Pumpkin...

Yeah, I guess I'm a little late for this one...

What are these?

I remember these from when I was a kid and expeditions through the forest were a daily thing...

Sexy birthday flowers...

Pretty Sexy Thirty was the theme for my birthday this year... I asked everyone to dress up, so the house had to look amazing also! My old boss gave me a bunch of flowers for the occasion, and I sat at the dining room table mixing them up before the guests arrived... I can't think of anything I'd rather spend my birthday doing. The fuchsia renuncules with the green center were just outrageously perfect. The celosia's colour was so subtle, peachy beige from one angle, then glowing pink from another... Stuff like that makes me believe in some sort of higher power, whatever you want to call it. Also, my DVD box set about insects has that effect...

The crab apple is from a neighbour's tree, before the berries got all mushy, and the cosmos leaves and black eyed susan centers are from an alley nearby... Cabbage leaves from an old dying specimen in our yard, geranium leaves from the living room... Oh, and hiding in there are some beautiful lycopods brought back from our last day trip up north.

Holiday workshops... The fun begins!

Fancy yourself a florist? Or maybe you would just like to impress your guests this holiday season with amazing, made-by-you works of floral art... Come join us for an evening of unbridled creativity and learn how to make it all happen.

In this workshop, you will learn the basics:

Basics of flower arranging

Green floral design

Local gleaning & harvesting

PRICES

Flower diva: 75$

Get a florist’s knife and clippers

as well as 25$ worth of flowers

Lazy enthusiast: 45$

Let us do the picking for you

Includes 25$ worth of flowers

Do-it-yourselfer: 20$

Bring your own favorite flowers

We’ll take care of tips & tools

Everyone must bring their own container:

vase, mason jar, teapot, cup, bowl...

We encourage you to think outside the box!

Evergreens, branches, accessories and basic materials

will be provided for everyone.

RESERVATIONS

Contact Carmel...

ateliercarmel@gmail.com

514.993.0041

Slim pickings...

I pride myself on being inventive and resourceful when it comes to harvesting local greens and branches... But recently, even I can't find a thing. The alleys are a sad sight, my friends. I found these nice crab apple berries about a week ago... When I went to get some more yesterday, they were all brown and mushy. The wood was pink on the inside... I have to find a way to let clients appreciate tiny details like that... Can't wait for January so I can start forcing buds.

Just some little Halloween things...

I know, pumpkins and green apples are not the most original addition to arrangements, especially for Halloween week. Still, every single year I use them. I just like it too much to stop. I tried to redeem myself the following week by placing my flowers around the most intense purple eggplant...

Fuschia is the best place to make arrangements for... No matter what I create, they always look perfectly dainty next to a plate of rosehip jam cookies.

Hosta lace

There is such overlooked beauty in nature. I think this is gonna be one of those hippy-dippy posts, but so what?

Being a florist is rewarding in so many ways, but as in absolutely everything, there is a few frustrations that come along with all the fun (it's just strange how people assume that ours is a magical job with no drawbacks, no?). One of my biggest annoyances is that clients expect flowers and foliage to be impeccable. Like out of a machine, mold, factory impeccable. They want every single centerpiece to be the same, and all the blooms to be at that oh-so-perfect not-too-closed-yet-not-too-opened stage. They come for a demo in January and expect the bouquet they hold at their July wedding to be exactly identical. And it goes on... No matter that this is only possible if you treat the plant with more crap than you can find on Fox News.

So I took these pictures for my ideal client, wherever you may be... You are a client that would appreciate bug-eaten hosta leaves. Because they would remind you that your flowers were shared with innumerable insects and other organisms before they landed on your table, between the olives and the champagne. You are a client that understands that this is the hallmark of leaves that are entirely free of gross chemicals and pesticides, waxes and dyes. You are a client that sees not holes but a finely spun lace. Because that's what I see. And because like me you like to make bugs happy.

There, you can't say I didn't warn you... Hippy-dippy.

3 patches of light green moss...

The only thing more inspiring than lichens? Moss...

I'm usually all for collecting specimens, in fact I can't really help myself, but sometimes they're just so perfect the way they are that I just have to let them be.

One day...

So, to continue in the same vein, here is a book I picked up at the library this summer...

