The Living Fresh Flower School is holding it’s first flower class of 2012 this Sunday, Tropical Paradise. The studio is packed full of gorgeous tropical flowers for the students to play with. Stay tuned Monday for a recap of the class and lots of pictures!

Yesterday we announced a fresh flower bouquet giveaway for Living Fresh’s two year blogging anniversary and I want to thank everyone who participated! It was fun to hear about your favourite flowers, you all have great taste in flowers! With that being said we have a winner…

AND the winner of the fresh flower bouquet is…

• Breanne Cram of Bre Creative, who’s favourite flower is Hydrangea.

Happy Friday and enjoy your weekend!

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To celebrate we are giving away a fresh cut hand-tied flower bouquet valued at $100!

The bouquet will be made fresh for the winner on Friday, February 3rd 2012 and delivered to a local Kitchener-Waterloo address. (Sorry but this giveaway is for local readers only.) Winners must be available for Friday delivery or pick up.

Giveaway information:

• Prize: One fresh cut hand-tied flower bouquet.
• How to Enter: 1. Leave a comment below in this blog post telling us what your favourite flower is why you would love to receive this hand-tied flower bouquet, along with your name and email address.  2. Go to our Facebook page and like us!
• Bonus Entry: Tweet on twitter the following:  Hand-tied flower bouquet giveaway: Enter to win a beautiful $100 bouquet by @living_fresh  http://livingfresh.ca/blog/?p=2575 For KW only.
• Entry Deadline: Friday, February 3rd till 2pm EST

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One stem can have up to 5 blooms, so be ready to pay $18 for a stem for some of the more rare varieties. But on average lilies run around $6 to $10 per stem from a flower shop.

I received some lilies today from a supplier to try out so I’m sharing them with you today for Wednesday’s flowers.

For this arrangement I used five stems of pink oriental lilies in a large fluted milk glass vase. To support and position the stems I created a grid with clear tape at the mouth of the vase. Placed the lilies in the arrangement and filled in around the lilies with salal leaves.

When working with any type of lily it is strongly recommended you remove the stamen from the blooms, just pluck them off. As the blooms open and mature the stamen produces pollen and the pollen of lilies is very sticky and it stains. Failing to remove the stamens may lead to you having pollen all over your house, your clothes, your kids and your pets.

Here is what my hands looked like after removing the stamens. Very messy stuff, so be sure to wash up afterwards.

The great thing about Oriental Lilies is they look stunning on their own in a large arrangement that is so easy to create!

So thinking about doing a little splurging this week? Pick up some Oriental Lilies!

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Oh yes, there was not one but two blogger events this past weekend and I made it out to both of them!

Saturday, January 28th was the annual Canadian Design Bloggers meet up at Brassii Restaurant and Lounge in Toronto and it was a blast!

Vie of Verdigris Vie and Daniella of Daniella Marie are the organizers of the event and it was sponsored by:

• Delta Faucet
• House and Home Magazine
• Ikea
• Cottonelle
• CIL
• Gluckstein Home
• Aya Kitchens

The evening started off with wine and lots of mingling with other blogger. It was so great too meet so many bloggers that I know through their blogs and via Twitter! Check out the tweets from the event under the hashtag #CDB2012.

Vie of Verdigris Vie who worked her butt off to put this event together introduced the fabulous line up of speakers!

Cameron McNeil, one of House and Home magazine’s Senior Design Editor, shared with us the upcoming trends in the next colour issue of Canadian House and Home magazine. Look for lots of pattern, rainbows of colour, yellow, and pretty, traditional styling.

Lisa Murphy, House and Home magazine’s Online Director gave us some incites and tips on how to get noticed by House and Home! Here are a few of those tips: good blog design, lots of interior and product posts, a good understanding of the industry: credit and link to others work, good traffic and mentions.

The lovely Cassandra LaValle editor of the style blog Coco + Kelly shared with us her blogging journey and how she turned her blog into a business. She talked about the things she did well, making sure bloggers give themselves a break and a reminder that this is not high school, “We are all in this together.”

There was also a surprise presentation by Brian Gluckstein.  As we all know Brian loves design, and he loves sharing design. Although he still prefers phone conversations to emails he does love blogs, blogs help to feed his huge appetite for design! Did you know Brian blogs?

