PSA from The Spiraled Stem:

Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Orange County is hosting a “BIG” night on Thursday January 22, 2009 from 6-8:30pm at the Oakley Headquarters in Lake Forest.  It’s a fun, no-pressure opportunity to learn more about becoming a Big, meet current Big Brothers and Big Sisters and grab some delicious (and absolutely free) food and drinks.  This is your chance to check out Oakley’s unique facility and even get a behind-the-scenes tour of the Oakley factory.  And that’s not all – the evening will feature a talk with Pro Skateboarder and X-Games winner Lyn-Z Adams Hawkins.

 

 

I’ve been a Big Sister for 8 years (has it really been that long!) and its a great program to be involved in to mentor a young child. This could be a great way to respond to Obama’s call to service! BTW I was glued to the inauguration coverage all day today. Please go to the event if you can, or contact them directly for more information at www.bigbrooc.org

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FlowerDIYvas is hosting a FREE Seminar on how to do your own wedding flowers at our Anaheim location on Wednesday, January 28, 2009 from 6:30pm-8:00pm. Visit our website at www.FlowerDIYvas.com to register and for directions.

Please help us out by Taking Our Survey and we will mail you a free copy of Serendipity Magazine!

At the FREE seminar, you will see demonstrations on some of the items you will learn and practice making at the FlowerDIYvas workshops.

Attendees to the FREE Seminar will receive a VERY SPECIAL introductory rate on their Spring 2009 FlowerDIYvas workshop registration.

This is a very limited time offer available to brides who come to the FREE seminar. This price is an excellent deal and won’t last forever – take advantage of our introductory rate and you will be on your way to saving HUNDREDS by doing your own wedding flowers.

email at info@FlowerDIYvas.com or call us at 714-632-6885 for more details or to register!

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2009 is already off to a crazy busy start, and I am dying to share with you what I have been feverishly working on for the last few weeks. Two major announcements: both are designed to help brides who are struggling with their budgets but still want beautiful, quality flowers for their weddings. In addition to our full service and reasonably priced custom wedding flowers where we create your vision together and you leave all of the work to the professionals, we are now offering our brides two additional options:

Announcement One: FlowerDIYvas!

I have partnered with Dawn Hansen from Lavender Hill to offer FlowerDIYvas, DIY wedding floral design workshops for brides who are considering doing their own flowers. I did my own flowers back in 2003, and even with the experience of 7 years in the floral business and having done several weddings, there were things that I did/didn’t do that made my life a lot more difficult than it had to be during those days surrounding our wedding. I’ll tell you the full story some other time. In the meantime, brides who are thinking about doing their own flowers to save money can learn from our years of experience – we will help you have a gorgeous, polished, and reduced stress wedding for less! Visit www.FlowerDIYvas.com for all of the details and to register!

 

If through the workshop experience a bride realizes that she will be in over her head and that DIY flowers are not for her, she can apply a portion of her workshop fees to full service wedding flowers. Or for brides who know they don’t want to do their own flowers but are still looking for a great low price for their flowers, The Spiraled Stem is now offering a lower priced collection. This leads me to… 

Announcement Two: the e collection!

 

Wedding flower collections that are easy on the environment and your budget.

I designed the e collection for the bride who is looking for uncomplicated design, a personalized touch, and a great value for her wedding flowers. The bride chooses her color scheme and preferred accent flower, and our designers do the rest – we select the freshest VeriFlora-certified sustainably grown flowers available and create a perfectly coordinated collection for the bride’s special day.

All collections feature VeriFlora-certified roses with the bride’s choice of accent flower and color scheme. Standard accent flowers are spray roses, tulips, freesia or rununculus (as seasonally available); premium accent flowers are mini callas, cymbidium orchids, or dahlias (as seasonally available). Prices are the same for standard vs. premium accent flowers, there are just less of the premium accent flowers in the arrangements.

All collections range between $1900 to $2300 and are based on four attendants for each the bride and groom and ten reception tables (100 guests). Choose from three options for the ceremony setup – a gazebo, an arch, or two pedestal pieces – and three price points for the centerpiece – $30, $40, or $50. Visit the e collection page on our website for all of the details!

 

With both FlowerDIYvas and the e collection, brides with all ranges in budgets will be able to have The Spiraled Stem touch on their wedding flowers. Please help us spread the news by posting about FlowerDIYvas and the e collection on your blog or website, and Contact us today for a consultation!

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Happy New Year! I hope that your 2009 is off to a fabulous start. There are some exciting things going on here at The Spiraled Stem Floral Design, and I will be sharing them with everyone in the next few days. My new years resolution is to blog more consistently, so lets see how far I can go before falling off the wagon. And I need my readers to keep me accountable, bug me for new blog posts!

First on the list are new publications… The Spiraled Stem is featured in the premiere issue of Serendipity Magazine, Inspirations for the Asian Bride, and the gorgeous hard-bound, full color book Green Wedding, Planning Your Eco-Friendly Celebration. Lets start with the details on Green Wedding.

Green Wedding, Planning Your Eco-Friendly Celebration, is written my Mireya Navarro, New York Times Style Correspondent. The book is available at all major booksellers (I got mine at Borders for $35) in the wedding section, or you can go to Mia’s website www.mireyanavarro.com to order online and view excerpts. It is a beautiful and classy book on how to have a green wedding without sacrificing style, and has tips on everything from food, flowers, decor, attire, invitations, registry, honeymoons, and living a green lifestyle after the wedding.

I was honored to have been interviewed by Mia for the book last January, a whole year ago, and to have contributed photos to the book as well. They printed 15 images of my flowers! Its also way cool that my name is indexed - that’s right - you’ll find me under S on page 206, just below Sasawashi (a sustainable fabric) and just above Arnold Schwarzenegger, our environmental crusader governor who gets scolded for commuting to Sacramento from LA by private plane. Spiraled Stem Floral Design is indexed too! Mia also included me in the acknowledgments as one of the “several pioneers in the green market” who offered invaluable guidance and “are as much educators as they are business people”. Its a privlege to be in that company!

I was also able to point Mia towards one of my green wedding brides from 2008, Katie Malouf. Her wedding has been featured on the blog here and also in our photo gallery here. Katie is featured in Chapter 6: The Decor, Natives or Jet-Setters? and Mia shares how Katie wanted to use grass for her centerpieces before she knew there were eco-friendly, VeriFlora-certified flowers available through me. Be sure to turn right to Page 94 for the story!

I am working on scheduling a book signing with the author to take place here at the studio in the next couple of months, so stay tuned for that! You can pick up a copy and have her sign it here for you. Books would also be on sale at the signing, but don’t wait until then.

As a bonus, I am offering one free book to the first person to comment on this blog post with the names of the two varieties of VeriFlora Certified roses that were featured in Katie’s wedding.

The next new publication The Spiraled Stem is featured in is the premiere issue of Serendipity Magazine: Inspiration for Asian Brides. In 2008 I had the opportunity to work a lot with Caroline Chang from Serenity Events. She was working on launching a new magazine that catered to an underserved market, the Asian bride. This resulted in a beautiful new glossy magazine that will publish twice a year. Several of our favorite bouquets are featured in the Beautiful Florals article on page 38.

They are not currently available in bookstores, so please email me at christine@thespiraledstem.com with your name and current mailing address, and I will get a copy in the mail to you as a gift from me!

We are honored to have been featured in these fabulous publications, what a great start to 2009!

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