One day I will have a copy of my own!

Until then, I'll continue paying fines for bringing it back late... Yesterday's post would've been even more interesting if it had included scientific names, don't you think?

You can get it for yourself here, or for me, as my birthday is only a few days away...

Lichen, part 1

NORTHERN ONTARIO

Anyone who knows me knows: I love lichens. Unapologetically. I ambush strangers at parties to tell them about it, because my friends and neighbours know better than to stick around when the subject arises... Peoples' eyes gently glaze over as they politely try to pay attention...

Here are a few specimens from Northern Ontario. Some of them grow so slowly it can take decades to form a patch the size of a quarter! Can you imagine, then, how old some of these are...

Yellow, more yellow...

When you grow up in Canada, you start hearing pretty young about how boring the prairies are... Well, I hope this picture will help dispel this myth. As soon as we came out of Ontario into Manitoba, everything turned yellow. I mean, 360 degrees of pure yellow, as far as the eye could see. The environmentalist in me was appalled at this manifestation of monoculture, but the aesthete in me was thinking: canola, more canola! I suppose we were quite lucky to be there while it was flowering... So I can't pronounce myself on how the prairies look during other times of the year. If you have to go there, make sure you plan you trip mid-August... As for where to find the canola, believe me, you'll realize what a dumb question that is when you get there...

Hey Mr. Rock, say hi to your mother for me...

I just love Whiterock... When we go to the West Coast, every night that's not already booked we usually end up there. It's a really cheesy place when you think about it, with touristy shops and overpriced restaurants, but we don't care. Aaron's happy 'cuz he can smell the ocean (I can't), and I'm happy 'cuz we bump into people like this... I mean, this guy was from another planet, surely. Just hangin' out with rocks. And I thought I was the only person who did that! I'm nowhere near as talented with them, this guy looked like he made a living doing this... I would've asked him, but he was in such a trance I didn't want to bother him. Plus, he looked kind of scandinavian, I'm pretty sure he didn't speak english... Now, that's one phrase you never find in foreign language guides: "I really love what you do with rocks".

Jordan + Mikael, summer 2009

PART 2 : TABLES & DECOR

I've mentioned this in a previous post, but this wedding was the most eco-friendly I've done so far... The flowers were 100% local and organic. Some of them I even picked myself, on the side of the road or in the alleys in my neighborhood, including the grapes, the hosta leaves, and the polygonum (the stalks that look a bit like bamboo).

It was a beautiful sunny day, so instead of working in the studio, I took everything outside and worked in the yard. Within minutes, the place was buzzing with bees and other bugs, all enjoying the freshly cut bounty. I thought to myself that if I was a bride, I'd be pretty stoked to know that the flowers we all enjoyed at my reception were also enjoyed by other living creatures, and up until a few hours before the party... No chance of that happening with imports that are so completely saturated with chemicals that no living being would go near it... Except us humans. Makes you wonder...

As well as using responsible products, I didn't use any refrigeration for this wedding. Some flowers I picked up on the morning of the event, and the ones that got delivered a day early were tucked away in my basement for the night. I have to admit I ran downstairs to have a look at them as soon as I woke up! This means all the arrangements, including the bridal bouquet and boutonnières, were made the day of the event. RUN... RUN... RUN... On top of that, all the containers were repurposed by the bride herself from her grandmother's collection.

This was all made possible by the fact that the wedding ceremony was at 6:00 and the reception at 7:30. Man, I just love late weddings... I wish all weddings were scheduled this way. None of that wondering what you're going to do all afternoon (I usually have a nap). And then the party can last all night! How can a bride enjoy her wedding (and wedding night!) if she had to wake up at six in the morning to start getting ready? Well, I suppose not everyone feels the way I do about getting out of bed early...

This wedding was featured in Brooklyn Bride, be sure to check it out (here).

Gleaner's bouquet #2: Northern Ontario

I hadn't made a bouquet that looked like this since, like, grade four... But what else was I going to do while Aaron slept in the car at a tiny road stop in Northern Ontario? He'd been driving 16 hours a day for a few days straight on our way back from Saskatchewan, so he did need a well deserved nap... If just to minimize our chances of ending up in a ditch near Wawa. So my first thought, wherever I am, is to look for flowers, and I had some time to play around... This bouquet just reminds me so much of the ones I used to make for my mom when I was a kid! Even when I was eight, I used to own a Canadian wildflower identification guide (which I still own, one of my most prized possessions) where I would look up my daily finds while eating maple butter straight from the jar with a spoon (I had to hide behind a sofa in my mom's bedroom, because of the sweets)...

