Hello!
I have a few classes coming up this spring here in Seattle –
1 Space left in the Hail to the Hellebore class on March 6th – register here
The Bouquet designing & pricing class on March 13th – register here
Totally Tulips on April 3rd – register here
Playdate with Peonies on May 21st – register here
I’m excited to announce our next class specifically for Floral Designers looking to increase the online presence of their Floral Design Business. This e-course will be held online via a private, password protected forum. Class assignments will be posted weekly with hints, tricks and feedback from myself and other class participants. The class lasts for 4 weeks, and the forum will remain active for an additional 4 weeks should you need to access any of the information while working on your newly implemented marketing plans and to connect with other class participants.
Class Starts: February 29, 2016
Class Ends: March 25, 2016
What we will cover in class:
*Week 1 – Critique of your current website and blog with suggestions on how to improve
*Week 2 – All about Instagram!!
*Week 3 – In-depth look at using Facebook for your business. We’ll also cover Pinterest & Twitter this week.
*Week 4 – Set-up of your floral design business on various marketing websites for increased exposure. Plus, instruction and suggestions on how to blog efficiently for your floral design business.
FAQs:
*There will be no refunds or transfers once you have registered & paid for this class.
*Information from this class will not be shared with others outside of this class. Immediate cancellation of your membership will be enforced if you are caught distributing information.
*As the saying goes “what you put into it, is what you get out of it”, full participation is the best way to gain the most success possible.
This video is the first in a 4-part series about Pricing Mistakes Florists Make. Today’s video is about understanding what it really takes to create a quote and making sure you take the time to do it right.
Check out Floral Artistry Courses here: freshevents.floralartvt.com Including Flower Boss. A free training course to help move your business forward.
Contact Information:
Alison Ellis
Floral Artistry
Vermont
Today we hand the blog reins over to Bloompop, who is interviewing Sylvart–
Sylvart
Syliva Avakian
Los Angeles, CA
When did you start your business and where are you based?
Sylvart was established in 2004 in the beautiful city of Los Angeles, CA.
What is your favorite thing about being a Bloompop Floral Partner?
Bloompop is great for a number of reasons but number one is the fact that they are so easy to work with – they provide designers a chance to design and are proud to publicize our work on social media and the Bloompop website.
Can you tell us what prompted you to partner with Bloompop?
Bloompop was a new company when I joined – I wanted to give it a try! From the very start they have always been very professional. They value the art I am creating and are interested in helping the public view flowers as art too. I am honored that Bloompop was interested in partnering with me.
What (in your mind) is the biggest challenge facing the floral industry today?
The biggest challenge in the floral industry today is trying to create positive working relationships with competitors/other florists in the area. Working together as a team can be beneficial to both parties – especially since this industry is heavily based on customer satisfaction. It’s a plus to be able to share work when we might be overbooked and feel confident that another florist would do the same.
Where & how do you find inspiration for your floral designs?
Most of my inspiration comes from my clients – with Bloompop and the Designer’s Choice option I am really able to listen to their needs and wants (color, texture, flowers) and use natural lines found in Mother Nature for inspiration.
Can you describe a typical day at your shop?
Not much has changed from when we first opened; I used to have a retail shop in Burbank, California but traded all that in for a home based studio. I’m on the go from 6am till 6pm everyday; picking up, prepping, cutting, designing, marketing, managing a household with two children and keeping everyone (including myself) happy!
Bloompop partners with florists by invitation only, hand selecting the top luxury florists–did this play a factor in your joining Bloompop?
Yes, I felt honored to be a Florist Partner with Bloompop and have not had any regrets! From the first day I spoke with a Bloompop representative I was informed that I would be one of few florists to service the LA area.I was and still am flattered that they took a liking to my work.
As a designer it isn’t always easy to go hunting for new businessopportunities- Would you say that Bloompop helps augment your sales team for business?
