Sunny Flowers

Sunflowers scream summer to me, their big golden faces following the sun like night follows day. Along with Gerbera, and maybe daffodils they have got to be one of the most cheerful flowers around. They remind me of summer holidays as a child, when my folks still braved the long drive down to the South of France.

Summer's over, and Autumn's well and truly here and yet we still have these big beauties in the shop. All around me are people hurtling towards Christmas - shopping, baking, planning, crafting - and I'm still holding on to the last days of Summer.

Its been amazingly mild over here. Mid November and today was officially a no coat day - yay! I have to admit I'm dreading donning the usual trillion layers to stay warm in the shop. But such is life, time doesn't stand still, and neither should it. I remind myself that winter is only spring resting.

Bridal bouquets

I hate to waste blooms and had a few spares left over from this weekend's wedding, so I put together a couple of bouquets. The roses were quite blown but its a shame not to do something with them.  As I've said before I love a bit of rustic and have been keen to use berries in bouquets for a while so thought I would experiment by combining them with Avalanche, and ivory spray roses. I also used a few Ornithogalum which I love for their tiny little black centred blooms. With whites and creams its a classic combination with a country feel.  A collar of ivy would look lovely too.

Then I remembered I had a vase of Craspedia, that have been cheering up my kitchen window sill for the last month (the colour and shape hold for for ages, even if the stems go a bit manky!) Their sunny yellow  hues added a fresh zestyness to the bouquet and brought out the cream in the Roses.  They'd work really well with the yellow and grey colour themes seen all over the net lately.

Which do you prefer?