LOVEly flowershops: La Frénésie in Brussels

Hello Everyone, It's a long time since I have found or taken the time to write a blogpost. I still take lots of photos and still make lots of bouquets but somehow, with my little family, my full time job and my 2 hours commuting time every day, I don't know anymore when to blog.

Maybe I should rebrand my little online space or start thinking about new projects to find some new motivation for the blog. In fact I have been working on a new visual identity for madame love with a designer friend for some time now, but I need to stick to it and advance on that project too!

Well well, enough about my little "etats d'ame" as the French would say and back to my blogpost. 

Today, I would like to show you a lovely flowershop I visited when I was in Brussels a couple of weeks ago with Mr. Love. This shop is situated in the Marolles district of Brussels, on the square where the gorgeous fleamarket takes place every Sunday. It is called La Frénésie and it is full with lovely vintage decoration and pretty flowers. I love visiting flower shops when I go on holiday somewhere and show you the pictures here. I wish you all a great start in this new week! I hope I will find the way back to this wonderful thing that is blogging. In the meantime, if you want to see and here more of me, I am still microblogging on Instagram! Elodie

La Frénésie 67 Place du Jeu de Balles Brussels +32 473 71 09 08

monochrome bouquet: purple!

Hello everyone! I hope you are all doing well! The week is already a bit old, but today I would like to show you the flowers I shot at home on Sunday. The weather was cold but very sunny and I enjoyed the nap of the little miss to make a bouquet and do my first open air shooting at home in the garden. It was very enjoyable! I decided to mix different flowers but to stick to one colour: purple.  I really like monochrome bouquets - sticking to one colour and playing with shapes and palettes. I think, that way, you notice better the different colours of the scabiosa and of the heart of the anemone.  For this bouquet, I chose:

• scabiosa
• veronica
• anemones 
• eucalyptus (for the green touch)

You can see which is which in the picture underneath. 

What about you? How do you like your bouquets? Do you like to go colourful or to stick to one main colour? I wish you all a great day! Elodie

first anemones of 2015 - first bouquet of the year

Good morning everyone! Here is my first bouquet for you this year. Thank you for your comments here and on Instagram about my 2014 bouquets. It gives me the energy to continue making them and sharing them with you here. I chose a simple multicolour bouquet of anemones. I also like the simplicity of white anemones but those little colourfull bouquets remind me of my childhood. I am still not really installed and settled in my new life and I have to fight quite a bit with several administrations in France and in Germany. I hope it will all be okay soon and I will find the way back to blog and to flower styling. I wish you all a great day! Elodie  

A bouquet of Clematis and Aquilegia

Hello everyone! Just a short post to show you my bouquet today from the #onebouquetperday series while I am in France. Today I decided to make a bouquet with some clematis and a couple of aquilegia in the same shade of pink. I hope you will like them. They don't last very long in a vase, but I still like them very much. See you tomorrow for the next flowers from my parents garden. I might show you some more Pierre de Ronsard roses before the end of the week as they are just gorgeous at the moment. Have a great day! Elodie

My green Amsterdam

Hello everyone, as promised on Instagram, here comes my blogpost about the green side of lovely Amsterdam. After two pretty intensive days visiting the Keukenhof park and the flower bulb region, I had a very nice and relaxing Sunday in Amsterdam with my friend Ivona. I had my camera with as we went for a walk and I decided to take another angle for my blogpost about Amsterdam and to show you the green side of the city. So no canal houses, bikes on the bridges or boats on the water even though they are beautiful.  I am showing you the green side of the city, but not the obvious green side, with the blooming cherry trees and the lovely parks, but the plants and flowers in front of the houses and in the shop windows. When you walk around Amsterdam, you really realise, how much the flowers are loved in this city and how beautifully they are displayed. So here are a couple of photos, I took during my walk in the city centre of Amsterdam, in the restaurants and cafés and even in the lobby of the beautiful Rijksmuseum. So here are some wisteria, rosebuds, lilac and clematis for you, and of course also a couple of tulips! I wish you a great day! I will be back soon with a round to my visit to the daffodils festival on Saturday on some designers I love.  Have a great afternoon! Elodie

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A little garden in France

Hello everyone, on my way to the Joyeuse Clique Workhop at the beginning of April with parents, we stopped at my Mum's best friend house in a little village in Burgundy and I wanted to share some pictures of her lovely garden with you. It was the beginning of April and the garden was full of pansies and little daisies planted in very pretty pots and Medicis vases.  I wish you a great day! Speak to you soon, Elodie

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Easter decoration idea: Hortensia on your table

Hello everyone,I just come back from the very inspiring Joyeuse Clique stylism blogger's session in the South of France. I have just been reviewing the pictures and I can't wait to show you the outcome in the next few days.

