Preserved Hydrangeas with Salal

Magenta Preserved Hydrangea Paniculata, displayed in a vase with Natural Green Salal. The Salal provides a nice contrast of color and form.

Flowering Dragonwood Branches

Flowering branches are beautiful and popular, but they have a short season and last no longer than any other fresh flower. If you want flowering branches during the off season, or for an application where you need them to last a while, the real thing is not an option.

Here's a window display of flowering branches created using Dragonwood Branches, specifically poles and forks, and faux flower stems.

The displays are very graceful, fitting the space beautifully. Upon closer inspection, it becomes apparent that the beautiful form was created using individual pieces of Dragonwood trees combined with numerous faux flower stems.

It seems the designers of these window displays, like Impressionist painters, were very explicitly trying to create something from distinct and discrete pieces. The effect is beautiful. 

The Resilience of Preserved Roses

Preserved Roses have the appearance of fresh roses, and the feel and resiliency of them as well. Check out this sequence of pictures where I squeezed a Red Preserved Rose to a great extent. As soon as I relieved the pressure, it sprung right back to its original form.

Consider Preserved Roses for weddings and other events where you'd love to provide guests with a lasting memento of the occasion. 

Preserved Rose in a Champagne Flute

Happy Valentine's Day from Nettleton Hollow! Today millions of roses will be given, most of which will quickly wither and fade over the following days. The simple and elegant display of a single Red Preserved Rose, combined with a a bit of preserved Reindeer Moss in a champagne flute, will look just about the same next Valentine's Day.

Preserved Roses could be an excellent choice for wedding place settings, providing a vibrant accent for the event, and allowing your guests to take home a lasting memento to remind them of occasion for months, if not years to come.

Pussy Willow Tips - Ideal for Smaller Vases and Centerpieces

We have a new size and style of Pussy Willow available - Pussy Willow Tips. These are about 20-24" long, and each stem has around 4-10 catkins. These are ideal for arrangements with dried flowers such as the hydrangeas shown here.

For this arrangement, we just put dried hydrangeas into a vase, and then inserted the Pussy Willow Tips down through the flower head. Oftentimes when you are creating displays like this it can be tough to get the items to stay where you want them, but in this case the hydrangeas kept the Pussy Willows right where we wanted them. 

Of course you can just drop Pussy Willow Tips into a vase for a quick and easy display. Below is a display of two bundles. 

Canning Preserved Roses

Here's a quick and inexpensive display that would be great for a wedding, party or just decorating the home - place a Preserved Rose in a pint mason jar with some Reindeer Moss for greenery and to hold the rose head in place.

The cost should come out to $5-6 per jar - $3.75 for the Preserved Rose, $0.63 for the Reindeer Moss (one bag should do about 10 jars), and $0.84 for the mason jar. 

These would make very convenient mementos for your guests once the party is over, and should last for months, if not years after the event.  

Twisted Willow Branches and Fresh Flowers

A customer sent us pictures of the gorgeous displays she created with Twisted Willow Branches and fresh flowers. A while back we had a post on combining dried branches with fresh flowers. When using dried branches, you really should keep them dry. To combine them with fresh flowers, the options include using floral tubes, or nesting a smaller vase inside a larger vase. That latter technique was used in these displays. Beautiful!

Note the staggered votives around the base - a great alternative to hanging votives!

Here's a close-up showing the vase containing the fresh flowers and water nested in among the Twisted Willow Branches:

Manzanita Centerpieces with Butterflies

A customer sent us some pictures of the wonderful centerpieces she created with the 48" Natural Manzanita Branches. Two branches were painted a chocolate brown and decorated with paper and vellum butterflies. For the bases, the Manzanita Branches were set in mortar, then wrapped with birch bark and topped with moss.

Dried Branches and Fresh Flowers - Manzanita Branches and Twisted Willow

Pamela Bartenfield of Petals by Pamela, LLC sent us these pictures of some great arrangements she made for a wedding at the Historic Rice Mill in Charleston, SC on January 31, 2010.

This first arrangement was designed to resemble the image on the wedding invitation. In a replica of an antique mercury vase, she arranged Leather Leaf, Aspadistra Leaves, a large white Hydrangea, and of course an 18-24" Natural Manzanita Branch.

The arrangement below consists of two parts. In the bottom of the vase, stones, moss, lichen and short lengths of Twisted Willow Branches where carefully arranged. Pamela notes that it was important that the items are fairly dry so that moisture doesn't condense inside the vase.

