In the shop:
Though we have slowed down in the studio with orders we are continually quoting more and more each week. Right now we have been working on a fun themed bouquet for a client. She will be eloping this coming May 5th in Mexico City. That's right, on Cinco De Mayo, otherwise known as the day of the dead!.
Her bouquet is a gorgeous pale pink, full of ruffles and soft lovely layers of sheer sweetness.
In contrast she has commissioned a medium coloured aqua collar necklace with varyring lengths of aqua spikes (think teeth).
Our bouquet will meld it all together with bright colours among soft colours with a few strategically placed "day of Dead" symbols.
We have completed the floral part of the bouquet and are now wiring up the mini silver skull charms. We have also commissioned a OOAK colourful clay skull to add a bit of extra drama to the bouquet.
We cant wait to show you the finished product!
At the house:
Both Mel and I plus our families have been hit by the flu bug this week. NOT FUN.
Dad has it too. If the flu is not hard enough on it's own try it with someone who has Alzheimer's. The only resources I found told of washing hands and getting the flu shot .. not helpful when you already have the flu. Dad is moving slowly now, his reflexes have been affected by the disease, this is making it more difficult to get in to the right spots on time.
Another Alzheimer adventure he could have done with out.
Talk soon,
Aim
Eco friendly alternative floral designer of home decor, events and wedding florals. Upcycled vintage fabrics, brooches and environmentally sustainable paper flowers embellished by what ever we fancy!
Saturday 15 December 2012
Wednesday 5 December 2012
A wonderful first year!
Though we have been in the wedding business over 17 years this was our first year of creating primarily alternative bouquets. We've loved the fresh weddings we had this year as well but we have fallen in love with Etsy and our alternative bouquets.
We have shipped our bouquets all over the world. Many bouquets have gone to Australia and the USA, we have shipped to Gibraltar and the United Kingdom.
We were blessed with a feature in Vogue Conde Nast publishing BRIDES magazine August/ September issue in the UK.
We have been featured on many large and small blogs alike, each one we are grateful for.
Below: David Tutera, It's a Brides life, August 5th 2012 http://itsabrideslife.com/category/favors/page/2/
We have shipped our bouquets all over the world. Many bouquets have gone to Australia and the USA, we have shipped to Gibraltar and the United Kingdom.
We were blessed with a feature in Vogue Conde Nast publishing BRIDES magazine August/ September issue in the UK.
We have been featured on many large and small blogs alike, each one we are grateful for.
Below: David Tutera, It's a Brides life, August 5th 2012 http://itsabrideslife.com/category/favors/page/2/
Below: The Off Beat Bride http://offbeatbride.com/2012/07/colorado-vegan-vintage-wedding
As well as The frosted Petticoat http://www.frostedpetticoatblog.com/2012/09/awesomely-offbeat.html
And today you can find us on at KJ & Co's Etsy Roundup
Monday 22 October 2012
Hamilton Love
Hamilton Loves, OH yes, Hamilton Loves ..
If you have never seen it then you have never walked in to a Church in the downtown, uptown, mountain town or Valley town. If you have never seen it, then you have never seen the care of Hamilton's VON when an Alzheimer patient walks through the door and every nurse welcomes him with smiles and hugs.
You may not even know of Hamitlon's CCAC which my Mom called when caring for my Dad became too much for her to do alone. You have never met the wonderful Hamilton resident who spends time with my Dad 2 times a week so my Mom can get out for a bit. You have never met the Hamilton care nurse who takes my Dad for lovely walks and spends hours chatting with him sitting on a stone wall looking over the town he grew up in. Though Dad makes little or no sense she can chat away making him feel like nothing is wrong, making him smile and laugh.
You have never seen an employee of the local drug store or grocer dash out of the store to wave down the person who left their paid item at the till. You have never seen a group of young people in the local parks cleaning up the garbage which has blown in after a windy recycle day. You have never met the Gourley park community Association which is a group of volunteers who have created an affordable children's Baseball league, a league which requires weekly during the summer over 30 parent volunteers to coach the many who come out to play.
