It's the taking part that counts...

Well, what can I say! I thought, I created and I came in the top five!! I entered the BFA Bristol heat for RHS Chelsea Florist of the year I entered ages ago and then completely forgot about it, then the weekend before realised that I had 4 days to prepare!!!

Are you someone who works well under pressure, do you plan things at the last minute? I realise more and more that I love thinking about ideas much more than actually doing them sometimes.

The brief for this competition was the following:

   Design and construct an arrangement for the centre of a table

at a formal dinner for UK competitors at the Olympic Games.

Well the day itself dawned, I had done a vague trial run the day before but didn't quite know what the finished product was going to look like. So I trotted off to the wholesaler and bought too much of what I needed (you can never be too prepared?)

Arrived home, cleared the cat and Husband out of the house and got to work. I finally decided to go with the Olympic rings as my starting point, I also wanted to include some sort of national flower from each part of the UK.

The focal point of the piece was the 'glamelia' that I made!! I LOVE these, they are what I call a deconstructed rose and are a doddle to make!! Now as an aside, if your getting married soon these work fabulously as a bridal bouquet!!

My other materials were

1. Roses - England
2. Thistles - Scotland
3. Daffodils - Wales
4. Moluccella (Bell of Ireland) - Ireland

I tried to deconstruct all the materials as much as possible and the piece kind of grew from there. I loved the thistle tops surrounded by the rose petals and would love to create a table centre with this idea, feels and looks very luxurious!

My closing thoughts would be the slate slabs that I used to base the piece on, if your looking for something very earthy and rustic to put a table-centre on then look no further. They work a treat and look very expensively lovely.

The final piece is below, I will one day conquer this competition and compete at Chelsea, it was my goal to get there before I was 30 but ho hum........

Much love to you all.....


Am looking forward already to the next blog as we are at the Assembly rooms, Bath for a fabulous wedding fair. Starts at 11am so if your around do come and say hello!!