Florabundance Inspirational Design Days 2014

In January, 58 floral designers from around the world descended upon the quaint seaside town of Santa Barbara, California. The floral designers gathered for 3 flower filled and information packed days at Florabundance Inspirational Design Days 2014
 {An Official Chapel Designer Event}. We gathered to learn more about building and operating our floral businesses and to push our creative talents with a plethora of flowers at our fingertips.

This year Florabundance combined efforts with The Chapel Designers to pull off a lovely affair!
Holly Chapple, Owner of Holly Heider Chapple Flowers and Founder of The Chapel Designers, gathered together an impressive list of presenters to teach alongside her – the UK’s hottest young designer, Joseph Massie; the Queen of Woodlands design, Francoise Weeks; San Francisco’s much sought after designer and lover of all things beautiful, Nancy Liu Chin; and the four of them lead 2 days of splendid hands-on floral design workshops. On the business discussion day I led a discussion on Online Presences (including websites, blogs & social media) and Courtenay Lambert led a fantastic discussion about the ordering & pricing of wedding flowers.

The event took place at Sunstone Vineyards and Winery in Santa Ynez Valley, with lovely views of the valley – the perfect location to get our creative juices flowing! Holly instructed the participants on how to design a loosely styled hand-tied bridal bouquet. Francoise taught how to create awe-inspiring head pieces. Nancy designed four tablescapes to share a variety of styles with the designers, and then got everyone involved in designing with her. Joe designed an art installation with the purpose of building and emphasizing the unity between all the designers that participated in the conference.

Of course, Joost and his team at Florabundance provided us with the most gorgeous flowers. We had the pleasure of designing with gorgeous Poppies, Anemones, Lisianthus and the prettiest Garden Roses! Plus, textures galore – Pieris Japonica, Chocolate Lace, and Privet Berries to name a few. Thank you to Joost and all the staff at Florabundance for your hard work and beautiful flowers!

Enjoy the photos!
xo, Alicia

Thank You to all of the California Cut Flower Growers who participated in making product available at special pricing and donations for the this event.
Thank You to Holex for donations of specialty Dutch flowers.
Thank You to Alexandra Farms for donating many of the Garden roses we used for designs.
Thank You to Oregon Roses, Fedex, Fitz design, Design Master and Westerlay Orchids
Thank You Smithers Oasis for the great products.

Guest Post Written by Alicia Schwede of Flirty Fleurs Floral Blog