This weekend you can see Hamilton Love in action when students from St. Thomas More come collecting for "Halloween for Hunger". Did you know they collected 66,263 lbs of food for the residents of Hamilton last Halloween!
If you have never seen Hamilton Love perhaps it is because you have never extended it yourself ? A smile is contagious, if you start to look for Hamilton Love, if you start to write down the signs you see of Hamilton Love then you will see more and more Hamilton Love around you. If you choose not to look, then you will never witness Hamilton Love. Most likely you will never extend some Hamilton Love and therefore if you are blind to it you may never receive Hamilton Love.
Isn't it funny how we can support our favorite MLB, NFL, CFL, and NHL sports teams through thick and thin, we extend grace to the lock out's we make excuses for the teams failures and we come right back next season and participate with our money and our hearts to cheer those teams on.
Why do we not extend the same grace to the City of Hamilton?
Why don't we support our art's, our teams, our council, our local businesses and most of all our every day hero's who live next door? Why expend any energy which is not positive at all. It is time to support those around us who are trying to shine a light on this City.
We are thankful to the arts' community, the Church community and the Hamilton Love community, they make Hamilton an exciting and wonderful city to live in.
Look around and you will find it, open up your eyes and keep those eyes open.
Today we thank Beaux Mondes for all the work they do, showing us all the many way's Hamilton Loves.
xoxo Aim & Mel
If you have never seen it then you have never walked in to a Church in the downtown, uptown, mountain town or Valley town. If you have never seen it, then you have never seen the care of Hamilton's VON when an Alzheimer patient walks through the door and every nurse welcomes him with smiles and hugs.
You may not even know of Hamitlon's CCAC which my Mom called when caring for my Dad became too much for her to do alone. You have never met the wonderful Hamilton resident who spends time with my Dad 2 times a week so my Mom can get out for a bit. You have never met the Hamilton care nurse who takes my Dad for lovely walks and spends hours chatting with him sitting on a stone wall looking over the town he grew up in. Though Dad makes little or no sense she can chat away making him feel like nothing is wrong, making him smile and laugh.
You have never seen an employee of the local drug store or grocer dash out of the store to wave down the person who left their paid item at the till. You have never seen a group of young people in the local parks cleaning up the garbage which has blown in after a windy recycle day. You have never met the Gourley park community Association which is a group of volunteers who have created an affordable children's Baseball league, a league which requires weekly during the summer over 30 parent volunteers to coach the many who come out to play.
This weekend you can see Hamilton Love in action when students from St. Thomas More come collecting for "Halloween for Hunger". Did you know they collected 66,263 lbs of food for the residents of Hamilton last Halloween!
If you have never seen Hamilton Love perhaps it is because you have never extended it yourself ? A smile is contagious, if you start to look for Hamilton Love, if you start to write down the signs you see of Hamilton Love then you will see more and more Hamilton Love around you. If you choose not to look, then you will never witness Hamilton Love. Most likely you will never extend some Hamilton Love and therefore if you are blind to it you may never receive Hamilton Love.
Isn't it funny how we can support our favorite MLB, NFL, CFL, and NHL sports teams through thick and thin, we extend grace to the lock out's we make excuses for the teams failures and we come right back next season and participate with our money and our hearts to cheer those teams on.
Why do we not extend the same grace to the City of Hamilton?
Why don't we support our art's, our teams, our council, our local businesses and most of all our every day hero's who live next door? Why expend any energy which is not positive at all. It is time to support those around us who are trying to shine a light on this City.
We are thankful to the arts' community, the Church community and the Hamilton Love community, they make Hamilton an exciting and wonderful city to live in.
Look around and you will find it, open up your eyes and keep those eyes open.
Today we thank Beaux Mondes for all the work they do, showing us all the many way's Hamilton Loves.
xoxo Aim & Mel
Sunday 30 September 2012
Supporting art's in your community.
Aim and I are very honored and indeed feel blessed to be supporting the Art Gallery of Hamilton's Cinema Hamilton Awards.
