Sassy Diva Designs and Events: dendrobium orchids

Tuesday

A fond farewell to CSM horticulture program

On May 19th, the floral classes at CSM put on a breathtaking farewell party for CSMs horticulture department. Past and present students as well as several instructors and designers in the area came to gather to "walk down memory lane" and say goodbye to the program that changed many lives.

The students, as their final project for class, had to design table top arrangements, buffet arrangements and decorative pieces to liven up the party. A documentary was shown in the planetarium and given to the archives of the college, slideshows were entertaining guests with the many memories they held and photos of designs and all the instructors for the program were scattered throughout the event.

Here are just a few pictures of the party and the designs featured:

Design by former student Diane Sinawi

Design by instructor Lin Bowie

Design by instructor Dianna Vigil

Designers for this piece included Kim and Annette Wodarczyk, Jen Hull and Vicki Wilson. Sorry if I forgot to mention anyone!

Design by Liane Benedict

Top of Liane's design

Bottom of Liane's design

Design by Joyce Bartell

Design by Angela Kasidiaris

The next series of designs were created by Emma Soloveychik, Brenda Bennett, and Angela Kasidiaris

Design by Kim Moore

Design by Kim Wodarczyk

Design by Annette Wodarczyk

With so many designs and student designers, I could only remember a few designs and which designer created the piece. So sorry to any of my talented, amazing classmates I forgot!

Friday

Post Valentines Day Reflections

Well, I made it through my first Valentines Day as a designer. It was pretty intense. 17 hours of work and at least 50 arrangements created.

The one thing that really stood out to me during the whole process was the lack of creativity in designs for this holiday. I put together a lot of pink or red carnations and pink or red roses, the smallest of which cost $45. There was only one design that was fun and creative to make:

I created two of this particular design and had a lot of fun. Otherwise, I did a lot of these and a lot of these. Boring!

Here's a little secret for all you consumers out there: when you see the pictures on these floral sites, you are only seeing a one sided image. There are no flowers on the back side of those designs. The challenge for designers like me, is making the designs look like that, but only using the amount of flowers required for the "recipe". The only way to get it to look like the picture is to add flowers and eat the cost.

So next year when you are ordering flowers for your Valentine, call the shop itself instead of using Teleflora or 1-800 flowers, and order "designers choice" you'll get a lot more bang for your buck and be supporting the shop more.