Yes, they are an extremely professional team, which has made my experience all the more seamless. I am also able to enjoy the images from a photo-shoot we were able to collaborate on as an early Bloompop Florist Partner.
What would you say to a florist who is interested in Bloompop?
Go with them – without a doubt!
I can hardly believe that it has been 5 years since we first ran an article by Alison Ellis!
Five years ago already!
Alison’s first appearance on Flirty Fleurs-
March 3, 2011 – 15 Tips: How to book more weddings
I loved the piece, but had no idea at the time what an amazing contributor Alison Ellis would become! In the early days Alison would write awesome articles for us, and then with time she tried the video approach … the video turned out to be a hit and now we have fresh video content often.
Want to check back over the videos and articles from the past 5 years? Just follow this link:
http://flirtyfleurs.com/category/alison-ellis-videos/
Alison Ellis of Floral Artistry
To Alison, Thank you for all you do, thank you for supporting the floral community! Thank you for being part of flirty fleurs. xo, Alicia
Hello Flower Friends!
Came across some articles this week to share with all of you –
I’m sure many of you have already seen this one – 3 Dying Professions To Avoid. How depressing is this article?! What can we do to change this? Can we change it?
This post is geared towards photographers but I like the message and think you will, too –
An Open Letter to Wedding Photographers
3 THINGS YOU SHOULD NOT BE DOING WITH YOUR CONTRACTORS by Sage Wedding Pros.
And a little something something to add a splash of color to the post –
Bella Fiori
This video is the second in a 4-part series for florists on common pricing mistakes we make before booking a client. Today I’m talking about aiming too low. This a mistake we can make without even knowing it!
Check out Floral Artistry Courses here: freshevents.floralartvt.com Including Flower Boss. A free training course to help move your business forward.
Contact Information:
Alison Ellis
Floral Artistry
Vermont
Your name: Anissa Burnett
Your Business name: Anissa Rae Flowers & Refinements
Your Location: NYC- Hell’s Kitchen
How did you start your business?
By being ambitious! I actually have a background in sales & marketing working in the hospitality industry for years. I have no formal training as a floral designer but did garner some experience working for a florist as their Director of Sales & Marketing. It was a family owned business so we often had to wear multiple hats which allowed me to gain knowledge in other areas beside my formal job description. One day I woke up and decided I wanted to be an entrepreneur and could make a go of this. Not on my own of course! I am fortunate to have great friends and made some amazing connections in this industry and have an amazing designer who expertly crafts most of our floral designs. I like to believe that I’m innately creative and have a good eye for design so this definitely helps. Let’s just say that I’m an expert at planting things, wrapping arrangements, and those sorts of tasks. I also recently learned how to make a hand-tied bouquet. I was really proud of myself! All joking aside I run all the operations of the business, focus on sales & marketing as well as many of the other day-to-day tasks. I don’t mind leaving the flower making up to the experts that I have working with me. I’m all about being a team player. That’s how I think a business is meant to grow.
How many years have you been in business?
I started another company in 2008 under a different name that was initially an event planning company. I ended up using this platform when I transitioned away from planning into floral design. I recently re-branded to Anissa Rae Flowers & Refinements where we now concentrate on floral design for weddings & events as well as online retail arrangements, plants, succulent gardens and some home decor items.
How do you create your style and where do you draw your inspiration?