Today I would like to show you what you can do with Hortensia (also called Hydrangea). 

Hortensia is one of my favourite flowers.  They look so splendid in a garden and, as they love water, they are the perfect plants in rainy regions, such as Northern Germany where I live, the west coast of France or of course Great Britain. Of course, It is not quite spring yet and you are more likely to find hydrangeas in the flower shop than in your garden. So I have decided to show you some ideas of what you can do with a pot that you can buy from the flower shop.  If you take blue hortensia, you can create a very nice table decoration around it, with shades of green and purple. This can make a nice table for an easter brunch. I love that time of year, but I don't need to overdecorate my table with hundreds of painted eggs or tiny kitsch hares.  The good thing with decorating with flowers in a pot is that you can recycle them afterwards by planting them in your garden or in a nice pot on your balcony or terrace. 

Anyone who has ever had hydrangeas knows that they can be a bit tricky. That is over now, because of the new generation of hydrangeas that are easy to maintain, such as the hydrangeas of Forever&Ever^®. Those, unlike older varieties, flower on one-year-old wood, i.e. even after cutting back or frost each branch still bears flowers IN THE SAME YEAR. And that also means: if you cut some branches to put them in a vase, the flowers on the plant will bloom again that same year!

 If you are invited to an easter lunch or brunch this year, why not bring an hortensia as a present. It's a present that is made to last. I love for instance the red variety from Forever&Ever^®.

I wish you a great day and talk to you soon, Elodie

PS: This post is sponsored by Forever&Ever^®. However, my views about this plant are my own and haven't been influenced in any way.

Some more anemones!

Hello everyone, I am so happy the #2flowergirls is back on track. We have received some very pretty entries so far and there are some more still coming. You can see some of those beauties on our Pinterest board. After I had photographed mine at the beginning of the week, I found some more anemones, this time in deep red and bright pink, that I combined with some crazy good looking red and pink scabiosa. Here are some pictures for you, along with some pictures of my favourite flower shop in Hamburg where I found those beautiful anemones called Küchenblume. I already presented the shop here, but it was so pretty the other day, that I had to show you more pictures. I wish you a great day full of flowers! Elodie

Magnolia Multiflora in my living room

Good morning everyone, Do you like magnolias? I do and I always did.
When I was a little girl my parents had a beautiful magnolia tree in their garden, and I loved to climb on it. It was a MAGNOLIA GRANDIFLORA, with a few big flowers. In the summer, my mum would sometimes take one flower, and put in a small vase at the centre of a summer table. The big white flower looked fantastic and had a very delicate smell. Such a sweet childhood memory.
Now, I don't have a garden, but I am still fascinated by this tree and its flowers. I found this beautiful branch of MAGNOLIA MULTIFLORA in my local flower shop. It hadn't bloomed when I bought it, and it took about 2 weeks to start, but eventually, the first pink bloom started to show and was wonderful. When you buy a twig of magnolia and put it in the water, it can take 5 to 6 weeks to bloom, or not bloom at all. So I was very lucky!
This one was huge! more than a meter high. It would have looked fabulous in a loft, but it didn't really fitted in my flat, so I cut in smaller branches and made two smaller bouquets out of them, so that it would look nice in my space and put it on a wooden box filled with books.
What about you? Do you like magnolia? Which flowers or branches do you like to have in your home in January?
Speak to you soon,
Elodie

LOVEly Flower Shop: SAXIFRAGA

Hello everyone!Here is another flower shop I visited for my article in sisterMAG last year. This shop is all about mini-bouquets. If you read my blog, you know I like mini-bouquets. My lovely #2flowergirls Inga from glomerylane calls me the "mini-bouquet lover"!