On top, she secured a plastic dish with tape, added floral foam, then arranged Leather Leaf, Aspadistra Leaves, white Asiatic Lilies, white Hydranges, Bells of Ireland and several long stems of Twisted Willow Branches to complete the arrangement. Simple and elegant!

Pamela Bartenfield of Petals by Pamela, LLC specializes in Floral Design and Event Coordinating in the Charleston, SC area. You can reach her at 843 324 1725.

Manzanita Centerpieces with Hydrangeas

Sigh Robes-Castillo used our Project Grade 24-36" Natural Manzanita Branches and ideas from the blog to create these gorgeous manzanita centerpieces for her wedding, adorned with hanging votives, crystal strands and fuchsia hydrangeas.

Sigh first contacted us back in May 2009 requesting that we do a post on creating stand alone plaster bases. A few weeks later, we put up the post Securing Manzanita Branches with Plaster... continued, describing the technique.

Using the techniques described in the post DIY Hanging Votive Holders, Sigh created her own hanging votive holders.

Instead of using naturally fuchsia hydrangeas (which were running $7 a stem at the time), Sigh used white hydrangeas ($2 a stem) and colored them with floral spray paint.

In addition to these gorgeous displays, Sigh wanted to have some larger flowering trees on either side of the altar. At that time of year, flowering trees were running $2000 to $3000 each, so she decided to make her own from Mountain Laurel branches (available in the NYC floral district) and white hydrangeas.

You can read more about the wedding here and here.

Mitsumata Centerpieces

Florie Huppert of Florie Huppert Design (floriehuppertdesign@gmail.com) used our Project Grade Mitsumata Branches to create some gorgeous centerpieces for the 150th Rededication Gala celebrating the building of the Brotherhood Synagogue on Gramercy Park in New York.

The Mitsumata Branches were placed in 23 inch tall glass cylinders with clear and light blue glass marbles. Although real candles were used throughout the room and under the centerpieces, LED flameless candles were used in in the glass spheres hanging from the Mitsumata Branches. The photography was done by Courtney Karam Photography.

Sandblasted Manzanita Branches and Votives

The 18-24" and 24-36" sizes of Manzanita Branches are what's most commonly used for centerpieces, but other sizes can work great as well. We recently received an email and some photos from Monique S., who made some fabulous centerpieces using our Project Grade 12-18" Sandblasted Manzanita Branches:

Hello-

Just wanted to drop a note thanking you for the great quality of your products. I ordered a case of manzanita branches from your site a few months ago and was able to create beautiful, unique and relatively inexpensive centerpieces for our outdoor wedding last month using your products and suggestions from your blog. Everyone commented on them and I actually was able to sell them via craigslist to another bride! I included a few pics so you could see the end result! Thanks again!

Monique

(The pictures are by Kristin Castenschiold of B and K Photography.)

As the email and pictures demonstrate, by going with Manzanita Branches on the smaller end of the scale, you can create some fantastic centerpieces while keeping the per centerpiece cost lower than what it would be if you used larger branches. 

Thanks again to Monique S. for the email and pictures!

Birch Wedding Arch

When I think of birch branches being used in a wedding arch or altar, the first thing that comes to mind are birch poles. However, customer Mindy C. used our Natural Birch Branches to construct a gorgeous wedding arch.

The birch branches provide a fantastic base on which to secure fresh flowers. Something I love about the design is how the flowers are spare towards the bottom and gradually concentrate at the top, like bubble collecting on the surface of a glass of champagne.

Thanks so much to Mindy C. for sending the pictures! The pictures were taken by The Storykeeper (http://www.storykeeper.com)

Flowering White Sparkle Birch Centerpieces

Although White Sparkle Birch Branches are most popular during the winter months, they can be used to make great displays for any season. We got this email from a customer who used them for centerpieces for her summer wedding last year:

"Hello,

I purchased the sparkly white birches for my wedding last year. They
made beautiful, inexpensive centerpieces. Photos attached.

We made two tone blossoms with tissue paper and wire. These were
twisted on, counting about 15-20 flowers for each set of branches
after they were fanned out. For the base, we filled the vase with pool
salt (super cheap) and wrapped a pink envelope & green ribbon around
each.

Thanks for making such great products available!

Kindest Regards,

Susie J."

The blossoms and the choice of colors take the centerpieces from cool and wintry, to warm and summery.  I love the clever tips Susie mentioned, such as wrapping the inexpensive glass vases with envelopes tied with a contrasting ribbon, and using pool salt as vase filler. 