Our style tends to be monochromatic. Shades of the same colors or within the same or similar color palette. We tend not to mix too many colors together. I’m pretty sure I’m making this up but I would say our style is a little what I would call “structured garden”. I use to say more compact and tight, tight, tight with flowers. We are definitely more about flowers than fluff but use lots of different elements like pods, berries and carefully selected greenery like passion ivy, jasmine, fern, etc. We try to stay true to ourselves with what we feel like is our best style but I also try to be flexible with our clients. Especially when it comes to weddings. I think there are so many beautiful flowers and greenery elements. I like designs that let the flowers and greenery speak for themselves. Nature is beautiful and when we are lucky enough to compose something I think you want to be able to recognize it and see if for what it is even when it’s mixed in with other flowers. One of my favorite things is to flip through design or home decor catalogs. I draw a lot of inspiration from them. There are so many plants, flowers, branches and leaves peppered throughout the pages and often displayed in interesting containers or vessels. It feels very comfortable and natural and I’m really drawn to that type of design. I’m also a little addicted to Instagram. It’s such an easy visually stimulating tool that connects you around the world and back in minutes. I always love seeing what other floral designers are up to. The creativity of other individuals is mind blowing sometimes! I appreciate other people’s artistry and innovation.
What are the trends, flowers & colors that are unique to your region?
One of the trends right now, sort of goes along with where I was headed with looking at catalogs for inspiration. My husband works in the furniture design industry and a really big trend is for offices wanting their furniture and decor to look more like a home office or a home decor showroom like West Elm or Restoration Hardware. People want to work in relaxed and less structured environments. We are getting a lot of requests to help make their office spaces have that staged catalog feel. Live flowers and plants can make a world of difference to how people feel in their own environment as well as the way customers view their business. As far as flower and color trends that are unique to our region, that’s a tough one. I feel like NYC is a different animal than other parts of the United States. We are such a melting pot with people from all over the world. One day we can be working on a corporate event that doesn’t really care so much what the specific types of flowers used are but more about working with colors that complement their corporate branding, to a couple that traveled to NYC for a destination wedding and is getting married in Central Park, to a full blown fairy tale style wedding that wants everything white and luxurious. We are lucky in New York because we have access to so many different types of flowers in our flower market. With the right vendor we can have access to almost any type of flower. We have been really lucky over the years to have a lot of repeat clients that put a lot of trust in our work and let us choose the colors and designs. Usually the bigger request is to work with the season.
What is your favorite part of being a floral designer?
Well since I don’t official make anything myself, I would say admiring the final outcome of an arrangement, event or wedding. Many people underestimate what it takes to make something so pretty with flowers. There are a lot of steps that happen before when making florals for weddings and events. Taking a step back and seeing how we were able to make a vision from written words on paper to an actual materialized event can be pretty amazing. I’m always proud of what we are able to create. I would also say it always makes my day to receive nice notes or seeing people’s reactions when seeing their flower arrangements. I feel like we are in the business of happy. It’s so cliche but flowers make people happy and that’s what we work so hard to do every day.
What advice would you give to aspiring floral designers?
I would say try working with different florists/floral designers that have different styles. Designing for retail and designing for events can be very different as well so try both. Everyone has different ways of processing flowers, tips and tricks for designing, working with different types of flowers as well as the actual style. Be open to ideas and even if you think it’s not the style you love or not a place you want to stay take something positive away from it. Knowledge is power!
Are you a retail shop, studio/warehouse or home based?
We are a retail shop with a production area in the back. We’re small but powerful!
Do you offer any services in addition to floral designs?
We take on small landscaping projects if we know we can do it well. We can also assist in table decor, linens, and furniture rentals for weddings and events. We have designed events in the past that didn’t involve flowers. We designed displays with mannequin hands and mannequin heads for a product launch for knit hat company, we helped style an event for Leonardo DiCaprio’s birthday party one year that was coupled with his foundation. It started as a live auction so we created vignettes with props for their displays. We also worked with a company that handles a lot of events for Hennessy and were asked to come up with some displays that complemented the art work on the bottle from a well known graffiti artist.
What tool in your toolbox can’t you live without?
Definitely a sharp knife. Although knives are like socks in a dryer. They always seem to disappear and you can never figure out where they went! I’m also a fan of bind wire. I feel like you can bind wire almost anything!
What’s your favorite flower?
I’ve always loved tulips even before I imagined I’d be in this industry. I love their shape and the way they bend toward the light. I feel like they’re even prettier as they start to fade.