Saxifraga in Hamburg, is one of my all time favourite flower shop. Forget everything you know about flower shops before you go there. The owner Carola Wineberger is a very creative lady and really manages to create atmospherical flower compositions.  The shop is situated in the very creative district called Karolinenviertel or Karoviertel and surrounded by many small shops with a lot of handmade fashion and decoration items.

She makes some very small bouquets and displays them in recycled jars or shot glasses – they really look like the ones I loved making when I was a child - and still make now. No vase is small enough for these little beauties. She sells them for a couple of Euros. I find it so refreshing to find that kind of bouquet in a flower shop. So far away from all those pre-formated bouquets you find everywhere with gerberas and a lot of green.

Have a great day and speak to you soon! Elodie

SAXIFRAGA Website Glashüttenstraße 100 20357 Hamburg Mo-Fr. 10:00 - 18:00 Sat.: 10:00 – 16:00

New vases collection by Räder

Hello everyone,
Last year in November I was invited to the press event of the German company Räder, for the presentation of their new home collection, with among others some new vases that I am very found of. I will be styling some flowers in those vases this spring, but now that the presentation has been shown to the public (It was shown today at the Nordstil Fair in Hamburg) I can show you some images of those pretty vases. I am so happy to see some more creative vases on the market this days. The mini vases collection is great and I am a big fan of the lady looking at the fishes. The size is really good for bigger branches and bouquets.
The presentation took place in one of my favourite cafés in Hamburg called Herr Max. A very stylish and nostalgic café with a lot of flair. I will show some pictures of Herr Max later this week.
I wish you a great week!
Talk to you soon,
Elodie

#2flowergirls #8 - Chrysanthemum edition

Hello dear flower girls and boys, I hope you are all doing well! The time has come for the new edition of my #2flowergirls project with my dear Inga from the blog glomerylane. As Inga is in hospital at the moment, as I explained last week, I am a single flower girl this time. You can put the link to your blogpost under this post.

If you want to participate for the first time, you can read here how it works. Inga and I decided to style this underestimated flower for the November edition: the chrysanthemum. I have always liked them, even though it's not the first flower that comes to my mind when I am going to a flower shop. So this time, I am going out of my comfort zone as well and not stlyling a most-loved or favourite flower. One of the good things with chrysanthemums is that they are very strong flowers that will last a long time when cut. The glass vase is from Zara home and is sold as a bathroom accessory but I found it far too pretty not to put flowers in it.  The little vase is a tea cup from the Alice collection by Vienna-based artist Sandra Haischberger.  I bought it at the great Milchmädchen shop as a birthday present for myself, with a little bouquet in mind of course! I love the soft and grey colours of the collection. I took the cup in soft pink and the saucer in dark grey. I hope you will enjoy my styling. I can't want to see what you have been up to! xxx Elodie

Some dahlias for baby love

Hello everyone,

When I saw these gorgeous dahlias at the market yesterday, I couldn't resist! I decided to be crazy and spend € 2.50 even if I could go to the hospital any moment now, as I am already 8 days overdue. I think the shades of pink, red and purple are just beautiful. They make me look forward to the autumn and its fantastic range of warm colours. I also wanted to use my new mini-medicis vase I found last week. So here are a couple of photos for you and for my baby love. Maybe she will want to come out if she already feels the beauty of flowers. Have a nice day and talk to you soon! Elodie

Flowers from Sabine's garden

Hello everyone, I am not making so many bouquets these days, but luckily my friends still are and I love looking at them. Today I would like to show you the little wonders from Sabine's garden. Sabine is a German copywriter and blogger and online shop-owner. Her lovely blog is called azurweiss and her shop la mesa. We first met virtually through the swapping action Post aus meiner Küche last year and in real life in February in Munich during the blogger meet up "I love you blogs and coffee". She posts a lot of charming flower arrangements on her blog, and has participated many times in our #2flowergirls photo challenge. I am a big fan of her Instagram feed, where she posts a lot of lovely flowers. She usually presents simple flowers in very pretty glass or white china vases.  Some are from the flea-market and some can be purchased in her online-store.

