STANLEY RUIZ | the new organic

Contrast is a beautiful thing and the work of Stanley Ruiz harnesses it in a powerful manner. He contacted us the other day looking for a plentiful supply of twigs. We've accumulated quite a bit of sub-par Natural Manzanita Branches that we don't know what to do with and were enthusiastic about the prospect of someone doing something productive with them. He stopped by with a few of his simple metal prototypes. We handed over a few branches and some clippers, and he got to work. When he was done, we were amazed by what he produced. The contrast of smooth steel and gnarled branches, glaring white paint and warm and richly brown bark was spectacular. We hope to see a lot more of his work soon. Check out his site for more details. 

Silk Flowers + Natural Birch Branches = "Faux-Real" Flowering Branches

Flowering Branches such as Quince or Cherry look spectacular but are perishable and are only available for a short period during the spring. Artificial branches tend to either look, well, artificial, or are very expensive.

How about combining real branches such as Natural Birch Branches, with some inexpensive silk flowers? I picked up some really cheap generic silk flowers over in the Floral District, which cost $4.50 a bundle, after checking out some more expensive options such as Cymbidium Orchids, which cost $36/stem. As you can see, these silk flowers weren't anything spectacular:

Then I got out the glue gun and scissors, grabbed some Natural Birch Branches and went to work.

And after a few minutes of gluing...  

... a pretty spectacular "faux-real" flowering branch. What makes this work so well despite using relatively cheap flowers is the fact that only a small portion of the branch is faux, while the vast majority of it is real. Now the math: One Natural Birch Branch at $.56/stem ($14.50 per bundle / 25 stems per bundle) + a few silk flowers adding up to $.25 or so + miscellaneous expenses = about $1.00. Not too bad! 

   

Here we combined some of the branches with Fountain Grass for a nice, airy display evocative of spring or summer:

Hanging Floral Tubes

Here are some pictures of hanging floral tubes with flowers and adorned with ribbon, hanging from the card tree we made for an earlier post. 

While poking around Jamali Garden the other day, I came across some clear floral tubes that looked a lot like test tubes. That reminded me of a picture a customer sent us a while back showing what looked like test tubes with flowers in them hanging from some branches. I grabbed a package of the floral tubes ($10 for 100 tubes and caps) and got to work. It turned out that it was exceptionally quick and easy to attach a wire to the cap to get them to hang.

Here are the tools and supplies, which consist of nothing more than some fine wire, the floral tubes and caps, and my Leatherman to cut the wire:

What you want to do is cut a length of wire, and push both ends down through the top of the cap near the opposite edges. Then wrap the wire back up and around itself. You could also use string, but then you'd have to use a needle or something to thread it through the cap. The wire was stiff enough so you could simply poke it through the cap. Here's a picture of the finished cap: 

Once you have your cap all wired up, simply snap it onto the floral tube. While the wire may keep it from as being as secure as it otherwise would be, we didn't encounter any problems with the cap separating from the floral tube (of course if you use much thicker wire, you might have some problems).