In a follow-up email, Susie went into detail about why she ended up making the centerpieces she did: 

"The reception hall had high vaulted ceilings so tall centerpieces were a must; but tall centerpieces also means more $$$. Though I love flowers, I wanted something that lasted more than a week (as they would be given as gifts after) and low maintenance. Originally, crystal trees were wanted, but overall, the theme didn't fit my summer wedding or budget."

The flowers are very impressive, and she was nice enough to describe how she created them herself:

"After several trials, we ended up with tissue paper, streamers, and flowering wire.
flat tissue paper - one shade of light pink
party streamers - colors as follows: 

-dark pink

-medium pink
-medium green
-lime green

These three shades of pink combined, added texture as well as saved time in cutting. I cut small squares from the tissue paper & squares from the streamers. Stack these, lightest colors on top-with every other layer touching corners; at the bottom of each stack, add a square of each green; Fan fold the little bunch & twist the flowering wire on (about 5 inch piece down the middle); after securing the center of the tissue bunch, (should be 2.5inchs/more of wire down each side), fan out the paper & try to pull each corner in a different direction. For more green and less work, we also worked in just buds of leaves (green squares with wiring) on assorted branches for a fuller look."

Over a year later she still has one of the centerpieces in her home looking great. Thanks so much Susie for sharing!

Centerpiece of Fountain Grass and Birch Branches on WeddingBee

Over on WeddingBee is a great post - Centerpieces: Revisited and Redefined - about creating the centerpieces we demonstrated in the post  Silk Flowers + Natural Birch Branches = "Faux-Real" Flowering Branches. The results look great!

Check out the post on WeddingBee for more. 

Crystal Tree with Hanging Votives

Here's a 36-42" Natural Manzanita Branch, set in plaster, painted silver, illuminated with hanging votives and adorned with a few crystals. Whew, that's a lot of links for one sentence! 

Manzanita Crystal Tree

Crystal Trees are a very popular item for weddings and we frequently get questions about them, yet until recently I had never actually made one. Here is one constructed from a 36-42" Natural Manzanita Branch that I had set in plaster and then painted silver. 

 

The Crystal Tree I made, catching some afternoon sunshine.  

The Crystal Tree illuminated from below with votives. I tried hanging votives from the branches as well, but decided that there was way too much going on in the branches with all the crystals. As votives are so prominent, the placement really matters and it is best to hang the votives first, and then arrange the crystals.

The shadows of the branches cast on the ceiling. 

Now here's the story. While wandering through my lovely local Ikea in Red Hook, Brooklyn, I came across boxes of five crystals marked down to $.50 from $3.99. They certainly weren't fine crystal, but the price was right and I emptied the shelves. The plan was to "just" slap these on the manzanita branch I had set in plaster, then had painted silver, and - ta-da! - a Crystal Tree. I quickly discovered that hanging crystals is a lot more time consuming and had more pitfalls than I thought it would.

The crystals came with some thick wires for hanging, but they didn't allow the crystals to hang right - they sort of veered off to one side. I realized that I had to hang them myself. The first thing I tried was fine floral wire, but it was too thick and prominent. 

Next I tried some 25 lb test monofilament. In terms of strength, this monofilament was definitely overkill, but it was nice and stiff so the crystals would be less likely to get tangled together. The knot I first used was an Improved Clinch Knot, which is the knot I've used for fishing since a kid - I used it to tie the crystal onto the monofilament, and then to create a loop at the other end to to hang the crystal from the branch. The trouble with this knot is that it is bulky, and the loop pulls closed very easily. 

The knot that I ended up using and worked best was a Bowline Knot (a diagram of which I came across a few days before in an ad for a mens clothing store) - the knot is small, strong and when you put tension on it, the loop doesn't close. A gazillion knots and a good portion of my weekend later, I had my Crystal Tree. This took a heck of a lot longer than I had anticipated. 

A couple days later, I was working on another version of a crystal tree (hanging votives and turquoise crystals), among other projects... 

...when it occurred to me - instead of creating a loop to hang the crystal from the branch, WHY DIDN'T I JUST TIE A CRYSTAL ONTO THE OTHER END!?  I could then wrap the pair of crystals around the branch, adjust their relative height and distance from each other and cut the amount of work I had to do in half. There had to be a catch! I have yet to think of or come across one, and have come to the conclusion that I made a rather time-consuming oversight.