Today, September 30th, 2012 the Art Gallery of Hamilton is holding the closing event for the AGH BMO World Film Festival called the Cinema Hamilton Awards (The CHAs). The local independent film festivals have joined forces with the AGH World Film Festival to celebrate excellence in independent film production in Hamilton. Tonight's Cinema Hamilton Awards night is an exciting evening where the award winners are revealed and the prizes given in eight categories from Best Short Film to Best Feature Film.
We have provided use of centrepieces for the tables and we are honored to be along side great artisans in the community. This evenings theme is vintage Hollywood so we ran with inspirations from the 20's - 50's using milk glass vessels, french netting and feather accents among our fabric blooms and paper flowers. Tones of sepia, cream, ivory and white were combined, to provide depth and aged character in each arrangement.
Aim & I are both supporters of Independent film makers. Our big brother Brandon has been experimenting in film since he was young. Brandon went on to attend Humber Colleges' film program, upon completion (after a memorable experience involving cop's and the tactical team .. unplanned.. during filming... of a drive by shooting scene..) Brandon went on to produce many great bodies of work. Along the way, working with great friends and clients over at Partners Productions and now enjoys a career at Toronto's Dazmo Digital. Yes, we have a fondness and a respect for all aspects of film.
We congratulate the City of Hamilton’s Economic Development Office and Beaux Mondes for the giving of time and talent to produce the 2012 Cinema Hamilton Awards tonight at Theater Aquarius.
You can take a peek at our work for this event in the Etsy shop
SHOP ALTERNATIVE BLOOMS
Today, September 30th, 2012 the Art Gallery of Hamilton is holding the closing event for the AGH BMO World Film Festival called the Cinema Hamilton Awards (The CHAs). The local independent film festivals have joined forces with the AGH World Film Festival to celebrate excellence in independent film production in Hamilton. Tonight's Cinema Hamilton Awards night is an exciting evening where the award winners are revealed and the prizes given in eight categories from Best Short Film to Best Feature Film.
We have provided use of centrepieces for the tables and we are honored to be along side great artisans in the community. This evenings theme is vintage Hollywood so we ran with inspirations from the 20's - 50's using milk glass vessels, french netting and feather accents among our fabric blooms and paper flowers. Tones of sepia, cream, ivory and white were combined, to provide depth and aged character in each arrangement.
Aim & I are both supporters of Independent film makers. Our big brother Brandon has been experimenting in film since he was young. Brandon went on to attend Humber Colleges' film program, upon completion (after a memorable experience involving cop's and the tactical team .. unplanned.. during filming... of a drive by shooting scene..) Brandon went on to produce many great bodies of work. Along the way, working with great friends and clients over at Partners Productions and now enjoys a career at Toronto's Dazmo Digital. Yes, we have a fondness and a respect for all aspects of film.
We congratulate the City of Hamilton’s Economic Development Office and Beaux Mondes for the giving of time and talent to produce the 2012 Cinema Hamilton Awards tonight at Theater Aquarius.
You can take a peek at our work for this event in the Etsy shop
SHOP ALTERNATIVE BLOOMS
Friday 28 September 2012
Whos say's wedding season is over?
It has been a fantastic first year for us at Alternative Blooms!
The Etsy shop is booming and after some time off during the month of August, September has come in like a lion.
Of course when you take some time away from an online business you really have to ramp up your promoting the minute you get back to work. Aim and I decided to finally join a few Etsy treasury teams .. the serious ones. We are particularly enjoying the TAGT team.
We are obligated to curate and also visit the Etsy treasuries daily, which takes us an hour to properly complete. We are happy to say we have had some great treasury success recently with 300 - 400 views. We took the time last Friday to curate a treasury to honor our Dad - it being World Alzheimer day. It was well received by our TAGT family and we found a lot of great Alzheimer related items which we did not know existed, let alone on ETSY.
We currently have 2 commissioned weddings we are working on. Deanna's will be done by next Wednesday. This wedding features teal, light pink and hot pink anemone and white hydrangea. It is a full paper flower wedding with custom dye colours. It has been fun and challenging to mix the correct teal but we have finished our dye process and will move on to the assembly Monday.