Today, I am so glad to be showing you some of Sabine's bouquets from her beloved garden along with a little interview:

Dear Sabine, what kind of flowers do you grow in your garden?

I’m very much in love with cottage gardens and I grow typical cottage garden flowers like cornflowers, cosmoses, delphiniums, peonies and old roses together with tons of herbs like sage, rosemary, mint and chives. And not to forget some tomatoes, courgette and pumpkins. Our garden looks quite romantic and often a little bit higgledy-piggledy (because I don’t have time to keep all the weeds away) but this contrasts quite well with our  house which is pure white and very functionalist, almost Bauhaus-style.

What does your garden mean to you?

Honestly –  I think I couldn’t live without it. Working in the garden just makes me happy and I wish I had more time to spend in this little green relaxing zone.

What kind of vases do you like using for your bouquets?

Most of my vases are made of white porcelain, many of them are vintage. I like to arrange them in groups with flowers assorted by colours – mostly white, pale pink or blue. I also use transparent or blue glass vases or even glasses (vintage or new). Liqueur glasses for example are wonderful to arrange flowers like forget-me-nots or single blossoms. Especially in autumn and winter I often use rough ceramics (mostly vintage) to decorate, for example, dahlias, asters or just branches.

Thank you so much Sabine for sharing with us your lovely pictures and your love for flowers.

I wish you all a great day and hope to talk to you soon if baby love doesn't decide to make an appearance. Only 7 days to go! xxx Elodie

(c) All photography by Sabine Wittig

#onebouquetperday by Juliane

Hello everyone,

I met Juliane at the Hive Conference in Berlin last May and spent a lovely Saturday evening chatting with her and a few other girls. Juliane is German and was born in Berlin, but now she lives in the Swedish countryside.

She is a puppeteer by profession (she studied puppetry/ performing arts in Berlin), and she has been making dolls for children since 2009. She doesn't have a driver's license, that is why she walks a lot, which makes it much easier for picking flowers. She shares her beautiful creations and DIY tutorials on her blog Fröken Skicklig.

I started following Juliane on Instagram after we met in Berlin, and that's how I discovered her lovely #onebouquetaday project. I like it so much that I wanted to share it with you on my blog. So there you go - here are a few words from Juliane, explaining her #onebouquetperday project, and her creative way to use Instagram in order to feel more at home in her new surroundings through flowers. I love how she presents her bouquets and I love the fact that you usually also see the pretty flowery pattern on her dress in the background.

I started with Instagram about two months ago. I have spent very little time online and entertained quite a few doubts whether yet another virtual channel would be wise or not. I am not the sort of person who feels the need to blog every day about what I am wearing or to instagram photos of umpteen bowls with cereals and latte macchiato glasses. 

I find it hard to resist picking flowers when we are outside, a habit I inherited from my mother, I guess. She is a passionate gardener, and her hands are never idle, she finds flowers everywhere, in the forest or on a dump in the middle of Berlin. As a child, I often found it embarrassing that she would pick lavender in abandoned allotment gardens or weeds in a city park to arrange in vases on almost every window sill and table at home. But as with so many other habits of your parents, you too end up doing the same once you reach a certain age (I am 35 years old, still plenty of years to fill with funny habits...)

We have recently moved to a new place, an old farmhouse from 1850, deep in the forest in Skåne, Southern Sweden. The garden is overgrown, and it will take some time until my flower beds are in full bloom. I take lots of walks to get to know the surroundings and pick flowers on my strolls through the woods and the fields. Taking a photo every day of the bouquet I have picked makes it easier for me to call this new place our home. It also helps me to share some of the excitement and all the new impressions with my family in Germany. A few others have started to use the hash tag #onebouquetperday which is really nice. There is a Norwegian girl who shares her daily bouquets on Instagram as well, and we find it so interesting to see what the two of us pick the same day, Elisa on her strolls through the bleak landscape in the mountains, and me on my strolls through the woods here in Skåne. Time passes so quickly and it does me good to have these moments of contemplation and quiet, to pick flowers, to take a photo and to enjoy the colours and scents. I love to see the seasons of the year changing, the first wood anemones were showing their white heads and rosy cheeks when we arrived, and I am already looking forward to seeing them again next year.

