Wedding Week: The Little Red Button

Here we go! Can you believe it is wedding week in my neck of the woods?  I sure can’t.

I wanted to share with you some of the amazing people I have had the chance to “meet” virtually and work with leading up to the big day.

I worked with Stacy Blair of the Little Red Button (+ a fellow Canadian) on my boutonnieres.

No, none of the pictures below are for my wedding but I wanted to give you a flavour of how crazy-talented Stacy is with paper.   I don’t know how she makes such beautiful things!

Photo Source: Little Red Button Etsy Shop

I was initially attracted to her work when I was looking for an alternative to real flowers.  I’m not a flower hater but I wanted to do something different.

In my search, I stumbled upon her paper creations and decided to reach out to her.  Stacy was a pleasure to work with and I look forward to seeing everything come together on Sunday.

flower arranging: Jeff Leatham

This morning I woke up and was motivated to make a cauliflower fennel soup before going to my afternoon Czech class. While chopping up my soup veggies,  I had the Discovery Channel’s Travel & Living playing in the background where a show titled, Chic City was on air.  Today’s show was profiling Paris and the city’s most creative and talented people.

While casually tuning in and out to what the announcer was saying, one person, in particular caught my attention:  Jeff Leatham, Artistic Director for the Four Season’s Hotel George V in Paris.  I think it was the statistics of how many flowers the hotel uses in a given month that first made me look up from cutting cauliflower.   Don’t quote me on the statistics exactly but I recall that Jeff changes over the hotel’s floral arrangements every four weeks and goes through something like 17,000 blooms  (from Amsterdam) and has a budget of $1m for the year.  Whatever the gargantuan number of flowers the hotel uses in its displays, Jeff is the luckiest guy I know.  He gets to work with a magnificent backdrop and dream up ways to inject more life, energy, drama and mood into the atmosphere via his flowers. He now has a show called Flowers Uncut on TLC if you are interested in seeing more about him and his work.

Jeff’s work is breathtaking, especially because of its volume and density.  Everywhere you look, the George V is bursting with colour, texture, glass all positioned at varying heights and angles.  Preston Bailey (whose work I also adore), you have competition across the Atlantic ocean!

via simply couture weddings

via lexington dorothy

via ariel yve

via blooms by the box

via entertaining chic

via style voyeur

Theurel & Thomas patisserie

Mexico just got a bit hipper with the addition of its first French patisserie dedicated to my favourite sweet, the macaron.  Designed by Anagrama, the Mexican design studio who did the shop’s interior and company branding, Theurel & Thomas looks like it will be a hit in its first location, the affluent neighbourhood of San Pedro in Mexico.  Anagrama did an excellent job with the white space to show off the colourful macaron and certainly achieved an elegant, stylish cafe atmosphere.  Best of luck to the new business. I’m sure it will do well.  Who doesn’t like macarons!?!?

via dezeen

via cool boom

via dezeen

via theurel thomas

via theurel thomas

stunning flower arrangement

No words to describe how stunning, yet simple this flower arrangement is by Nancy Chin in San Francisco (her main site can be accessed here)

cherry blossoms

Today is the first day of spring.  Happy spring.  I am spending the weekend out east in Cobourg (about an hour drive east of Toronto) relaxing with family, good food and lots of magazines! 

To celebrate the first day of spring, I wanted to write a post about one of my favourite flowers that put on a big show in spring, cherry blossoms.  Blooming anywhere from January in certain areas in Japan to May depending on climate, these delicate pink flowers are not to be missed.  I plan to coordinate one of my Asia trips to coincide with the cherry tree blossoms one of these years. 

In Toronto’s High Park, there is an annual cherry blossom walk late April- early May if you want to check out the spectacular colours and fragrances.  Vancouver also has a cherry blossom festival, with all the event information and activities here.  One last festival to check out is the National Cherry Blossom festival in Washington that starts the end of next week info here. 

floral sculptures

Preston Bailey, who i’ve written about before, is rediculously talented!

Here is a shot of the three floral sculptures Preston created in the New York Public Library for the Monday night gala of Bridal Fashion Week held in October 2010.

via preston bailey

via preston bailey