Our second wedding is a fabric and paper mix. Samantha is having a December wedding so red has been incorperated along with an earthy natural feel by adding leaves to the design.
We will be sure to post pictures of both our weddings once they are done.
Our garland has been a staple in the Etsy store. Sold in purple, vintage apricot, white, blue and pink, strung on a vine wire, our brides are falling in love with it.
More orders are waiting in the wings as we try to add Holiday items to our collection.
We are full of table centers!! make sure you take a peek at them :)
SHOP ALTERNATIVE BLOOMS
Thursday 26 July 2012
An age old challenge ..
So, in the wedding world we have some challenges.
In fresh wedding design the challenges are far greater BUT no matter if it is Fresh or Faux this one challenge is universal.
Often brides fall in love with the romantic softness our bouquet's portray.
However a bride wants to keep in her colour scheme and somehow want's it incorporated.
Simple enough to do if it is a pale or pastel. With vibrant colours it is much trickier.
The harsh vibrance of deep tones really contrast with a soft romantic look and so the struggle begins.
This bouquet pictured is what we have so far for our client Michelle.
Michelle's dress is white and our hydrangea in this bouquet is just a shade off white.
The fabric flowers we have created are creamy with a pale blue centre.
Michelle's colour scheme is a persimmon orange-red, emerald-Aqua green (as echoed in our paper poppy) and a pale blue.
What we face here is a jarring contrast.
It was an old thought that cream against white would make the white dirty .. what are your thought's on this?
What can we do to make this bouquet look softer? what shade should the Hydrangea be changed too?
Let us know your thought's!
Aim & Mel
Off Beat Bride
Soo, as I said in our last post .. fun stuff this week!
Our past Etsy Bride was featured on a well trafficked Blog.
Here is the link Off Beat Bride and here are a few of the pictures Bailie sent us. Please visit the Off beat Bride site, it is amazing!
Further below you will find more pictures of this weeks work .. and some problem solving techniques for communication.
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Our past Etsy Bride was featured on a well trafficked Blog.
Here is the link Off Beat Bride and here are a few of the pictures Bailie sent us. Please visit the Off beat Bride site, it is amazing!
Further below you will find more pictures of this weeks work .. and some problem solving techniques for communication.
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Problem solving - communicating a visual art
After putting together a wedding this week our client still had a hard time with her bouquet. We had taken all of our images on your photo shelf in daylight. Her bouquet seemed to be looking a little flat thought we had made sure to follow her exact instructions. After taking images at serveral angles and different variance of day light during the day it then dawned on me.
My bride needed to see her bouquet being carried, on a person. We need to bring the bouquet to life for her.
I called on Iris to dawn her photo shoot dress and stand with the bouquet.
As soon as we sent this photo below our bride responded with in seconds! She was over the moon!
She was able to feel the romance, warmth and softness of her bouquet and visualize herself walking down the Isle holding it.
Pheww! job well done.
Weddings = busy hands !!
Wow, it has been a crazy week! We are trying to tie up loose ends this week.
Aim will be manning the shop next week while I take some time away. We will not be designing next week and Aim will be answering email's but she mostly likely will not quote weddings.
Aim was pleasantly surprised at the cost of shipping Claire's bouquet to Australia, we managed to ship it small packet - 6- 10 day's for less then $50.00 YEEEEHAWW!! NOW, this did not come with a tracking number (always makes us nervous) but the alternative is shipping over sea and that can take up to 10 weeks.. once the package is on the water you have no clue where it is until it makes landfall in Australia.
Soo lets post some pretty pictures of our work, you always like that :)
This bouquet was a sample for a potential client .. we have not heard back so we are figuring it is a no - go .. such is life :)
Aim will be manning the shop next week while I take some time away. We will not be designing next week and Aim will be answering email's but she mostly likely will not quote weddings.
