hello muffins!

I have so many things to tell you about! Where do I begin? OK, let me get my microphone...and let me cue up the music..

First of all, when I return to work on Wednesday it's going to be Wreath Week. Wreath making, wreath selling, wreath photo-shooting, wreath giveaway (Thursday). Still spots left in our wreath-making class Wednesday night at Nikki's studio. Sign up, make 2 beautiful wreaths (one grapevine, one evergreen on a wire frame) and eat Bûche de Noël with us. Say "Wreath Week" 10 times fast. You can't. Next!

Second; Duck liver pate. Can't stop, Won't stop. Duck livers (2) cut up in small pieces - 1 large shallot and one clove of garlic - mince them - melt 3 heaping table spoons of duck fat in a skillet, saute shallot and garlic for 30 seconds. Then add your livers, salt and pepper and cook for around 3-4 minutes till just done in center - cool a few minutes, then process in a food processor with 2 teaspoons of cognac or port if you don't have cognac. Chill for at least an hour, the eat it with good bread and cornichons.

Third; Here is the result of a 2 hour long break from work yesterday when we came home to "grab something quick" (see: eat pie direct from the pan) and ended up becoming entranced by the light in my parlor and my slightly past-prime Thanksgiving arrangement. Of course, you'd never put flowers atop of a radiator! I can because we ain't got no heat at chez saipua. Having just gotten hot water back after a 3-day hiatus I feel very fortunate to not have to boil water on the stove to wash dishes.

thanksgiving at chez saipua

My mother makes the best pies in the world. Other details here.

the kids are alright

Our new soy candles are here, and now have homes in burlap sacks with hand printed tags. (Asheley drew the labels, Casey made the drawings into stamps, and Eric and I experimented with using paint to print them on recycled chipboard tags.)

Took a little time, but I am really loving the simplicity of this package.

- SO, if you're a wholesaler whose been waiting for these, we're shipping them Wednesday.
- If you'd just like to buy one for yourself, they'll be up on the website soon.
- And if you want to see them in person come by the shop this weekend - we'll be open Saturday and Sunday after Thanksgiving (no weddings! thank goodness!)
- Or better still - come to our BAZAAR and see us erect our first ever soy candle PYRAMID!!!

coming up

GLADIOLUS

Previously a bad wrap, relegated - largely in part - to the funerary industry.

In the studio I call them "glads" because it makes me sound official, as if there are shortened abbreviated terms for all sorts of flowers and floral equipment. Terminology.
In my field.
It's been my experience.
It would be lost in translation.
It's up for your interpretation.

GLADS.
Mark my words, they're going to come back.

I have some clients who are doctors and lawyers and brain scientists and brokers, people with big jobs.
I'm in finance.

I think I'd like to be big. I think I'd like a briefcase and a personal assistant to run around after me. "SHE DOESN'T LIKE SUGAR IN HER COFFEE, DAMNIT!!!"
Oh and to ride in helicopters. I'm running 10 minutes behind schedule! meet me at the helipad!
I needed it there yesterday
Cancel my 3pm
Send the driver
Chill some bubs for the champagne rain
Someone loan me a $50,000 diamond necklace for a night
ICE.

update.

It's 8:46 and shit is about to get ill in the studio as we magically make some weddings happen.
Ran into a friend at the flower market this morning and am feeling more jazzed. It's been a ragged-y week full of me floundering on decisions and saying yes to things when I should be saying no. NO NO NO NO
Refreshing, you should try it. NO NO NO NO NO NO NO
NO
NO
NO

NO.

REALIZATION: Saying NO more often doesn't mean that I can't be the new positive person that I have been quietly evolving into over here, mmkay? Eric and I have been really focusing on eliminating all the negativity out of our studio practice because it's pointless and counterproductive. But I'm starting to understand that being kind and positive also allows room for me to say no to people and continue to be tough and smart in my business.

REALIZATION: egg and cheese on a croissant

*Hey look! Lady Elle won the friday flowers, so congratulations to her up in Harlem. Don't forget to top off the water in that arrangement!

Free Flower Friday...

Even though it seems we're never going to get a real frost in the tri-state area I've been cutting all my container gardens back. Last week I brought in cuttings from all my favorite coleus plants. I used some of them in this arrangement (along with a few begonia leaves, salmon ranunculus, red spray roses, eucalyptus pods, and lucedendron pods) some of them I'm rooting in the window to make new plants. I'll start them inside and then put them out again in the spring. I love coleus of all kinds and colors.

