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With New Year’s Eve fast approaching, we decided to put together a little tabletop inspiration shoot for those of you planning to celebrate at home this year. I decided on two different looks – the first, a hollywood glam look in gold, black and pink; the second, a more natural look in cork, spruce and silver. My sweet friend Sally of La Happy created  the paper goods and stunning calligraphy and the lovely Kate Price took these images. Check back tomorrow for the natural tabletop look!

Look 1: Hollywood Glam in Magenta, Gold and Black

finch.thistle.pink.gold.glam.holiday.tabletop.wedding chicks design spongefinch.thistle.pink.gold.glam.holiday.tabletop.la happy calligraphy seattlefinch.thistle.pink.gold.glam.holiday.centerpiece.black vase.design spongepomegranate cocktail recipe finch and thistle event designgold calligraphy pink zebra paper gold favorsgold calligraphy wedding escort cards favorsgold and wood escort cards la happy seattle event designerholiday tabletop decor centerpiece gold invitation weddingbest seattle wedding flowers seattle event designseattle best wedding planner and florist finch and thistlepink peony centerpiece gold weddingJust to make sure your party really gets going with a bang, here’s the pomegranate cocktail recipe I used…

pomegranate cocktail recipe new years eve partynew years eve party images

Happy Holidays!

finch.thistle.pink.gold.glam.holiday.tabletop.designsponge{Photography by Kate Price | Calligraphy & Paper Goods by La Happy | Floral and Styling by Finch & Thistle}

P.S. You can see more details from this fun NYE inspiration shoot on The Wedding Chicks blog today!

Welcome Design*Sponge readers! Thanks for stopping by to take in some more details from the engagement shoot that is featured on my favorite design blog today. What a fun shoot! I worked with some of my favorite Seattle wedding pros and even a past client of mine (more on that later)…

gold mason jar bouquet design sponge

It all started (as they often do) with a Pinterest board which you can see here. I picked my favorite colors and my favorite flowers and one of my favorite restaurants and worked from there. I called up my friend Sally who happens to be the creative dynamo behind Seattle based design firm LaHappy and enticed her into designing an invitation suite. She, of course, killed it. I mean, seriously, gold sparkly paper? Beautiful calligraphy in NEON pink? A vintage floral illustration envelope liner. Swoon.

pink, turquoise and gold invitation design spongepink calligraphy invitation design spongepink envelope with gold calligraphy design sponge

Then we needed a photographer and I turned to another lovely friend, Chantal Andrea. Chantal has an incredible eye and her stunning portraits and moody journalistic style was ideal for the bohemian look of the engagement shoot. The team was almost complete. Almost.

seattle engagement styled shoot design sponge chantal andreaseattle engagement shoot design sponge chantal andreaseattle trailer park mall georgetown design sponge chantal andrea I really really really wanted an ombré cake and I knew just the person to ask. One of my brides from last summer is an amazing vegan baker. The dessert table at her wedding was featured on Style Me Pretty and pinned all over the place. Her new company Kerissa Bakes is already making a name for itself and I can personally vouch for the fact that the ombré chocolate cake and the polka dot almond cookies she made for this party were absolutely delicious. There wasn’t a single piece left over at the end of the night. Not a crumb.

ombre coral and turquoise wedding cake design spongecoral and turquoise wedding dessert table design sponge

Then there were the flowers. I’m obsessed with garden roses and jasmine so those were a given. Then I got incredibly lucky and scored some green centered ranunculus at the market. I’d seen them before on the cover of Martha Stewart Weddings but never in person and they were just gorgeous. Beautiful colors and frilly petals and wonderful black centers. Wow. So I spray painted some vintage vases and mason jars gold and got to work.

romantic organic pink and yellow floral arrangement garden roses design spongepink orange and yellow floral centerpiece design sponge polka dot confettigreen ranunculus bouquet centerpiece design spongepink and yellow napkins and small gold centerpieces design sponge

This shoot was filled with DIY projects of which the fabric tassels and the crepe paper chandelier were my favorites. I found the tutorial for the fabric tassels on Pinterest (and my advice is to save yourself hours by buying a rotary cutter for $20) and talked my husband into helping me twist the crepe paper garlands while he watched ESPN one evening. I loved how they looked hanging from the restaurant’s wrought iron chandelier.

