to feel short and special, and that wasn’t going to happen if there were mince pies and carols two months before. Now that I’ve entered the world of floristry, the goal posts have shifted a bit. I made my first Christmas arrangement yesterday. And on Wednesday, when a friend from my floristry course and I hopefully manage to get a pitch at a market, I will have made several more.

For this little table centre, I used fake snow-covered thistles, bright red hypericum berries, beautifully glossy ilex leaves, a little gypsophila, and a few spray carnations that have the marvellous name ‘Mr Rooney’. I had a candle disaster, and ended up using a scented candle that is a little too small for this arrangement. But hopefully my friends, who this is for, will forgive me!

I used a few broken stems of hypericum, a thistle, and some ilex leaves to make myself a buttonhole. I know corsages are meant to be for women and buttonholes for men, but just as I sometimes prefer to wear men’s trainers (they are better for playing football, albeit badly), I also prefer to wear buttonholes. I felt suitably Christmassy wearing this one as I caught up with friends at the beautiful William Morris exhibition at 2 Temple Place today.

And in other news, I got a lovely surprise when I walked around the garden last week. Firstly, there were a couple of very late roses that had blossomed. And secondly, my snowdrops have started shooting. I’ve heard that they rarely flower in their first year, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Let it snowdrop!

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!