And the giveaway! I don't have photos yet, but today we're playing with the most phenomenal ranunculus - pale yellows with purple tips. If you leave a comment, you'll enter to win an arrangement with these beauties delivered to home or work (Manhattan or Brooklyn) tomorrow, Friday the 19th. Good Luck!

Wedding at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden's Palm House

Here's a wedding from the end of October. I promise to get better about sharing more of our wedding work, instead of just pictures of Nea...

Thanksgiving Eve Class...

Someone emailed me about holiday ideas - here's one:

SIGN UP FOR OUR THANKSGIVING EVE CLASS! For Nicolette and I are working on ordering flowers for next week's class - we're meditating on our favorite color pallete with a coral, taupe, merlot, rust and bronze pallette...what we dream about every night basically...and ordering lots of coral charm peonies, wegellia, lucedendron pods, and persimmons.

More info over at the LFS blog here...

Killing it with the baddest, raddest BAZAAR EVER

Sisters! Brothers! Capricorns! Come squash your holiday shopping with us! More deets will be trickling down the line but for now rest assured that the we'll be open, stocked and high on sugar come December 12th. Thanks Asheley for the beautiful illustration - I still hope you make your wreath note cards for the sale...

IT'S AT OUR SHOP/STUDIO = 147 VAN DYKE STREET BROOKLYN NY

haluatteko...?

My favorite recent jewelry acquisition - these Suippo bracelets handmade by Fay Andrada.
Suippo translates roughly to peak or point in Finnish. Fay is half Finn and is always saying things to me in Finnish that I don't understand. I spent half an hour this morning translating all her jewels. I'm not sure what Ulpu means*, but I have and love those too.

So we're talking about great gifts here. And it is that season.
More on that later today...

I tried to tell a story in one of my flower classes last week. I wanted to say how working with flowers has become such a gift in my life. Simple enough, but I don't think I was up to any eloquence that day.

Being alone in the studio, working with flowers is like a drug. A fortuitous talisman for a depressive type like me.

To think that I can share a fraction of that energy with you makes me feel very happy.
__

Above is a preview of that shoot I worked on yesterday.
Congratulations to Whitney for winning today's giveaway. I wish you all could win....(Margaret and her 11 pound baby boy!) please enter again next week.

All yours,
Sarah

It goes like this;

You like getting flowers, I like making them - LETS DO THIS!
__

JUST BECAUSE INITIATIVE Week 3
Leave a comment, enter to win flowers delivered tomorrow anywhere in Manhattan or Brooklyn. See you then...

I've been admiring Honey Locust trees all over the city lately. And by all of the city I mean literally - uptown - downtown - midtown, you name it I've been there. And not on no leisurely stroll down the avenue, sons! Please! I admire my nature through the car window, full speed, lean out the window, snap a quick one. Don't even slow my roll cuz you know I have the camerabag app on my 3G. You honking at me?! YOU HONKING AT ME?!?



You probably pass a honey locust tree every day if you live in NYC. The city plants them because they grow very quickly and are tolerant of tough conditions. They live to be 120 years and have leaves that are the exact same color as a taxi cab.



and now!
OMD ELEC-TRIC-ITY!
I'm experiencing a beauty explosion in the studio right now! I would take a snapshot but I dropped my phone in a vase of water (better than the toilet!) it happened as my mookie was calling and the whole thing was rather slow-mo and strangely romantic in a cinematic sort of way - Eric's picture on the phone - submerge d- suspended amidst the rose stems, quietly still ringing.

Anyway! I have time to make floral studies again, and am enjoying it like a crazy banshee tonight. I have a beautiful bale of golden dogwood foliage some olisou tulips my favorite lately...silver brunia, heuchera leaves, and more. Throwing all that shiz up into an antiqued stone urn! top it off with some tree peonies, bitches!
GOOD NIGHT!

[Tomorrow is the weekly flower giveaway don't forget...]

to-day

surely different than to-morrow
finished reading Brideshead Revisited; they always write today and tomorrow with a hyphen
why?

shamelessly bragging about my new reading habit

getting ready for the scores of deliveries in the next few days - when we became a real floral studio - i do not know. not sure if i like it yet.

here's Nea doing an impression of Jamiroquai today:


all we're really doing is traveling without moving
and also;
AARON WHY ARE YOU IGNORING ME _ DONT MAKE ME LOG ONTO FACEBOOK