I am amazed with the variety of flowers Juliane could find around her house. That makes me want to move to Sweden!

Here are some examples of what she found: field scabious, lupine, bellflower, meadowsweet, sea aster, black horehound, dame's rocket, pearlwort, yellow loosestrife, phlox, bugle, pelargonium, lemon balm, aconite, foxglove, raspberry twigs, red elderberry....

Dear Juliane, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and your lovely flowers with us today. I wish you all a beautiful day! xxx Elodie

All pictures © by Juliane Strittmatter

LOVEly flower blogs #5: Studio Abloom

Hello everyone, I hope you had a great  weekend. Today I am very excited to be welcoming Laurie on my blog. I met her and her lovely blog virtually last June as she participated in the peonies edition of the #2flowergirls project with Glomerylane. I instantly fell in love with her styling and photos, and asked her to present her fairly young blog Studio Abloom to you today and how she plans to develop it . I completely agree with Laurie when she says that "floral arrangements are really just like little gardens", but I don't want to spoil everything, so here goes to the interview. I wish you a great week full of flowers! Elodie

Who are you and what are you talking about on your blog?

Hello everyone, I’m Laurie Wheeler, a photographer, stylist and designer with a love for flowers and gardens. My blog, Studio Abloom, is where I cast the seeds of my work out into the world. It’s kind of a young blog, but I see it as a place where I write about florals and gardens from the perspective of our senses and emotions as well as style, design and historical details. I also like to feature the use of floral and garden references in art, design, fashion and other parts of our everyday lives. And I include the process of restoring the garden that surrounds my late 18th century home and feature my own floral designs using my own garden-grown, local and foraged materials.

Visual images play a big part in my work, so my photography is a major feature of the blog. I’m a true romantic and so there is an ethereal and poetic feel to my photos and musings. I’m excited to be working with video as well and look forward to adding that to the blog soon. Eventually, I’d like to travel afar with my cameras to do garden and floral “interviews” for my readers. If they can’t be in a garden or have a floral arrangement sitting near them, then perhaps a beautiful photo or video would be the next best thing.

Gardens, to me, directly connect us with the natural world. Floral arrangements are really just like little gardens – only more immediate and portable. And floral and garden motifs are increasingly found in the design world. There are deep restorative powers in gardens and flowers. The senses come alive and their beauty touches us deeply. All can become right when in a garden or amongst flowers. I think we have a built-in desire to take care of what we love. So perhaps, in some little way, my work will instill a love that will ultimately help the planet. You just never know!

I look forward to seeing what Studio Abloom grows into and sharing it with you all as it blooms.

“When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment.” Georgia O’Keefe

Where does your passion for flowers come from?

It may have started early on with the lilac bush that grew outside my bedroom window as a child, or the side of the garage at my childhood home that was lined with rows of lily of the valley. Or maybe the small bouquets of garden roses my mother would sometimes put on my bedside table.

But I think it really took root when I left the corporate world after a period of intense work and travel as a visual merchandiser and stylist for a major women’s clothing retailer. I was really burned out. Soon thereafter, I was hired on by a world-renowned botanical garden as a consultant and buyer to re-style and re-merchandise their gift shop. As a side benefit, I was able to take classes there and worked my way towards a certificate in Ornamental Horticulture. I also took classes in garden and floral design. When I wasn’t in the shop I was out in the gardens. It was a very healing time for me. I travelled to France for vacation around that time and had a brief stay in Paris. I didn’t want to see  museums or really anything other than flower shops! It was that particular time that I looked back on recently when I needed to heal from a very tough personal life situation and I remembered how much I loved working with flowers and being in the garden. So I’m finding my way back to that now. As a designer and a lover of nature, garden and floral design really speak to me as it combines the two beautifully. It also has the sustainability that I find so essential now. I can do it in my back yard and on my kitchen table. I love the ephemeral quality, though it can make me a bit melancholy when the flowers come and go so quickly. My photographs help me get over that. I love the way flowers make me feel. They really are very powerful.

What inspires you?