Len of Otima spent the evening filming the event. Check out his video for a little peek into the meet up and Brian Gluckstein’s presentation:

Check out the amazing swag they sent us home with! Wow!

For more information on the Canadian Design Bloggers visit their blog and follow on Twitter.

I’m already looking forward to the next Canadian Design Bloggers event.

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In the summer of 2010 my spouse and I took a road trip to Manitoulin Island to celebrate our 5th anniversary. On that trip we hiked for hours, attended the Sheguiandah Pow Wow, toured the whole island by car and stayed at the lovely The Queen’s Inn in Gore Bay. Manitoulin Island is home to six Native Indian communities making the island rich in native cultural.

Our little Sumac Owl was the only thing we purchased on the trip. It was hand carved by Ojibwa wood carver, Marshal Nadjiwan from the Cape Croker Reserve in Ontario.

The owl currently resides in our dining room on top of an antique record player and it is a wonderful reminder of our summer of 2010.

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On Friday, January 27, 2012 the first ever BlogPodium conference in Toronto at the IDS12 show and Living Fresh had the pleasure of attending!

BlogPodium was created by bloggers Lindsay from Little House Blog and Jen from Rambling Renovators for bloggers. The purpose of BlogPodium is to bring conversation, collaboration and connection among lifestyle and design bloggers, the media and the design community. The focus of this first conference was blog and the media and we were lucky to have a fabulous panel of media mavens to give us their take on blogging and the relationships that can evolve between bloggers, television, print, and online media.

L to R: Lindsay, Leigh-Ann, Jennifer, Kimberley, Kate & Margot

The fabulous panel of speakers for the event:

• Margot Austin, Senior Style Editor for House & Home Magazine
• Kate Moore – CityLine Producer
• Kimberley Seldon – Editor in Chief for Dabble Magazine & Design Editor for Chatelaine Magazine
• Jennifer Flores – Published Blogger of Rambling Renovators, and Co-Founder of BlogPodium
• Moderator – Leigh-Ann Allaire Perrault, Cityline Expert

Shauna Levy of IDS12 - Event Sponsor

The Media Mavens

A little summary of the great conversation and advice shared at BlogPodium:

• Be personal; show your own work to stand out from the rest.
• Show your love, your passion and your personality.
• Blogging has created a circle of communication between media and readers; it has lead to a dilution of experts. Be part of that circle.
• Have fun, don’t be too earnest.
• Edit your blog, it is key.
• When blogging other peoples work always give credit, credit photographers, designer, stylists etc.
• Print media is looking for a story.
• If pitching to magazines, understand the look and feel of the magazine. Don’t pitch something outside of their aesthetics.

Pretty flower arrangements by We Create Hoopla

Most bloggers tweet so there was a great conversation going on on Twitter under the hashtag #BlogPodium. Here are a few informative tweets from the event:

Tweet by @hwatterworth:
“@KatMooreMedia wants to see personality, passions and photos of the bloggers behind the blog to consider for promo. #blogpodium”

Tweet by @MyDailyRndmness:
“Is blogging everyday important? “Consistency. Blog 3-4 times per week. Do an editorial calendar for the year” @ramblingreno #BlogPodium”

Tweet by @lisa_canning:
“I want to learn something from you, rather than just hear ‘it’s super cute’” @kimberleyseldon#BlogPodium” Sage advice.”

Tweet by @GlamaMama:
“Take time to properly credit the photos you post on your blog…do the research as per @margotaustin at #BlogPodium”

Tweet by @littlehouseblog:
“Editing is the key to success #BlogPodium quote by@kimberleyseldon“

Check out the amazing swag each blogger in attendance went home with thanks to the amazing sponsors of BlogPodium:

• Interior Design Show
• Delta Faucet
• OlioBoard

And we cannot forget the other fabulous businesses that supported the event:

• Jason Hudson Photograpghy
• CB2
• Home Depot
• Chapters Indigo
• Pure Green Magazine
• We Create Hoopla
• Milk and Cookies
• House and Home Magazine
• Benjamin Moore Paints
• The Penny Paper Co.
• Chocolate and Cherries

Thank you to all the great people and businesses who made this event possible, there is nothing better than a great bunch of bloggers getting together to celebrate their craft! We was a treat to be part of the first ever BlogPodium!

For more images of the event, check out the Flickr photostream for BlogPodium.

The next BlogPodium conference is planned for May! See you there!