Aim was pleasantly surprised at the cost of shipping Claire's bouquet to Australia, we managed to ship it small packet - 6- 10 day's for less then $50.00 YEEEEHAWW!! NOW, this did not come with a tracking number (always makes us nervous) but the alternative is shipping over sea and that can take up to 10 weeks.. once the package is on the water you have no clue where it is until it makes landfall in Australia.
Soo lets post some pretty pictures of our work, you always like that :)
This bouquet was a sample for a potential client .. we have not heard back so we are figuring it is a no - go .. such is life :)
This was Claire's bouquet which she will receive soon!!
These are our handmade paper pine cone flowers - Australia is very picky and we did not want to chance our package been confiscated for natural product in customs. Better safe then sorry!
This is Claire's hair clip we created for her
This was a wedding we created for Jamie from Braintree M.A. in the USA,
it should arrive to her in the next 10 day's.
This was a bridal bouquet we created with a matching boutonniere for our reporter friend Kayla in MillBrook N.Y.
We had some other exciting stuff this week and more pictures!
I will tell you about it in the next post :)
Friday 20 July 2012
Turning a Waltz into a flower
Good day,
We spent the morning tea staining paper for Claire's bouquet.
After sun drying it, we ran the paper through the printer to impress her wedding waltz notes.
Soon we will create the wedding blooms from our paper, we can hardly wait!!
More updates to come!
Aim
SHOP ALTERNATIVE BLOOMS
We spent the morning tea staining paper for Claire's bouquet.
After sun drying it, we ran the paper through the printer to impress her wedding waltz notes.
Soon we will create the wedding blooms from our paper, we can hardly wait!!
More updates to come!
Aim
SHOP ALTERNATIVE BLOOMS
Part 2!!
The fruit of our labour today.
Thursday 19 July 2012
A bouquet full of meaning
Today we were working on Claire's bouquet.
She is one of our Australian brides. Just to catch you up to speed, Australia's second wedding season is in what would be their Spring. Our September thru November is the perfect time to wed due to cooler temperatures. Soo we have been having a booming summer working with our Australian brides!
Claire's bouquet has been a work in progress for over a month.
She has been collecting materials for us to incorporate into her bouquet : buttons, pin's, fabric, lace from grandmothers, sisters and other family members. Sheet music will be made into flowers and fabric from Japan will bring hints of colour to the bouquet.
Claire has packaged it all up and sent it to us here in Canada. (A 10 day postal journey)
We received the package yesterday with wonderful instructions and guidance.
Today was Day 1 of 3.
SHOP ALTERNATIVE BLOOMS
We are still away's a way from completion but we think it is progressing nicely!
More pictures tomorrow!
Enjoy!
She is one of our Australian brides. Just to catch you up to speed, Australia's second wedding season is in what would be their Spring. Our September thru November is the perfect time to wed due to cooler temperatures. Soo we have been having a booming summer working with our Australian brides!
Claire's bouquet has been a work in progress for over a month.
She has been collecting materials for us to incorporate into her bouquet : buttons, pin's, fabric, lace from grandmothers, sisters and other family members. Sheet music will be made into flowers and fabric from Japan will bring hints of colour to the bouquet.
Claire has packaged it all up and sent it to us here in Canada. (A 10 day postal journey)
We received the package yesterday with wonderful instructions and guidance.
Today was Day 1 of 3.
SHOP ALTERNATIVE BLOOMS
More pictures tomorrow!
Enjoy!
Tuesday 17 July 2012
Bailie's Alternative wedding
It's been a little while but we have come with pictures!
Bailie was an Etsy client of ours from the USA (we - being in Canada). She was so kind to send along a thank you and some images to share with us.
Bailie is stunning! and of course she is the one in Blue!
Enjoy the photos!
Thank you Bailie!
Aim & Mel
SHOP ALTERNATIVE BLOOMS
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Bailie was an Etsy client of ours from the USA (we - being in Canada). She was so kind to send along a thank you and some images to share with us.
Bailie is stunning! and of course she is the one in Blue!
Enjoy the photos!
Thank you Bailie!