fabric tassel garland backdrop design spongetwisted crepe paper garland chandelier design spongebrass and gold tabletop decor design spongegold and turquoise jam mason jar design spongestyled engagement shoot seattle design sponge chantal andreaAnd then there was a party…

seattle engagement party design sponge Seattle Vendor Credits –
Photography: Chantal Andrea Photography
Floral, Prop Styling and Event Design: Finch & Thistle Event Design
Stationery: LaHappy
Desserts: Kerissa Bakes
Venue: Via Tribunali Georgetown

Mother’s Day weekend is always madness for any florist, but we had two large events as well so I’m sure you can imagine what it was like around here! I’m still waiting to see Angela and Evan‘s pictures from the wedding, but yesterday Michael Rowley sent me some images of the MS Dinner of Champions Gala. I always love to see the professional shots and Michael’s are particularly gorgeous.

Pink-lilac-gold-gala-MS-dinner-of-champions

This year’s honoree owns a couture vintage clothing store so Allison (the NW MS Society’s fabulous event coordinator) and I wanted the event to have a very feminine, glamorous look with satin linens in gold, pink and taupe, gold chiviari chairs and urns of pink, lilac and grey flowers. Noting the Enlighten theme to this year’s event, Glassybaby donated blue glassybabies for all the tables and entertainment included a fashion show. I love how it turned out!

gold-lilac-pink-ms-dinner-of-champions-2011Gold, pink and lilac MS Gala tablesgold-lilac-pink-ms-dinner-of-champions-2011gold-lilac-pink-favors-ms-dinner-of-champions-2011gold-lilac-pink-favors-ms-dinner-of-champions-2011gold-lilac-pink-napkins-ms-dinner-of-champions-2011And a few more details that I shot before we left to set up for the wedding…

Flowers for the bars and registration tables were designed on white candlestick bases and had a loose, playful feel. We used garden roses, hydrangea, ranunculus, dusty miller, leucandendron and wild pink honeysuckle in the arrangements.

gold-lilac-pink-registration table-ms-dinner-of-champions-2011gold-lilac-pink-centerpiece-ms-dinner-of-champions-2011gold-lilac-pink-centerpiece-ms-dinner-of-champions-2011I’ll post some behind-the-scenes shots of the studio from Mother’s Day week later on…

 

 

painting with watercolors

ranunculus and amnesia roses in blue ball jarpastel ranunculus, anenomes and amnesia roses

I’ll let you in on a secret. My client desperately wanted pink and green parrot tulips but there weren’t any to be had. These white and green ones were too lovely for words but they just wouldn’t do. So I dyed them. Yep. Spray painted just the white tips with the palest pale pink floral dye. My fingers too…watercolor painting indeed.

they’d look something like this…

Flowers for Royal Wedding

Sneak Peek

Our first week back from Panama was a whirlwind of activity centered around two different photoshoots with two very different themes. While I can’t reveal too much now, in honor of this gorgeous Spring day, here’s a sneak peek from the second one…

pastel flowers boho chic weddingStay tuned for more in a few weeks!

Coming soon…

to a newsstand near you…

anemone and ranunculus bouquet

pink on black

When my new black amethyst glass vases arrived in the mail this week I could hardly wait to put them to work displaying the new lovelies blooming in my garden. But wait I did. What a crazy week! Appointment after appointment, email after email, open houses, meetings…phew. Add on house guests descending en masse and five dogs taking over every inch of the house and come Friday morning I hightailed it to the flower markets, dying to get out of the madness!

I was looking for peonies but it’s been a long, cold winter in the Northwest, so while there were a few hot pink ones to be had, they were a bit sad looking for $5 a stem (yes, wholesale!) I settled for ranunculus instead because, really, they do look like baby peonies and then I came home and raided my garden for hellebore and cherry blossom. I love the contrast of the blush and hot pink against the black vases and how they are currently hard at work brightening up my living room, stealing the spotlight from five terriers and their never-ending dog hair…

figs, plums and honeysuckle

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