Anything else you’d like to share with Flirty Fleurs followers?
I would just thank you for allowing us to be a part of your floral community. I think it’s important to be friendly with the people in your industry. It’s nice to be able to connect with other experts in the industry or find answers to questions we may all have at times.
Your contact information:
Anissa Rae Flowers & Refinements
http://anissaraeflowers.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/anissaraeny
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AnissaRaeFlowers
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/anissaraeflower
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anissaraeflowers/
The Bridal Bouquet Designing & Pricing Workshop is a hands-on workshop where you will learn how to design lush hand-tied bouquets.
Class will begin with a Bouquet Demonstration. Think airy, assymterical, Instagram-esqe style bridal bouquet; this is the bouquet we’ll be designing with a lovely assortment of spring flowers! We’ll embellish this beauty with elegant ribbons.
After we design a beautiful bridal bouquet we will have a discussion and learning session about pricing our designs. All instruction and fresh flowers are included, please bring your own tools.
Date: Sunday, March 13, 2016
Location: Floressence Design Studio, 5628 Airport Way S #240, Seattle, WA 98108
Time: 1pm to 4pm
Investment: $250.00 per person
Register: HERE
This video is third in a 4-part series on pricing mistake florists make. This mistake is one that everyone makes at some point…hopefully sooner rather than later. You set the prices for your business. You are in the driver’s seat.
Check out Floral Artistry Courses here: freshevents.floralartvt.com Including Flower Boss. A free training course to help move your business forward.
Contact Information:
Alison Ellis
Floral Artistry
Vermont
For many florists like myself, everyday computer work can bog us down and take away important creative time. Tasks such as creating/revising estimates, wholesale order forms, design recipes, and tracking client payment can be very time consuming and prevents us from being able to do what we want to do – design, be creative and ensure our clients happiness!
But, this problem has now been solved with Lobiloo – the first image-based estimate management solution made for florists, by a florist!
At a price you can afford, Lobiloo allows you to easily create visually inspired estimates for your clients. It has a drag-and-drop interface where you can easily include beautiful images of flowers and hard goods (you can either upload your own or use from the existing database), along with pricing (that can be saved for future estimates), providing your clients with a visually appealing estimate that took you only a fraction of the time to create.
Below are just some of the features of Lobiloo:
-Only $19/month (no contract)
-Saves price per stem as well as prices for hardgoods and rental items
-Compiles wholesale order forms and streamlines cost-outs that ensure profit margins
-Compiles design recipes for you
-Tracks client payments within the estimate
-Creates image-based beautiful estimates
With all of these features, plus great customer service, Lobiloo can save you time and improve your business. Start your free one month trial today!
Watch our introduction video for more details about the platform, how it works and how it can help transform your business:
Intro to Lobiloo from Freeport Metrics on Vimeo.
Hello Flower Friends,
Hope you are all doing well and having a great week!
Sorry for the lack of posts this week on flirty fleurs. Honestly, I was just so deep into projects and couldn’t get in any time to sit down and blog. One of the projects is trying to get some of the pages and older information on this site into order, always a time consuming project. One of the other projects took place outside in the yard – moving a ridiculous amount of dirt and prepping the beds for the dahlia plantings which will take place in about a month or so.
Oh, and the arrangement above, those were some of the leftovers from my class last weekend. I love the leftovers!
BTW – the next class I have scheduled is for April 3rd, 2 1/2 weeks from now. We’ll be working with a glorious variety of Tulips! I can hardly wait to get my hands on lots of parrot and fringe tulips 
Read more about the class and other upcoming classes here.
For the past 3 weeks I’ve shared some major pricing mistakes florists make. The good news is that each of these mistakes can be easily corrected!
I’ll recap the first 3 mistakes in case you missed them…#1. You’ll no longer feel the pressure to quote on the spot. #2. You’re going to aim higher than “your minimum” on events. #3. You will not let customers tell you how much a job should cost. If you missed any of them, you may want to go back and check them out.
