Saturday 31 March 2012

Real Weddings - Joe & Rach's Beautiful Meadow


Last year I was lucky enough to be asked to design the flowers for Joe and Rach's wonderful wedding which had a lovely country fair and vintage theme. They were married at the gorgeous Botanical Gardens in Sheffield and then travelled out to Shatton Barn in Derbyshire where the beautiful surrounding meadow hosted a coconut shy, tug'o'war and welly-throwing!  The Barn itself was decorated with handmade bunting, homemade favours, cakes and summer cottage flowers.





Rachael's  gorgeous, romantic, empire-line dress was designed by Elizabeth A Edwards, who specialises in eco-couture http://www.elizabethaedwards.com/weddings/greenweddings.html



Rach wanted a bouquet which looked as though it had been hand-picked from a meadow and loved my idea of using lots of soft foliages and grasses. I used flowers you'd expect to see in an English Country Garden in a full range of colours, which really evoked a Summer border.  The binding point was finished in natural raffia, in keeping with the theme.



The soft grasses in Rach's bouquet are really visible in this lovely shot. The fantastic photographer was Alison Fawcett  http://www.fawcett.org.uk/about.html




Rachael and Joe fell in love with the meadow, which provided the inspiration for all the flowers.



Simple, pretty hair flowers of white double lisianthus



Metres and metres of Rach's hand made bunting went into decorating the barn


Rach decorated the different sized jam jars with pretty, delicate ribbon detail and I made up little 'random' hand tied designs for each.  Getting each one completely different is more difficult than you would imagine and each design had to be cut to size to fit the jars exactly!



Tug'o'war in the stunning Derbyshire Peak District.  You can just see the tents in the background where all the brave guests, including the Bride and Groom, camped overnight!


Favours made with love, Joe's a chef so you know these would be good!  The children had sweeties instead.


Joe's buttonhole was a miniture version of Rach's bouquet.  All the other guests wore a simple single white lisianthus with eucalyptus, bound with natural raffia.  I suggested lisianthus as Rach wanted a flower which hinted of a white rose of Yorkshire, without actually using a rose!


I used peony, spray roses, three kinds of lisiathus, stallion chrysanthemum, solidago, veronica, wax flower, aster, panicum grass, bear grass and eucalyptus in the bouquets and arrangements.





I have to say that Joe and Rach were the loveliest couple to work with and their meadow was a really special inspiration which I was incredibly lucky to be part of.

More of the fabulous couples I've worked with recently, on the blog soon.


Tracey x



Wednesday 28 March 2012

Simple & Stylish Wedding Bouquets

I have to be honest, I have a bit of a passion for Wedding Bouquets made from all the same materials.

Back in the day, when I was studying floristry, I excitedly turned up at a couple of rather fabulous trade events in London, which always culminated in a demonstration by some god or goddess of our industry.  At once such event, I was lucky enough to watch Ercole Moroni who, at that time was still at the marvellous McQueens, very close to where I worked.

During the demonstration, I was mesmerised by the simplicity of his designs - gorgeous white tulips hand tied and cut alarmingly short and then placed in glass cubes all in a row or, luscious Bridal bouquets of one particular variety of rose.  Everything he did was uncomplicated and uncluttered and his designs seemed to focus on the intrinsic beauty of the individual blooms - its a style I have always loved and still gives me goosebumps.

So here are a few designs I've created recently which were inspired by my early influence - I hope you like them, I've loved making them!


 Pink Bouvardia bouquet with ribbon detail




I'm slightly cheating here - but the essence of what I mean is definitely here with these 'Vendella' and 'Akito' roses!


'Ronaldo' tulips with a Rosemary buttonhole


Gorgeous Muscari with lace overlay onto blue satin ribbon and finished with one of my vintage brooches



Fabulous 'Cool Water' and 'Memory Lane' roses (I have a secret passion for long stems!)


Gorgeous bright Spray Rose 'Shine'


If you had a wedding bouquet made from all the same flowers - I'd love to see photos.  It's always good to hear from those of you who read my blog.

'til the next time ... Enjoy!


Tracey



Monday 26 March 2012

DIY Wedding Flowers - A Vintage Wrist Corsage

Morning all, hope you had a great weekend.  The sun is still shining today and I'm thinking about beautiful weddings and all that my first Summer as Campbell's Flowers will bring.

As you know, I love sharing my floristry experience with anyone who wants to 'have a go' and so today I'm bringing you a little video as part of my Flower School 'How to ...' series.  This one is a lovely 'Sweet Avalanche', vintage-inspired, wrist corsage which I'm finding are increasingly popular amongst Brides.  In fact one of my Brides this year has ordered a wrist corsage to throw, rather than jettison her stunning waterfall bouquet at her maids and sundry guests.  Much safer!



 The materials you will need are:

'Sweet Avalanche' rose                                                                   .22, .46 & .71 wires
Bouvardia                                                                                           scissors, tape
Eucalyptus gunni                                                                            and ribbon



Here's the link to my YouTube Channel Campbell's Flowers which should take you straight to where all the action is.

