I’m so happy to share that we just wrapped up another incredible Floralpreneur® Workshop at The Round Barn in Waitsfield, Vermont this April. Students and teachers joined us from Vancouver, San Francisco, Portland (Oregon), Chicago, Texas, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Ontario! We couldn’t have asked for a better group of people or a better time. As always, the food and accommodations at The Round Barn were excellent from start to finish. Even the weather cooperated!
We had the pleasure of celebrating Françoise Weeks’s new book, Wonder of the Woodlands, and we had our own mini book launch with a #WonderoftheWoodlands inspired dinner and signed copies of her book for everyone who attended!
Our photographer, Isora Lithgow, captured these shots on Day 2 and I think you can get a good sense of the energy and creativity of the workshop! Starting with this group shot of our incredible crew including our teachers, Hitomi Gilliam, AIFD, Françoise Weeks, Phebe Higgins and me, Alison Ellis. Our support team included Lori Bley of The Hidden Daisy and Sarah Jo of Creative Muse–we couldn’t have done it without their hard work! And of course our amazing students: Erin, Blair, Courtney, Ann, Amy, Maya, Alissa, Karyssa, Frances, Christy, Lezlee, Samantha, Jessica, and Mandy.
This was a foam free workshop with a focus on sustainable techniques.
Hitomi shared reusable mechanics as part of her “Reuse to Reduce” philosophy and blew our minds with her simple approach to building structures and using the principles and elements of design to maximize the visual impact of your work while using fewer stems of flowers! A truly inspired and innovative way to approach design work.
We had some incredible tulips from VonTrapp Flowers that provided movement and flow in the design work, and flowers from Japan Blooms–including this large, ruffly lisianthus (below)–absolutely wowed us. See how Lezlee of Nature’s Path created this bouquet below with the challenge of choosing only 10 stems of flowers to design with–the results are beautiful.
The bouquet above by Sweet Blossoms really highlights the length of the clematis from Japan Blooms and the jasmine vine is such a fun counterbalance. Below, Maya of Honey Flora shows off her bouquet! Only 10 stems of flowers and they look full and beautiful thanks to Hitomi’s mechanics. We were so impressed with the results of the students!
Amy of Fleurish in the Valley designed the bouquet above and Phebe of Popped with Phebe shows off her bouquet below! They embraced that 10 stem challenge and made beautiful work.
The best part about a small-scale workshop is the ability to talk one-on-one with the teachers and other students.
Phebe and I taught business strategies in the morning sessions each day. I taught Website Tips and Phebe focused on the Power of Social Media to round out our program including some 1:1 time for social media reviews. Françoise taught floral fascinators on Day 2 and you can see some of the beautiful work from Gardenia’s Floral, Fleurish in the Valley and Urban Allure Events below. Including gloriosa lilies, begonias, dried mushrooms, air plants, fritillaria and string of pearl, as well as hyacinths, tulip petals and maidenhair ferns.
On our first day with Françoise the students made framed woodland designs and they made a beautiful display inside the barn. Moss, branches, bark, tamarack, dried ferns, mushrooms, succulents, air plants, honey locust pods, baptisia pods and wild cucumber vine are included in the design work below.
A few more images of the students at work (and play) just for fun! Because we did some awesome work, but the true growth and intention of participating in a workshop is the experimentation and play!
Once again, a big thank you to Lori of The Hidden Daisy for the incredible help and friendship! Especially thanks for the beautiful woodland designs for the wagon to celebrate our Wonder of the Woodlands book launch for our friend, Françoise!!
I cannot say enough about the experience we shared and the many tips we all learned; it was really special. Thanks to everyone who joined us. Thanks to the teachers and staff for making the trip. And thanks for reading this blog post to see what we were up to!
xo. -Alison Ellis