Today I’m talking about a HUGE pricing mistake that I was actually surprised to learn florists make. This one is major because it impacts your profit margin in a serious way. I’m talking about your design fee and if you’re not charging a design fee (or your design fee is too low!) you are missing out on a crucial piece of your profitability!
Correcting a pricing mistake is part of the hard work of building your brand and staying focused on where your business (and arguably your life!) is headed.
Today’s video is the last in a 4-part series on pricing mistakes florists make.
Check out Floral Artistry Courses here: freshevents.floralartvt.com Including Flower Boss. A free training course to help move your business forward.
If you have more pricing questions you may want to check out my pricing and profitability course, Flower Math. This is a full behind-the-scenes look at how to maximize the profit margin on your weddings and events and keep your costs of goods in check!
Click to watch today’s video. Thanks for tuning in for my first 4-Part Series!
Contact Information:
Alison Ellis
Floral Artistry
Vermont
Recently I shared a beautiful scene from Bash & Bloom’s wedding day when Kelly handed Eleanor her bridal bouquet. After the post Eleanor and I were talking and she shared more images from her wedding with me, I found myself oohing & ahhing over the gorgeous images of the fabulous floral designs. I asked Eleanor if we could share these images on Flirty Fleurs, too. Thankfully, she said yes! So here you go .. the reception decor from Eleanor’s wedding day!
In terms of choosing the decor, it’s safe to say I put A LOT of thought into it all (there was never a question that this would be the case!). That being said, we didn’t have a huge budget in general, so I knew we’d need to find ways to cut costs. We decided to forgo a traditional sit-down meal and instead hired a food truck to serve guests in an as-you’re-hungry fashion. This meant we didn’t need to have everyone sitting down all at the same time, so we were able to go “all out” with the decor for the ceremony and on one long row of farm tables.
Spring is my favorite season by far, and we chose our wedding date based on when the ranunculus and poppies would be in bloom (I know – kind of nuts, but whatever!). I am drawn towards the juicy berry and apricot tones, so those are the colors I chose to accent all the green and metallics seen throughout the wedding.
I NEVER wanted to do my own flowers – I knew it would be far too stressful to deal with in the chaos of that week – so enlisted the help of my assistants led by the amazing Jeni Nelson of Magniflora to create the reception flowers based on my designs. There were large metal frames installed over the table just dripping with greens and poppies, and we created elevated centerpieces for the tables using floral soil, and they rested on top of pillars made from silver faux antlers. A lush and full garland ran down the length of the table to the floor on either end, and we accented the whole thing with a ton of candles, antlers, lace doilies from my mother-in-law, and bud vase arrangements.
The ceremony backdrop is a patchwork quilt my mother made specially for us and which we now use on our bed in the summer. We framed it in a thick green garland and included paper cutouts from local artist CeeCee Cooning. My team also created a lush chandelier of greens dripping down over the bar area.
I knew that I would need something to keep my hands busy and nervous energy at bay on the morning of the wedding, so decided to host a workshop for my maids and help them all make their own bouquets while we all got ready. It was one of my favorite parts of the day – I just set up some buckets of blooms on a table and went through a basic “recipe” with everyone and then let them create what they wanted. When they were done, I would tweak their bouquets as needed and help them finish them with tape and ribbon. We made the guys boutonnieres as a group, and I made sure to make Matt’s myself.
When it came to my own bouquet, I didn’t really have a plan. One night over wine, my fellow flower friend (and genius floral designer) Kelly Sullivan of Botanique offered to create my bouquet for me as a gift – and my brain exploded with happiness. I gave Kelly carte blanche with the bouquet – essentially just telling her she could make it as big and wild as she wanted. She picked the blooms from what I’d ordered ahead of time and supplemented with bits and bobs from her own cutting garden. I don’t have words for how beautiful it was – but you can pretty much see how happy it made me in the series of photos our photographer captured when Kelly gave it to me.
