Always better with a model...

We take hundreds of pictures every week. Almost nothing is sent out with at least a mini photo shoot. It is just as important to have a lovely portfolio of our paper designs as we use to have for our fresh wedding designs.

If rushed for time we snap our designs in our backrop room with a vintage shabby chic dresser as our back drop.
Mel found the dresser while thrifting and she added a few coats of paint and a bit of glaze to add some distress, giving it the lovely shabby look.

However, we have found the photos Etsy favors are with a model. This meaning, most all of our front page or Etsy newsletter photos have been the ones chosen with a model in them.
So, we do take the time to photograph with Iris as our model. Often a white background is favorable for treasuries, we dress her up in a white dress or pretty blouse and she is off and running for our photos.

This week we were able to wrangle her in for a mini shoot before we hit the post office with our finished orders. She never likes her face to be included .. sometimes it has to be .. for example our halos ! but for these shots we just cut her off at the chin .. so to speak ;)
 Here are a few beauties to share with you.

Enjoy!

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/

 

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

 http://www.kjandco.ca/2012/12/etsy-round-up-cheery-yellow-wedding.html

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.

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 :)

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 :) 

  

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

Part 2!!

The fruit of our labour today.

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!

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

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!

funny thing just happened

She loves to creep into photo shoots ..
LOL

Love this bouquet?

SHOP ALTERNATIVE BLOOMS

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/

SHOP ALTERNATIVE BLOOMS