Atelier Carmel on Brooklyn Bride!

Jordan, who's wedding I did this summer, pitched her wedding to Brooklyn Bride, one the great wedding blogs out there... I'm sure it took them all of three seconds to accept the story, as everything about this wedding was noteworthy. SO! Go have a look (here), the pictures are fantastic, moody, vibrant and artistic, and convey so well the look and feel of the evening...

And you can get the details from the bride herself, from the food to the attire...

My meager harvest...

Between a rainy summer, squirrels and inadequate care on my part, the tomato plant really didn't stand a chance this year... Still, the fruits it did produce were just so perfect and dainty... I had to take a picture. Is that the blog syndrome, where you start taking pictures of anything and everything? Well, in a way I've started paying even more attention than before at the small everyday things that make me (I don't want to say smile, so substitute any verb you find appropriate). That can only be a good thing, no?

Green vintage feathers...

There just aren't that many places in Montreal to shop for vintage, girly, crafty things... So good finds can be far and few between. These are some incredible feathers, probably from the forties, that I found in a tiny shop on the Plateau. They're meant to be used as is, all glued together, as a hat ornament, but I slowly pull them apart and use them individually. You can see the little curls on both sides of each feather... I bought a few different colors, but the green ones fit in so beautifully with foliage that they quickly became my favorite... The shade is so natural and organic... Sometimes it feels like a waste to use them because they are so close in color to fresh leaves that they almost get lost in the arrangement. But then, when you discover them, it's such a treat!

The woman who owns the shop told me that she was just tending the store (ribbons & buttons) one day when a guy parked his cube van in front of her store, walked in, and offered to sell her an entire stock of millinery material from the twenties, thirties and forties. That was 20 years ago, and she's still slowly selling the feathers, old silk flowers, pins and ribbons she got that day...

Jordan + Mikael, summer 2009

PART 1 : THE WEDDING PARTY

Still to come (soon!), the reception arrangements...

This wedding was just the most fun I've had in years... The bride and groom were incredibly nice, had a great vision of what they wanted, and pretty much gave me carte blanche. This was the first time that 100% of the flowers I used were local and organic. Yay! Even the containers were repurposed, as Jordan found them all in her grandmother's basement. She also wanted something the bridesmaids would be able to hold on to and wear again, so the corsages and boutonnières were all made from fabric, feathers, buttons and ribbons. They'll look very pretty in these gals' hair or on their hat this fall...

Do I have to mention that the bride looks AMAZING? Jordan, you look amazing.

A few pictures are mine, but the others (the really, really good ones) are from their photographer, Irene Suchocki... Click here for her website and her blog...

There was a wide variety of flowers, but I predominantly used dahlias, bachelor buttons, ammi majus, zinnias, scabiosa and celosia...

Toxic beauties... It's not squash.

POISONOUS BRUGMANSIA + CURIOUS DOGS = GEORGIA O'KEEFE

When my neighbor Maurice gave me this plant 3 weeks, ago, there was nothing but leaves on it... It had flowered for him all summer, but he didn't feel like over-wintering it, so home it came with me. When we came back from the West Coast a few days ago, this amazing spectacle was waiting for me... I guess it had one last go at it before packing it in! Unfortunately, this all happened after we decided to get rid of the poor thing, because its very existence was threatening the health of more important creatures, our animals. I thought I could pull it off, making sure the dogs and cats didn't get too close, but I found a couple of chewed up leaves this morning in the living room. Then Tim's stomach started to make surreal noises... Brugmansia can cause temporary paralysis, hallucinations, or death if you ingest too much of it (and our dogs ingest anything and everything...). Shamans in Central America call it Jimson Weed, and use it in their rituals... No such fun for our guys.

So there, the toxic beauties were transformed into translucent arrangements that afterwards reminded me of one of my favorite painters, Georgia O'Keefe.