If this morning’s summer colors seem a little far away in terms of seasonality, maybe this beautiful autumn birthday from Loretta Flower will be more fitting. Loretta Flower is the Austin-based floral studio of Mary Kathryn Paynter, who creates stunning floral designs that embody the sort of loose, organic feel that so many of us…
This has been a week full of moments that I won’t forget for a long time: the excitement of launching a year-long redesign; the patience-building of absorbing the criticism that comes with a big change; welcoming new members to our team; embarking on an exciting special-edition summer project; and being part of an important conversation…
The past few weeks have been a bit of a blur. Wedding season has started with a bang, and we’ve been occupied with all sorts of fun photo shoots, field trips and shop plans (some changes coming soon at Prairie Collective!). We spend most of our days go, go, going; running a flower business is…
We’ve made quite a few bouquets in our day. Along the way, we noticed a pattern had developed in all the bouquets that became our favorites. This week, we thought we’d share a little recipe that yields great results for a natural, garden-style bouquet made in hand. The ingredients can vary according to what flowers…
We have always been a tad obsessed with the tiny worlds inside beautifully frosted sugar eggs. When Jill was a little girl, she got one every Easter and set it on her nightstand to peer into long after the holiday was over (much too long — once it even attracted some new inhabitants . ….
While browsing the aisles at our local salvage yard, we wandered into the lighting section and happened upon a huge selection of inexpensive paned glass ceiling fixtures ($2-10$). We had just seen this great tutorial and a bulb went off (he he) to use these abandoned lights to make greenhouse style planter boxes. You could…
We were so very excited when the ladies from Star Apple Edible Gardens invited us to participate in their Modern Homestead display this week at the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show. This exhibit is a great example of how you can incorporate edibles and homesteading gear seamlessly into your landscape without sacrificing looks. Stefani…
Spring is just on the horizon, but before winter winds down, we want to give a shout out to those cold-weather bloomers that keep us going: hellebores. Just because they’re tough, doesn’t mean they’ve compromised on looks. In addition to their amazing hardiness as plants (many are frost resistant), hellebores have an impressive and unusual…
This week’s color and texture palette was inspired by a photo-walk around our neighborhood. We strolled around noticing crinkled leaf buds, new flowers popping out and the remnants of winter (bare sticks and nests of briars) before they are covered with new growth. We took lots of images without having any particular theme in mind…
The weather around here has been a bit dry, and we’re not bragging . . . but also nice and warm. (We had temps in the sunny 70s last week!) Beautiful for us, but not the greatest mushroom weather. We went on a “Mushroom Madness” hunt last month when the weather was wetter and have…
We braved a cold, damp Saturday morning (well, the 40s is cold for us here in San Francisco . . . we also wanted to test out our new parkas for our trip to Brooklyn and New England next week!) to meet at the Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market. There is always a great selection of…
When we were brainstorming for holiday post ideas last month, the first name that came up on our list was Jenny from This Humble Abode. Jenny is totally awesome. She is the homemaker we want to be- she is always canning and cooking all sorts of amazing things, has the cutest apartment, runs her own…
This must be the season of change because we have been getting a lot of inquiries lately for advice on starting a flower business. We love that people look to us for inspiration and as we thought about suggestions to offer, we realized most of our daily goings-on had nothing to do with arranging pretty…
As far as holidays go, Thanksgiving is pretty high on our list. With the day fast approaching, we jumped at the opportunity to plan decorations for a cabin party. What do you really need besides some family and friends gathered gratefully around a homemade meal? Some simple and affordable decorations make the scene all the…
Dahlia season is drawing to a close (tear), so we thought we’d reminisce this week with some of our favorites from the summer. There are still a few beautiful bunches around the market, but the change in bloom quality is quite noticeable as the weather gets cold, wet and windy. We also had the amazing…
After a few weeks of unusually high temperatures for this month, we are finally feeling autumn in northern California. Always inspired by the wild plants that cover the roadside and hills, we thought we’d bring some fall inside by making a collection board. We took the dogs and collected bits of weeds from our overgrown…
As much as we love flowers (and you know how much we love flowers), we have a feeling that the purely decorative garden’s days may be numbered. This bold statement is a result of meeting Leslie Bennett and Stefani Bittner of Star Apple Edible Gardens, an Oakland-based landscaping company determined to bring sustainable, edible gardens…
When we visited the market last week we were hoping to find the ingredients to show you how to put together a late summer floral arrangement. As we walked around for our first look at what seasonal goodies were available, we noticed that actual flowers were in short supply. We weren’t in the mood for…
Since so many of our posts here on design*sponge share with you the everyday-ness of our flower business lives, we thought it only fair to finally share with all of our readers a new big part of our lives in the past few months. You may have noticed a few months ago we started talking…
As Bay Area readers already know, San Francisco is in the middle of a serious crisis: it seems we haven’t seen the sun in months. Or at least that’s what it feels like. We’ve been drowning in fog all summer, completely socked in. By last Sunday the pressure had finally got to us, and after…