Aim & Mel
SHOP ALTERNATIVE BLOOMS
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Thursday 5 July 2012
Finding and earthy heaven in "PILLOTOPIA"
That's right! Pillotopia is now on @Etsy
We are really digging the bicycle pillow for our own stylish sofa's and I can pick at least 3 other pretty pink pillows for our daughters rooms!
OHH baby we feel a new accent wall colour coming on for our living room!
Please feel free to visit Hollie at Pillotopia on ETSY!
It's simple - click the link and make her a favourite!!
Pillotopia
We are really digging the bicycle pillow for our own stylish sofa's and I can pick at least 3 other pretty pink pillows for our daughters rooms!
OHH baby we feel a new accent wall colour coming on for our living room!
Please feel free to visit Hollie at Pillotopia on ETSY!
It's simple - click the link and make her a favourite!!
Pillotopia
Wednesday 4 July 2012
Guess where you can spot us!!
We made it into an Etsy Weddings email !!
Here is the link : Etsy Weekly picks : Princess Grace
Also you can find us down town Hamilton tonight at the Beehive collective group gathering with the Etsy Canada team! We had such a great time last month in Toronto soooo now we can't wait to dig in and get crafty with the Hamilton Art community and Etsy artists!
A little eye candy for today:
We have gone Aqua with our handmade Pearls and Poppies bouquet.
Let us know what you think!
Here is the link : Etsy Weekly picks : Princess Grace
Also you can find us down town Hamilton tonight at the Beehive collective group gathering with the Etsy Canada team! We had such a great time last month in Toronto soooo now we can't wait to dig in and get crafty with the Hamilton Art community and Etsy artists!
A little eye candy for today:
We have gone Aqua with our handmade Pearls and Poppies bouquet.
Let us know what you think!
Wednesday 27 June 2012
Carly's getting married !
Yes, she is!
She will be wed in November but things need to happen on our side a bit quicker because her bouquet will be taking the long journey from Canada to Australia .. boy do we wish we could deliver this in person!
Shipping to Australia is either fast or very, very, very slow. Typically it is over $100.00 USD for your bouquet to arrive in 6 - 10 day's.
We will cover the overage which sometimes happens. If you have some time then shipping will be most likely $55.00 but it can take over 3 months to reach Australia .. which can be painful to wait on !
Here is a little insight .. Carly has sent us images of the 2 gowns she will be choosing from. These gowns are so beautiful they make us want to get married again somewhere tropical so that we can spend a day wearing them!! AHH MAA ZING!!
We vote YES! .. not helpful I know but we really love both!!
She will also be wed on the "Hamilton Island" AUS and this too looks AHH MAA ZING!!
Here are the links if you want to check it out!
Bear in mind it is a little different then what you will find in Hamilton Ontario :0 but it is fun to think Carly's bouquet will be made in Hamilton Ontario and will be used in Hamilton AUS.
THE LINKS:
Hamilton AUS and here too http://www.hamiltonislandweddings.com.au/
She will be wed in November but things need to happen on our side a bit quicker because her bouquet will be taking the long journey from Canada to Australia .. boy do we wish we could deliver this in person!
Shipping to Australia is either fast or very, very, very slow. Typically it is over $100.00 USD for your bouquet to arrive in 6 - 10 day's.
We will cover the overage which sometimes happens. If you have some time then shipping will be most likely $55.00 but it can take over 3 months to reach Australia .. which can be painful to wait on !
Here is a little insight .. Carly has sent us images of the 2 gowns she will be choosing from. These gowns are so beautiful they make us want to get married again somewhere tropical so that we can spend a day wearing them!! AHH MAA ZING!!
We vote YES! .. not helpful I know but we really love both!!
She will also be wed on the "Hamilton Island" AUS and this too looks AHH MAA ZING!!
Here are the links if you want to check it out!
Bear in mind it is a little different then what you will find in Hamilton Ontario :0 but it is fun to think Carly's bouquet will be made in Hamilton Ontario and will be used in Hamilton AUS.
THE LINKS:
Hamilton AUS and here too http://www.hamiltonislandweddings.com.au/
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