I’m inspired by my surroundings – home and garden. It’s really hard to separate the two. I have a very deep connection to both. I live in rural Maine, so it’s definitely a bit wilder than what I’ve been used to. I can see that becoming incorporated in my work. It’s a very different gardening experience than what I’ve been used to. I spend a lot of time whacking back the wildness. But I ultimately want to work with it instead of fight against it. There is so much here that I want to work with.

I’m always using my eyes, if not all of my senses. I see in detail more often than broad views, so I can be inspired by anything at anytime. Fashion, movies, history, art, music, shops – they all play their part. I’m always prepared to receive inspiration no matter where I am or what I’m doing. It can often be in the most unlikely places! Because I’m living somewhat remotely, I rely a lot on the internet to stay connected. It used to be books and magazines that I devoured. Now it’s websites. I use Pinterest almost daily as a warm-up exercise to my creative work. Though I do still love and devour books and magazines!

What is your favorite flower?

As a photographer, designer and stylist, typically I fall in love with the specific flower I’m working with. As a gardener, it’s the one that’s currently in bloom. Oh, but okay, if I really must choose just one, it would have to be a heavily scented garden rose. The right rose can definitely make me weep. I am not exaggerating this.

Which other flower blogs are you reading regularly?

I’m enthralled with all the work so many are doing with flowers right now. Though I’m not yet in the business of designing for weddings, I do love seeing all the flower combinations on wedding blogs and they are usually photographed so beautifully. And flowers have been popping up on just about every other kind of blog recently too! On trend!

One of my favorite go-to flower blogs is Worlds End Farm. Sarah (of Saipua) and Eric live in a similar environment as mine and I love seeing what Sarah is doing with the materials that surround her. It also makes me think about doing some flower farming. I have to give a shout out to Chelsea Fuss of Frolic. She was my most recent floral design teacher and her work as a commercial floral and prop stylist is very inspiring to me.

I’m learning so much from so many and they have no idea how much inspiration they give me to go down this road. I’m really grateful to them all. And to you, Elodie! Thank you so much for this opportunity to share Studio Abloom with your readers!

In no specific order, here are a few others... (and oh, there are so much more!)

Floret Flowers Max Gill Design Emerson Merrick Amy Osaba Tinge Floral McKenzie Powell Petal Floral Design Odorantes-Paris

And my favorite gardener and garden writer/spokesperson Monty Don

You can find Studio Abloom on the web here:

www.studioabloom.com www.facebook.com/studioabloom www.instagram.com/laurie_wheeler www.pinterest.com/lauriewheeler www.twitter.com/lauriewcreative

(c) All photography by Studio Abloom

THE Quintessential MAGAZINE: Flower Issue

Hello everyone, Today I would like to share a new discovery from Australia with you: THE Quintessential MAGAZINE.

It is a beautiful online Magazine and the 5th Issue: THE PORTRAIT OF A FLOWER went live today. It is a free, but you need to register to read the full publication. The E-mag is curated by the Australian vintage shop Quintessential DuckeggBLUE. The layout, the styling and the photographs are just beautiful with a lot of patina and charm and offers the readers a great online experience.

The flower issue opens with this words from Marc Chagall ‘Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers - and never succeeding’ . The issue is all about dramatic displays and how flowers can transform a space.

The interview with London’s Wild at Heart florist Nikki Tibbles is very inspiring and beautifully illustrated.

Stephanie Somebody, the Instagram sensation with more than more 126.000 followers is also presenting her floral compositions in the issue.

I hope you will enjoy this new discovery as much as I did. I wish you  a great Thursday. xxx Elodie

You can follow THE Qintessential MAGAZINE on Pinterest Facebook Instagram

(Images: via THE Quintessential MAGAZINE)

LOVEly flower blogs #4 - Tulipina

Good morning, Today I am delighted to introduce you to the wonderful Kiana - from the blog Tulipina. She has a very natural and creative style and uses a lot of unusual vessels for her bouquets. In this little interview,  you can discover a little more about Tulipina and about Kiana's story. You can read the other interviews from the LOVEly flower blogs series, here, here and here. I hope you will enjoy it. I don't want to spoil anything, but the pictures are just stunning! Have a nice Monday! Elodie

Who are you and what are you talking about in your blog?