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Tonight I will be attending the IDS12 opening night party and preview with Deb of Purplefreesia Designs.

This is the biggest design party of the year in Toronto and the kick off to a weekend of everything interior design.

On Friday morning we will be at Blog Podium for a conversation on Blogs + Media, presented by ISD12 and sponsored by Delta and Olioboard.

A big thanks to Lindsay from Little House Blog and Jen from Rambling Renovators for organizing the event and for bring a whole lot of wonderful bloggers together to discuss blogging!

Here is the fabulous panel of speakers for the event:

• Margot Austin, Senior Style Editor for House & Home Magazine
• Kate Moore – CityLine Producer
• Jennifer Flores – Published Blogger of Rambling Renovators, and Co-Founder of BlogPodium
• Moderator – Leigh-Ann Allaire Perrault, Cityline Expert
• Kimberley Seldon – Editor in Chief for Dabble Magazine & Design Editor for Chatelaine Magazine

After Blog Podium we will spend some time at the IDS12 show for Trade Day. Trade Day is only on Friday and is for design professionals only. The show is open to the general public on Saturday and Sunday, so don’t miss out! If you go be prepared to be very design inspired and want to redesign your whole world!

Sounds exciting, no? Well, there is more! One more day of design fun!

Saturday Deb and I are attending the Canadian Design Bloggers Meet Up at Brasaii Restaurant & Lounge in Toronto. This meet up is the result of the hard work of Vie of the blog Verdigris Vie and Daniella of the blog Daniella Marie.

The amazing speakers for this event are:

• Cassandra LaValle of the blog coco+kelley
• Cameron MacNeil, Senior Design Editor for House and Home Magazine
• Lisa Murphy, Online Director for House and Home Magazine

I’m really looking all the events and networking with other bloggers. It is definitely going to be a great long weekend full of exciting talks, new friends and wine!

Stay tuned for updates on all the events starting early next week!

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While shopping for ideas for today’s Wednesday’s Flowers post I came across some lovely 4″ Primula hortensis, also know as Primrose, at the local Sobeys store.  They have locally grown Primula available right now for only $1.99 per pot!

I picked up a bright yellow Primula to bring home to play dress up with. Primulas are available in lots of great colours; red, pink, purple, white and yellow.

Living Fresh’s ingredients for dressing up potted Primulas:

• Potted Primula, 4″ pot
• Decorative container, I used a small 4″ milk glass planter
• Green Reindeer Moss
• Spanish Moss
• Curled branches
• Coloured Sticks
• Potting soil may be required for transplanting

Step 1: Transplant Primula into decorative container.

Step 2: Add moss, tuck into voids and around rim of pot.

Step 3: Add curled branches and coloured sticks

Enjoy!

If you are need of a little bit of Spring, get yourself a pot or two of Primula and dress them up. These little gems can be planted in the garden in late May; they are plants that keep on giving!

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This old antique bottle was found at the bottom of the St. Lawrence River in the Thousand Islands area in Ontario on a scuba diving excursion back in 1998. I discovered it will scrounging the river bed around one of the islands. Way back in the day people who lived and cottaged on the islands use to throw their trash into the river and this is the kind of things waiting to be discovered while scuba diving in the area.

This John Wyeth & Bro. medicine bottle currently resides in our home library on the top of a book shelf. It is a daily reminder for me of my many adventures under water.

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Staalduinen Floral, a flower wholesaler, had a fabulous arrangement in their booth showcasing the black roses. They call the rose Ebony and it really is, it is gorgeous but in order to achieve all the gorgeousness the grower stem dyes red roses with blue dye.

I’m not normally a fan of dyed flowers but I fell for the richness of the Ebony rose. I cannot wait for the chance to use it in a wedding in the near future, it would be stunning in a bridal bouquet! A black and white wedding with black flowers! Ooo.

I attended the business forum with my floral friend Deb of Purplefreesia Designs, and we were both lucky girls as Staalduinen Floral gave each of us two of the Ebony roses take home and try out! A big thanks to them for sharing the black rose love!

I decided it would be fun to mix the black roses with purple flowers and green foliage. So I picked up some purple commercial and button mums, and salal, clipped a few branches off my variegated Ficus benjamina plant, grabbed a few different elements to embellish and went to work on a masterpiece with the black roses.

So what do you think of the Ebony rose? Love it? or not?

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