Cans and Potential: Waiting For Blooms

I intended to buy new roses in 2020...and then the lockdown kept us all at home so I tended the roses in my front yard and made bouquets with the beauties that I had.  

But I can say with certainty that the restriction caused pent up demand in my head and I went a little overboard at the nurseries this year. I bought 7 new roses.

State of Grace, All Dressed Up, Celestial Night, Hot Cocoa, Marc Chagall, Oh Happy Day and Princess Alexandra of Kent. Ahem. I already had 10 that were thriving, so lot of blooms are on the horizon. I call it potential. My garden has potential. 

All of the roses are budding like crazy, we've had a week of sun in Seattle and I can't wait to make and give small bouquets away in my favorite gifting vessel: Vibrant juice cans. 

Potential: We all have potential.  

Juice Can Bouquet: Sunny Side Up

I love everything about this picture! 

#1 I am known for my juice can bouquets and I can finally make some because I am back in Seattle and my nasturtiums are in full bloom!

#2 The blue sky! The smoke from the fires in Canada has dissipated and we are having beautiful summer days.

#3 Orange! I have been saving this papaya juice can that I bought at Uwajimaya last year in the hopes of making vibrant bouquets. As I say, this was all part of the Master Plan. This master plan just took a little longer to execute.

I hope that you are having a beautiful summer too!

#orangeisthenewhappy #nasturtium #smallbouquets #finddelight

Juice Can Bouquets: Upcycling is Beautiful

I love this bouquet every time I walk through the family room.  My master plan is all coming together in the form of beautiful flower arrangements.

Remember when I visited Uwajimaya in Seattle and shopped for interesting Japanese juice cans? This can is a yellow and purple Sugar Cane drink marked Puli Specialty product of Taiwan. I absolutely love it and the flowers I found in bloom were just what I had in mind for it. Success!

Instead of a traditional glass vase, I love having texture, pattern and color as the foundation for my small flower arrangements.  If I had my own flower shop, I know that these would fly off the shelves.

I am home and able to pull from my own garden to make juice can bouquets. This arrangement has Honey Dijon roses, purple verbena and a sprig of mint.

If I do one thing this summer, it should be to convince you to put flowers in soda or juice cans.  Will you?

Seattle: Uwajimaya: Japanese Store, Food Emporium, Inspiration Mecca

If you're a regular reader, you know that I love Japanese design and packaging.  Remember my sushi soap vignette? And how I enhanced all of those beautiful juice cans?  

When I heard that there was an enormous Asian grocery store called Uwajimaya, I couldn't wait to look at their selection of cans that I could use as floral vases.  I know, that's how my brain works.

So...I found 2 aisles that were perfect.  I settled on 5 different cans (2 whole fruit, 3 fruit beverage) and I will show them to you once I have enhanced them a touch and they are ready to be vases. And yes, I emptied the cans before I traveled with them to keep my suitcase under 45 pounds.

I loved taking my time and pouring over every last item in the kitchen section. Tea strainers, rice servers, herb choppers, ginger graters.  What a selection.

There is a really neat trend in lunch box food prep that I have always thought was very interesting - bento box lunches for kids.  (You may want to see some examples at the Just Bento blog).The tools shown above help home cooks cut and mold food into neat shapes.  Apple slices can be "cut out" with a cookie cutter-like instrument, so that the fruit slice is shaped like a cat with ears. Sushi rice can be molded into shapes, perhaps a teddy bear head or sheep.  It is a labor-intensive lunch, for sure but I can imagine that if it seems like fun to you (and your children) it would be a fun way to involve them in lunch prep and it would encourage them to eat their lunch.  I had never seen the tools in person and I was happy that I could take a photo to show you.

I also noticed this kit that helps you make a sushi cake! It is to look sweet, but it actually has savory, main dish-like items on it.  I find this entire concept beautiful and interesting.

Uwajimaya has a beautiful selection of foods in a very casual food court.  It was only 10 am or I assure you I would have eaten some of those tempura shrimp!

The grocery section had a variety of fresh fish, and by fresh I mean, still swimming in a tank! I have seen lobster sold this way, but never tilapia.  It was eye-opening.

Stay tuned for the beautiful can vases!

Unusual Vases, Sequined Hawaiian Juice Cans

Sparkling juice can vases.  A perfectly normal thing to add to my Etsy store, right?  I absolutely love them and it is time that I shared.

Lately my art has been exploring the intersection in life where flowers, packaging and color meet. I have been giving friends and colleagues pop cans full of flowers for years. 

When I lived in Hawaii for a month, I was thrilled to find specialty juice cans more beautiful than any I had seen on the mainland. I mailed a huge box of empty cans back to Michigan (I know, try explaining that to my husband) and have enhanced them with unusual colors of sequins. 

You can see them all at  my Etsy (online marketplace for artists) store here. I know that they are a little crazy...but crazy beautiful, right?

 

 

 

 

Casual Flower Arrangements: Roses and Snapdragons in Juice Can Bouquet

It has been a challenge this summer; I have been out of town so much that I've hardly given my rose garden the attention that it deserves.  I have nineteen roses planted in a bed around my patio and while I tend them daily in March/April/May, it feels like they hardly see me June/July/August.  I pop home, for a week at a time, but it isn't nearly enough.

On the flip side, I've become an even better at traveling with flowers!  This particular bouquet of roses and snapdragons in an ALOHA juice can made it through the 5 hour car ride like it was nothing at all.  I slip a sandwich baggie over the top of the bouquet to keep it safe (and to limit the allergen exposure for my husband).

Do you love the vase?  I will be selling bejeweled versions in my Etsy store next week. Stay tuned!