The whole thing was such a labor of love and so full of the creative efforts of our friends and families that it was almost overwhelming. A friend of mine created the water color painting and paper cut out welcome sign, another friend the giant paper flowers that served as our photo booth backdrop, and we hired friendors for every other aspect of the wedding: Carla from Honeycrumb cake studio created both of our cakes, our DJ was Bamboo Beats, who I’ve worked with on dozens of weddings and absolutely adore, our day-of Coordinator was Megan Clark from Clutch events who is also a friend – the list goes on! More than anything, that’s what I wanted (besides marrying Matt surrounded by friends and family, of course). We are really lucky to know some talented people, and having them all pitch in with their various creative skillz meant the world to us.
Vendor List:
Venue: Within SoDo
Dress: Custom designed and made by Emma Berg, a designer based in New York.
Day-Of Coordination by Clutch Events
Shane Macomber Photography
Event staffing by The Invisible Hostess
DJ: Bamboo Beats
Oyster Bar: Taylor Shellfish
Cheese Cake: The Calf & Kid
Cakes and Macarons: Honey Crumb Cake Studio
Cookies: Jenny Cookies
Other Desserts were made by our families
Paper goods were all designed by Vicki Nelson of Vegan Me
Floral and Event Decor was led by Jeni Nelson of Magniflora and designed by bash & bloom
Rentals: Vintage Ambiance and Pedersens
Food Truck: Hallava Falafel
Interesting finds on the world wide web ..
Build a Strong Foundation with Your Client by Process Driven Design
Calluna Events in Boulder, Colorado is hosting a workshop on using Instagram – looks like a good one if you are in Colorado.
Movement in Imagery by Ginny Au – not about flowers, but about photography – one of my favorite subjects!
Two Things Successful People Have In Common via Zanita (I see this as three, but that’s me!)
5 TIPS TO REFRESH YOUR BRAND via Wedding Styling 101
My Next Floral Design Class is scheduled for April 3, 2016 – Totally Tulips!
I love these spring flowers and am exciting to share a whole bunch of them with students!!
How fun is this video of Celadon & Celery by Field to Vase? Can we just have more Flower TV??!!
Happy Easter!
Photographed by Laurey W Glenn
A few weeks ago I posted this photograph on Instagram & Facebook of freshly cut hellebores out of my garden-
Quite a few people replied and asked how I could cut them so young and have them last? How long until they wilt?
(pretty sure under their breath they were saying – those are going to wilt!)
So here’s the deal. I look for one thing in each stem that I cut – the stem has to have at least one flower on it that has lost its stamens and is starting to go to seed. Check out the three images here, in each one you’ll see the bottom of the three blooms is without the stamens (yellow pollen). My friend Riz of RHR Horticulture shared with me awhile back that the key of getting hellebores to last is to wait to cut them until at least one flower per stem has started to go to seed. Riz is a well known horticulturist, especially here in Washington State.
Ok, so after I sort through my plants I do a fresh, sharp cut on the stems I want and I immediately dipped the cut stems into QuickDip. In general I don’t use many flower aids/foods, etc. But I find with hellebores it sure doesn’t hurt to dip a fresh cut stem into QuickDip. That’s It!
I have had GREAT LUCK with these two simple steps. I cut the above hellebores two weeks ago for a design class that I was teaching — and guess what, I still have many of them in a vase on my desk!
Here’s one of my arrangements re-using the hellebores I had used in my class demonstration –
Here’s another example of how well the hellebores aged.
This is an arrangement designed by Amanda of Alluring Blooms –
Ten days later I took her arrangement apart, check out what was left of the flowers –
Crazy, right?? The hellebores still looked great! A few tulips were trying to hang in there. The anemones, hyacinths, pieris japonica, fritillaries and ranunculus were DONE!
So there you have it, that’s what I how I care for cut hellebores out of my garden!