Hope you enjoy making your corsage and any proud pics of your work would be fab to see!

'til then, enjoy


Tracey



Saturday 24 March 2012

Ladies Day at The Viper Rooms - A Barnardo's Fundraiser

A couple of weekends ago I was involved in a fund raising Ladies Day at the Viper Rooms in Sheffield, organised by a group of gorgeous third year Event Planning students from Sheffield Hallam University.  The event was planned, organised and run by the students as part of their final year dissertation and I was lucky enough to work with the lovely Saskia who, happily for me, adores all thing floral!

Stall holders were asked to contribute to the fund raising event by paying £25.00 for their stand and guests bought tickets for a nominal amount, with all the proceeds going to Barnardo's.  The Ladies day featured all kinds of wonderful contributors including make-up demonstrations, jewellery designers, dress designers, gift cards, delicious cup cakes and rather decadent (and quite potent!) cocktails.  The attention to detail was superb with all guests greeted with a cocktail, specially designed for the day and little cupcake cases of nibbles.

We were also treated to two different sets of singers, both with fabulous voices and whose music added to the general ambiance of the afternoon.  I demonstrated a little table arrangement which I placed in a vintage-style jug and then worked on a heart design which I had been thinking about for some time.  I got some really lovely comments from lots of incredibly friendly women, which was really gratifing and, although it hadn't been my intention, ended up with two orders for my heart design and met a lovely Bride who has subsequently ordered some designs from me!


A hand tied design of Avalanche Roses, Pussy Willow, Stocks, Limoninum, Eucalyptus Cinerea, Wax Flower, and Ammus



My heart design which was ordered for an Engagement Party and Mother's Day, but would make a wonderful gift to adorn a guest signing table at a wedding.


Detail shot of the materials - hebe, astrantia, lisianthus, limonium, stocks and 'Sweet Avalanche' roses.


My stand - I'm just about to start the second demonstration!


I had a really fantastic day and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it, made some new friends and have just received an email from Saskia that the day raised over £800! Absolutely amazing.

Right, I'm off to the market to get some flowers for a really exciting event I'm going to be part of on Monday - need to get my creative head on!

Will be back soon, 'til then - enjoy!


Tracey 

Sunday 18 March 2012

Mother's Day Pop Up Shop

Wow! What a crazy week of wedding consultations, networking and meetings, culminating in a fabulous day with the very lovely, funny and extremely knowledgeable Amy Freann Worthington from Pure Enough.

Pop Up Shops are very much the thing in London and have been on the increase in Sheffield for some time. As regular readers will know, I've been involved in them with Amy since before Christmas and in fact Amy has been running Pop Up Shops since way before then and is very much the trend-setter!  It's easy to see their popularity as they work on so many levels.  For the business proprietor they bring in extra income, new customers and offer an extended range for current customers.  For the incoming business they offer a visible retail presence which they might not usually have, an extended customer base and help build a strong reciprocal  relationship with a local business.  Pretty much what marketing people would call a win-win situation!

It was a very successful day, so much so that I ran out of stock and had to dash home and make up some more bouquets.  I only remembered to take a photo later on - hence the lack of stock and empty bucket!

Massive thanks to Amy once again for this great opportunity - can't wait for the next one.




Hope all you Mums and Mums-to-be had a really fabulous day - it's a tough job so it's lovely to be spoilt every now and then.

What did you get up to? Mine's been a HUGE brekkie of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, bagels, pastries, strawberries and lots of tea; Gavin & Stacey; The Botanical Gardens; Mary Poppins and I'm just off for a Vietnamese dinner with M and the girls on London Road at Pho 68 - better put some lippy on!

Tracey

Wednesday 14 March 2012

Wedding Fayre at Sheffield United

The weather was glorious on Sunday for the Sheffield United Wedding Fayre at Bramall Lane where the theme was East meets West.  The models all looked stunning and the ornate Asian Bridal gowns were incredibly beautiful set off by the amazing sunshine. 

We had a fantastic response to our stand, everyone really seemed to love our soft pinks, creams and blue-grey foliage and we got lots of lovely comments about not only our designs, but also our use of fresh scented materials such as stocks, roses, wax flower, eucalyptus and rosemary.

Our most talked about design was the fabulously opulent rose bouquet made from Avalanche and Kiwi roses which was finished with gold satin ribbon and a lace overlay, set off with an antique brooch.  Running a close second was the very 'bling' diamante corsage bracelet - you wear the ring part on your middle finger and then the rest of the design sits on your hand and is fastened at the wrist.  Simply fabulous!

What did surprise me was how many great comments we got about our heart design and how many people didn't realise it was real, although perhaps the most unusual comment/request came from one Bride who asked if she could buy our chalkboard sign!

Anyway, I've uploaded my first ever video showing you a snippet of our day, which won't win me any great accolades for my directorial debut, but does give you a good idea of what we did.





I hope you like our work - a massive thanks to Lottie for helping out and being so brilliant.
I'd love to know which is your favourite design, I think I can guess - but I could be wrong ...


Tracey x