Hi, I’m Kiana Underwood – floral designer at Tulipina. My blog is focused on beautiful floral design and DIY – using as much of the natural beauty that surrounds us. I love to design using unique vessels, and I love more eclectic rather than traditional floral design. In addition, I do a lot of event work, and really enjoy quirky and eclectic weddings.

Where does your passion for flowers come from?

My mother always had fresh flowers in the home growing up, and I was privileged to have access to some lovely gardens as a child. I think that these things certainly inspired a passion for flowers. I received a Master’s degree in International Relations, but didn’t get very far into a career before deciding to have children. While I had very regularly put together floral arrangements for family and friends, I decided to turn this passion into a business in 2011, and it’s been amazing for me creatively to explore my passion on an everyday basis.

What inspires you?

There is so much natural beauty that surrounds us, and I get an enormous amount of inspiration from my garden, as well as my neighborhood. I am very fortunate to live in California, which has a moderate climate that allows access to great floral varieties year-round.

What is your favorite flower?

There are many flowers that I love to work with, but as far as a personal favorite, mine is gardenia. The delicate nature of the flower and the aroma are to die for.

Which other flower blogs are you reading regularly?

With three children plus a dog, a DIY-focused blog, and a business, I don’t have a lot of time to read other blogs. When I do have a spare moment, my reading is usually not flower-related.

 

(c) All photography by N. Underwood

Sweet peas for my sweet readers

Hello everyone, Today I just wanted to send some little sweet peas to you dear readers, for all the lovely comments and encouragements. You make my blog a much nicer place! So - just a little thank you bouquet for you! I really love how their leaves twine around.

Speak to you soon, xxx

Elodie

LOVEly flower blogs #2 - Love'n Fresh Flowers

Hello everyone, After presenting you the wonderful French flower blog Floresie at the beginning of July, I would like to introduce you today to the American blog Love'n Fresh Flowers, run by the very talented florist Jennie Love. Jennie and I share more than our family names, we also share our love for dahlias and  ranunculus! I really like her fresh and natural flower style and her seasonal bouquet project.

Here are a couple of pictures along with a little interview with Jennie.

Who are you and what are you talking about in your blog?

Jennie Love, owner of Love 'n Fresh Flowers, a petite, sustainably-managed flower farm and full-service floral design studio in Philadelphia, USA. The Love 'n Fresh Flowers blog focuses on topics about growing and designing with highly-unique, seasonal flowers.   Posts are categorized into farming or designing and there are often pictures from my flower farm and from weddings I've been working on.  The Seasonal Bouquet Project is another blog I collaborate on with Erin at Floret Flower Farm.  It is a simple weekly blog where we each post beautiful photos of one floral arrangement we made that week with materials harvested from our farms and/or foraged very nearby so readers can really get a sense of what is in season each and every week.  We get many people telling us we use materials they've never even seen or heard of before.  Readers can contribute links to photos of their own seasonal, locally-sourced bouquets too.  It's such a fun and inspirational project.

Where does your passion for flowers come from?

Like many florists, I grew up with a grandmother and mother who loved to garden and helped me appreciate nature's beauty.  I also took lots of long walks as a kid on my family farm to gather wildflowers for our dinner table.  That habit seems to have stuck. 

What inspires you?

 The buckets of flowers that I harvest from my fields inspire me every day.  Nature creates such breath-taking color combinations without any fuss, and I'm constantly blown away by how spectacular they are.  I sometimes find myself stopped still in the middle of the field, staring at one singularly beautiful bloom, dreaming about how to place it perfectly in a bouquet.  I'm a lucky florist.  Taking a walk around the field always gives me all the inspiration I need.

 What is your favorite flower?

I grow so many and each new crop is my favorite in the moment, but the two that make me cry when they are gone for the season each year are dahlias and ranunculus.

Which other flower blogs are you reading regularly?

Floret Flower Farm The Seasonal Bouquet Project (I'm biased) Botanical Brouhaha

Thank you so much Mrs. Love for answering all my questions and being my second guest. You can find Jennie's blog here. I really like the section about her design philosophy. It is very inspiring. You might also want to follow Love n'fresh flowers on Facebook to get the latest updates.

I wish you all a brilliant week. Talk to you soon xxx

Elodie

© Photos Love'n fresh flowers