Les Fleurs: April 2016

ariella chezar floral workshop : autumn in the berkshires

View blog post on Les Fleurs website

to say what a treat it was to spend a few days in the berkshires with sandra, our 12 new floral friends, everything the fall in new england has to offer and learning from ariella chezar is a complete understatement. it was life changing... like in the way the expression is meant to be used. it changed our approach to flowers, business model and how we respect and see ourselves as strong, hardworking creatives. we walked away from those cool october days with a new lease on life! and there wasn't anything wrong with our lives to start or the way we approached flowers but there was now a new found love and inspiration behind it all. there was a spring in our step and a flutter to every bloom. we were so lucky to have karen hill with the group for the week to photograph the workshop and all our splendors along the way.

ariella chezar
gedney farm, new marlboro, massachusetts
karen hill photography

we stayed at the inn at gedney farm, designed in the barn and dined for our farewell dinner in the farm's loft. each morning began with amazing group discussions, this was an integral part of this trip. it was such an amazing platform to talk about business, both growth and set-backs, thoughts on where to grow and what to improve... as well as an amazing place to share in one another's successes. this part of the trip was unexpected, it was so organic to talk with other creatives like this, vendor to vendor essentially and we loved every... single... minute of it!

we began each morning sitting together asking questions, sharing resources and learning so much from ariella and the other attendants! this was one of my favorite parts of our time together!! by the end of the week our circle was so tight we were practically sitting on each other's laps!

for our first arrangement we worked in purple and raspberry hues. dahlias and japanese anemone came from ariella's upstate new york flower farm, zonneveld farm. local foliage and berries were in abundance for all our arrangements! i had the chance to head along foraging with ariella... got true insider info on how the master does it :o) colie below is helping to separate blooms into our recipes for our arrangements.

ariella demonstrating her technique and walking us through her design process

ariella is known for her lush garden inspired arrangements. there are many things that goes into that aside from the lush greenery and in-season blooms, also knowing what to pair statement blooms with like the more unassuming petals, mums or carnations for example. so smart... you'll see when we made our bridal bouquets she purchased apricot mum plants that we cut from and they blooms were perfect! her choice of carnation never disappoints!

following our morning arrangements we created large compote arrangements in our favorite line of tuscan pottery, campo de' fiori! for these arrangement we worked in the most magnificent shades of orange and corals. the dahlia's were from zonneveld and out of this world stunning!

next we made whimsical tall arrangements in simple blends of yellow and white. these were a lighter style arrangement but still packed so much punch!

ariella showed us her technique for creating bouquets. it's was new and challenging way for me for sure, i was up for the challenge tho :o) it was a dream to be learning from and creating florals with a designer who's work has meant so much to me in my time flowering... her work has been such an inspiration. if you enjoy flowering and arranging them (even if it's not your career) you should get her latest book, the flower workshop... it's a tool no floral enthusiast should be without.